Website! Yaaay?

[gwendolyngrey]

I just finished my "For Reals" website for my portfolio class.

It would have been a lot easier if the instructor had actually known Dreamweaver.

I'll have a lot more to add to it once my senior show is finished in the spring, but for now it'll do.  And I still have to buy a domain and get a host; it's temporarily uploaded to some space I have on GVSU's server.

Critique?  Advice?  Any niggly bits I might want to change before Wed. (when it'll be critiqued in class)?

Comments

[lyschan.livejournal.com]

Lovely site! I enjoyed exploring it and seeing your work again.

As for critiques, most of my thoughts are kind of nit-picky. The first thing that bothered me was the pixelated-stuff surrounding the illustration/costume/etc links on the very first page (though it wasn't as noticeable on the other pages, for some reason). It might be something about the .jpg compression; if you saved the images with less compression it might get rid of that. Or maybe as .gif instead of .jpg? The other thing that I noticed was on the costume page, you've got thumbnails for a few different outfits in the fairytale section, but only the one dress has pictures up. Maybe you're still working on that though. The thumbnails on the costume page also aren't quite aligned with each other, which (depending on how you made the page) could be fixed if you drag in some guide-lines in Dreamweaver and line them up against that. I think. My Dreamweaver memory is a bit foggy... If it's on purpose that they're not aligned (like the way-spaced-out thumbnails on the fairytale line), maybe make that a bit more obvious/exaggerated.

I was a little confused at first with the costume page (like, how the 3 different 19th c. thumbs all go to the same gallery page and not to a specific gallery of just that dress/etc). I don't know if that's a problem or not though. It's just that since I see all those thumbnails, as a website viewer I feel like I have to click each one to get to something new. I also wished I could go between the different sections without having to go back to the main costume page (I'm a lazy browser!) What if... you moved the text-menu that's currently on the main costume page to the right-side (?) of the page, so it pops up outside of the box when the costume-link is clicked like how you did the thumbnails for the drawing/illustration pages along the bottom? This may not be something to do before your critique Wednesday, but just a thought...

Er... I hope I'm not discouraging. I really like your site a lot. The navigation for the illustration and drawing pages is perfect! I loved seeing your sketches/paintings of the costumes along with the costumes themselves. And I understand all the madness and confusion of trying to get Dreamweaver to cooperate while the professor looks on just as confused as I am... so I admire your patience and ability to put together such a nice and stylish website :D Great job!

[idlewild-grey.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU! Not discouraging at all!

This stuff is exactly what I was hoping to hear. I don't know if I can get to all that before Wed, but it's all useful input that I'll certainly apply. The pixelated-crap on the index page bothers me too, so that'll get top priority, and I'll play around with organizing the costume page more.

This was very helpful. :-)