Do you work in a design/creative field??? Help!

pequin

pequin

New member
For those who don't know - I am a freelance graphic designer. I recently got canned by my biggest client (my brother) and now I need come up with a professional looking portfolio website to direct potential employers to in my resume.

The thing is... I am hopelessly blocked.

Couple of questions for you:

1.) How do you get your 'creative juices' going? What inspires you?
2.) How do you keep from trashing your ideas later?
3.) Do you have someone critic your work before submitting it?
 
I wish I was more creative...too bad you didn't let me (or any of us!) look at the website before you took it down, we may have been able to suggest ideas. I find fresh eyes help me when I'm scrapbooking. If I'm too close to the project, and I have spent too long staring at it, I'll have someone look at it to get their first impressions. :)
 
I still have part of it up:

I want something clean & minimal so that my photos & designs are the star... not my layout.
But I'm thinking what I have is dangerously close to just plain ol' boring.
 
Well, the scrapbooker in me loves the simplicity of it. All the white space :) And I adore the photo!

On topic, do you design logos?
 
Google your competition and look at the first 30 or so sites. I saw a consistency, I'm sure you will too.

I don't think you'll be compromising much artistically with the white background, it pretty much was a common theme. It just comes down to what they did with it I suppose.


I assume you're taking down your credential/bio off the home page too, right ??
 
dariqueen said:
Well, the scrapbooker in me loves the simplicity of it. All the white space :) And I adore the photo!

On topic, do you design logos?
Click to expand...

Thanks! My dad took that one... I think I'm about 4 there.
And yeah, logos, business cards, letter heads, websites... ect. I'm a jack of all trades.


T2 Trucker said:
Google your competition and look at the first 30 or so sites. I saw a consistency, I'm sure you will too.

I don't think you'll be compromising much artistically with the white background, it pretty much was a common theme. It just comes down to what they did with it I suppose.
Click to expand...

This is my competition basically:
She's from my area so i feel like she's a good gauge of whats around here.

The white space doesn't bug me. I'm a big fan of minimalism, it's just my use of it that isn't impressing me much. I get a big 'so what' vibe off of it. Probably me just being obsessive & picky. :eek:

I assume you're taking down your credential/bio off the home page too, right ??
Click to expand...

That isn't the main page of the website thats here: , what I linked to before is just the bio scetion. It'll be linked from the main splash page so that you can navigate to it.
 
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Hey Pequin,

1. I look at other designs. I go here and I'm blown away by the designs:





I also listen to music and sort of daydream, and ideas really starting flooding nonstop into my head.

2. I have always had a problem with this. If you find a way, let me know. lol

3. Yes, always. I have a few friends look at it and give me their honest opinion about it, and it really helps. They point out things that I didn't see before.

Good luck. And ya know, I thought your portfolio before was astounding! I don't see why ya wanna change it.
 
Try for more colour, its a bit bland and a little to much grey i think.
Looks professional though :)

Im no designer, im a coder lol.
Let me know if you ever need any CSS or PHP help etc :)
 
I'm not a designer or coder, I am copier. I know just enough code and photoshop to dutifully recreate stuff I like.

Most of what I do is print, so I save junk mail that has formats I like. Good graphical divisions, etc, and then I make my own using that layout.
 
Oh, I forgot to say - I love the mogeno site. You may want to consider a slightly deeper shade of grey however, it barely shows up at all on my laptop monitor. Or, consider looking at it on a couple of different computers.
 
Thanks everyone for the help & great feedback! I think I'm going to work on it all a bit, take my time and not slap anything up like I tried to do before then post a new link here, see what you all think.

Dubyah - I might take you up on that offer later when I start back on that stupid wordpress, it's all php & css. It makes my eyes bleed..lol

Those are great links CFL- bookmarked them all. :D:D
And thanks Llamabean, never though about that grey on other monitors.
 
Hi Amy, the site looks GREAT!!!
That self-portrait picture is HOT :) I was hoping to see more of your photographs on there too though, on the last site you had a lot of photographs up. Are you going to add more?? They were really brilliant.
 
Thanks! :D
Yeah I plan on putting the old photos back up, I just need to go through & strip out some stuff from the layout.

Glad you like the new photo, it was my first foray into the darker self discovery stuff. Gave myself a bellyache today, very emotional series this one..lol. I plan on putting stuff up there at least once a week.
 
hehe you've inspired me to update my own webpages. For a web developer my website was terrible. Anyway now im proud of it and linked it into my sig :D
 
dariqueen said:
I love the little bit of green in the circles! Looks awesome Amy!
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Thanks DQ! I took everyones advice & jazzed it up a bit but still made the photo area in bl&w. I like this one a lot... now I just have to curb the urge to change it again..lol.

wishes said:
hehe you've inspired me to update my own webpages. For a web developer my website was terrible. Anyway now im proud of it and linked it into my sig :D
Click to expand...

Been there, bookmarked that. :D The neked baby bird photos in your flickr crack me up!

Tomble said:
Whoa, that self portrait is amazing!!!
Click to expand...

Thanks! :D
 
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From one free lance graphic designer to another ... you layout is put together really well, i like it a lot. I found a small problem though ... more technical then anything ... when i select Uncategorized (6) from the drop down it gives me an error page. One of the most important things a client works for is how your web page navigates so you need to fix that.

I draw inspiration from literally EVERYTHING, commercials, tv, nature, books, movies and different forms of art. I'm also into drawing and painting so when i center myself and focus on feelings instead of issues any type of art starts building. I visit sites that are excellent for inspiration as well such as ...
H Y B R I D G E N E S I S - photoshop brushes, textures, patterns, digital art resources
| portfelia |
 
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