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Posted January 16, 2014 8:56pm by

My Portfolio progress...

Hi all,

Ive been putting together a portfolio page for myself over the last month and launched it last week.

Although the blog is not linked and with it being a parallax site it doesn't work on mobile, i'm pretty happy with the result and will continue to tweak it.

Let me know if you have any comments what so ever and ill be happy to provide feedback likewise..

www.shjohnson.co.uk

Thanks!

January 17, 2014 4:55am

Why Can't I see your work? Your projects aren't linked?

January 17, 2014 10:32am

Thats something i still need to work on, im unsure how to link them effectively, ie. will it be a straight link to the page where the site is or a separate page explaining more about the project.

January 17, 2014 2:35pm

Looks good. Something to think about though.... sometimes people treat is as a case study and write the ups and downs of the project then show some aspects of it then link to it

January 17, 2014 3:08pm

Thanks Hayden,

Thats exactly the sort of thing I would like to do to the project. Just will take a bit more time and juggling between working and improving my portfolio site!

January 17, 2014 7:47pm

A pop out lightbox might look nice for that purpose unless you are concerned about analytics at which point separate pages might be better.

January 17, 2014 8:20pm

If you are using different files for the larger image in the light box you should still track the number of times the larger image has been downloaded with analytics as the requests for that larger images will show up in the logs.

January 17, 2014 8:22pm

I never thought of that! Thanks!

July 4, 2014 1:44pm

Loving the brand, hopefully I'll manage to come up with something using my own initials. It might be worth rechecking some of the grammar on the page (eg projects section - 'start-up my involvement...') looking good otherwise :)

July 8, 2014 9:02pm

Thanks Rob, I actually launched this site quite a few months ago as you can see and actually managed to secure a position as a full stack developer at a London start-up! Have not had the time to re-launch this site and cant believe its been up that long with those errors!

Thanks for pointing it out and if you want any tips or advice id be more than happy to give some :)

July 9, 2014 9:57am

That's awesome :) I'll be leaving London and moving to Canada next month, but any tips on how you secured a job with a start-up are welcome.

6 Answers

January 16, 2014 9:30pm

That's one fine-looking portfolio. Be proud! I think it's good that you're focusing on the learning aspect - that you always want to educate yourself in your field of work. And what a great logo you've got!

January 16, 2014 9:34pm

Thanks Eirik, your feedback means alot!

I love to learn but it can be a struggle to motivate yourself sometimes as im sure you have come across and even harder to maintain the knowledge once you've learnt it! Love to practice things though on a daily basis :)

January 16, 2014 9:39pm

I know exactly what you mean. I have a great interest in both web development/web design and iOS programming. Right now I'm developing an app (and loving it), but at the same time I want to learn or create something new for the web. Fortunately I can combine these two: develop app and website for app. But it's hard to balance sometimes.

January 16, 2014 9:48pm

Excellent work, I love it too and wish I wish I could know more! Ive just started to work a little as a freelancer and with another agency which should increase my knowledge endlessly but my main aim is to go back to apps for a few ideas i have.

I worked in another start-up where we released an app but unable to raise enough investment but the learning process was amazing! Got to love a bit of app development! :)

January 16, 2014 9:52pm

Very cool, good luck to you! :)

January 16, 2014 10:03pm

And you too! when ready to release then please share! :)

January 16, 2014 10:08pm

Sure, the same to you!

January 16, 2014 9:34pm

It's beautiful :)

Have you thought about adding a jquery slide instead of a jump for the different sections?

January 16, 2014 9:45pm

Thanks Britni,

Thats exactly what i want to do but in another post i put a little earlier about adding jQuery or Javascript i seem to making some fundamental error.. i never get the script to load right!

It very annoying because i could create far more interesting sites if i was able to fully utilise other libraries, im guessing its something to do when i link the files? I will keep trying though!

January 16, 2014 9:49pm

I did a similar thing recently. My code for what I did is at http://britnialexander.com/development/bazefiber/

The JS is here: http://britnialexander.com/development/bazefiber/js/fun.js

January 16, 2014 9:46pm

Hi Samuel Johnson I made a screencast with my thoughts.

It's a very "current" design. My main concerns are with some of the spacing, line height, and how the fonts render on Chrome for Windows.

