Sunday, June 01, 2008

More web site revisions...

I worked on my site tonight 'til I felt like falling down (actually, that would be right now, since I just finished. I need to go to bed!!) I'm not uploading the revisions tonight, though. I'll do that tomorrow. (I also worked on the site last night, and I uploaded one night's worth of work from last night this morning. So if you have not checked it in a couple days, you will still see some improvements you may not have seen yet.)

I do have more work to do before I feel like I can call it "done" (with regards to the overall shell and nav, etc. -- I of course will still be revising the portfolio work on a regular basis).

I want to thank every one of you who have been chiming in with your two cents. It's been GREAT! I thrive on the objective feedback and I welcome it from all of you. (If you want to chime in but do not want to post in the comments publicly, please feel free to email me privately with your feedback instead.) Your feedback and ideas have not only helped me towards making the site better overall but it's helped spark me to brainstorm ways I can attempt do things more efficiently as well long-term.

You may note that I have changed the thumbnails to little graphics representative of the respective work it links to and have gotten rid of the color blocks as many of you suggested. (This is not evident on the Paper Product page yet, but it will be soon).

Another concern (of my own this time, no one commented about this one, that I can recall) was that the portfolio images were very small, especially when judged against my portfolios on sites like childrensillustrators.com and picture-book.com, where the art images are so much larger. To help remedy this, sort of, I've made rollovers for most of the images which show a piece of detail. It really helps.

BUT there was a method to my madness of making the image display area not gargantuan. When deciding on what type of shell I wanted to house the content, I really liked the idea of keeping the active area of my site compact - I've seen many illustrator's sites that have done this successfully and this economy is something I admire and wanted to strive for in my own show-and-tell. I so often have gone the other direction in the past, that the exercise in streamlining is like cleaning out the attic for me, and it's a good for practice - a good mentality - for me, for my site, moving forward. So it was a calculated move on my part.

To this end, I'm also embracing that I do not need to put a gazillion samples up on my site of every type of work that I do. It's confusing to ME, so I can imagine that it must be even more confusing to someone who visits my site for the first time. Since my main career focus moving forward is illustration, I've removed the design-only portfolio altogether. After living with it on the site for a day or two, I found it jarring to have the logo design on the same site with my illustrations. I felt they were at odds. Maybe it's just ME who is at odds. But regardless, I felt that they did not belong there. Since I am concentrating on my illustration work, it made sense to me to remove them so they are gone now.

...That's my rant for the night!! :) If you are reading still, you are a very good listener!!

If you have any further ideas/feedback/comments I'd love to hear it. But I will be posting revisions tomorrow, so, no presh!! :)

5 comments:

Archie and Melissa said...

Hi Kathy!
wow! you've been working hard!
i love the hover detail function on your art. Very professional. what do you think about making the alt tag more decriptive than showing the image file name?
your site really looks great!
melissa

Unknown said...

Thanks Melissa. I'd like to add alt tags - I know I need them but it's not as pressing as some other things were so it's slipped through cracks for now. It is on my list though. Thanks for bringing them up.

Kathy

Anonymous said...

nice to talk with you on sunday and thanks for your nice note...look forward to seeing you at the end of June..
best,
carol

Ginger*:) said...

Hey Kathy... good for you! I have been redoing my website into the wee hours along with my redo of the Children's Illustrators site and adding to Picture Book. It takes a toll on your eyes and brain but I know your newly designed site will be sensational. With all the great artwork you have completed it will be a feast for the eyes, heart and mind.
Three cheers for you!!!!!... are you awake now?

Unknown said...

Ginger - Thanks!!! I'm so glad you are giving me this pep talk... becuase my site is all corrupted at the moment and it is in ER -- Triage, stat! ;)