For today’s class, it was a critique of our deliverable 1 portfolios. Kyle created a Miro board along with custom set boxes for each of us to comment on. This was a good chance to see how Kyle and other classmates think of my portfolio website so far allowing for them to share and review the strengths and weaknesses of my website so far. Additionally, it allows me to look at other people’s work and see how they are progressing and gives me the opportunity to gain cosmetic inspiration e.g. such as element animations for my own work or for example I loved Leander’s use of ‘half stroke’ when highlighting clickable links.
Many classmates left comments above which were extremely helpful in defining my strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths
Consistent and appealing colour scheme
Simplistic yet effective layout
Effective and appealing typography
Illustrations/annimations
elemental showcase structure
Navbar animations
Weaknesses
The majority of the comments were positive which I was happy enough, however, a few remarked about the spacing of elements. This is really helpful to me as it has made me more aware of designing for different devices. For example, I was using a 13in laptop and everything looked normal while on Daniels project elements were being overlapped and distorted. This has given me a beneficial reminder to be more aware of the content and how to make it responsive.
Self CritiqueÂ
Overall, I really am happy with the design I have gone for in my portfolio website. I have stuck close enough to the original goal and even used all the elements for my previous brand identity from last year including the wordmark, logo/animation, colour scheme, two-column structure, etc. These are the many things that people have commented on in my work.
However, one of the problems that I need to fix and manage are the spacing issues that present on my site especially for the mobile and tablet versions. One example of this is the hero banner on my case study page(s). I think the best bet is to follow Kyles’s advice and remove them from the app as it is hard to get them responsive. However, I still really like how it is laid out so might make it only available for laptops and bigger screen sizes which then can tackle this problem without actually removing it.
What have I learned?
Designing works the same way for writing your own essay or material as the longer you focus on your work the less you concentrate so if you come back to it after a suggested time period or get someone else to read it you will find mistakes that you skipped over. This class has been greatly beneficial to me as it gives me an extra pair of eyes to review my work for constructive and positive feedback.
What do I need to do now?
Although, I was busy completing Daniels’s work which made me lack slightly behind on my portfolio website. These are the last stages in my portfolio website. I mostly just need to tweak and improve some things such as:
- Refining, refine, refine!!
- Ensure all classes are appropriate.
- Fix sizing problems.
- Refine and improve responsiveness.