Were you planning to have a fixed navigation? I didn't mention it in the screencast but it struck me as strange that "home" was in a different colour and underlined when you can't see the other links change if you click on them as the navigation disappears away up the page.

I'd agree with Britni about the smooth scrolling to help the user understand they are lower down the same page after they click one of the links.

January 16, 2014 10:03pm

Thank you very much for this! Actually havent come across screencast so was a good introduction to it! (Well to be honest i think i recognise the name but never realised the full benefit!) Will be so useful when using with clients or sharing between team members on projects.

Compatibility is something is was worried about, i used the font 'Lato' as its free from google fonts and i wanted a really lightweight san-serif font similar to 'Helvetica-Neue' but didnt want to pay anything for it. It looks even worse than that on an IOS device and no idea for Android. Think i have been using macs for too long to try out other devices so thats something i definitely need to look into.

Line height is something i was aware of but didnt want to space things out too much but with a second pair of eyes looking over it, i can see where the problems arise!

As im typing this both you guys have commented on my other post so i will check that out immediately, smooth scrolling is something i need on the site.

Your right though with the active class state for the nav, i need to change this if its going to be any use but i did ponder over having it fixed and following you down the screen although i need to improve my Jscript skills to no interfere with other objects!

Agree on your point about it being very current, although not necessarily good in the tech world as it will be outdated shortly, think parallax was 2013..

Thank you again for your comments, i will think more closely about fonts and also spacing!!!

January 16, 2014 10:07pm

Haha. Think, one day you'll interview some young twentysomething and he'll joke about the old parallax page he made in middle school "back in 2013." He'll use the same shamed face I use when speaking about the golden/dark days of Geocities.

January 16, 2014 10:33pm

Screencast is great! There are a few alternatives discussed in the second half of this post.

I find it much easier being able to send someone a video of what I mean and it's really quick to record and upload it (often faster than trying to explain it with words and then take screenshots if needed).

You can also get free webfonts from Adobe Edge Fonts which are served by Typekit. If you go to Typekit's site and search for the font there you can see previews of how it should display across various browsers and operating systems (I'm pretty sure you can see previews for every font without needing to have a paid-for Typekit account).

Trying them on actual devices is always best, but that can be tricky if you don't have easy access to them. Libraries often have Windows computers available to use for free. If you have a Macbook you could take that along to work on the site while comparing the changes.

January 17, 2014 10:33am

Thanks again for comments Tom! Really helpful!

January 17, 2014 10:34am

I love how your own site's headings fit perfectly no matter what size the viewport is.

January 17, 2014 12:30pm

Thanks, it's using FitText (then I have a bunch of media queries to manually bring the size down if someone doesn't have JavaScript enabled).

January 16, 2014 10:12pm

haha, that is true.. a shame i cant know how trends will change! Geocities was a unique idea but guess its like trying to take the internet offline but still online?! If that makes sense.. :)

January 16, 2014 10:17pm

http://oneterabyteofkilobyteage.tumblr.com/

January 16, 2014 10:21pm

Its crazy to think how much the internet has changed i vaguely remember creating things like this with a friend years ago!

January 16, 2014 11:22pm

It looks pretty that's for sure and if you were a visual designer that would certainly be something people look for. However, in terms of educating people about who you, what you and why you are passionate about it ...

My reaction was eeh shrug. Why? It has a low data to ink ratio.

Areas of the design that could use some work:

Contrast, typography & hierarchy could use some work.
It doesn't feel like the site has a consistent design due to the background colors constantly changing
The UX isn't great
- Issues with navigation as other's have mentioned
- What goal is the user trying accomplish on your site

There are a few articles in Tuts Plus' design school for developers blog series that should help you out with polishing those aspects.

January 17, 2014 10:30am

Thanks for your comments James!

I was hoping to increase the content about me by introducing an about me page a bit more and more information on a blog..

I think with the backgrounds changing i wanted to liven up the flow and struggle to work out which colors to use.. could do with some work though.

The links were very informative so will have a look over them today and love the data to ink ratio page its something that i would like to achieve although i know im hesitant using negative space it never seems to look good when i use it!

January 17, 2014 7:33am

looks very nice to me.

January 17, 2014 6:29pm

Thanks for your comment :)

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