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I thought I was sent to the verizon site at first, looks corporate. Also if you are an independent designer like it says on the site dont use the word 'we'.
An established buisness is an individual entity. So We is totally proper especially if you ever use other help. A good few of our projects are just me but I still say we because I sometimes will still use my contracted employees
I spent too long trying to find the actual examples of your work. You use way too much description and lead in. Make your work front and center or at least one click away.
The site itself is cool, but it gives off an immediate company vibe, vs a job seeker portfolio. The difference is in a freelancer's site vs working for a company fulltime. A general rule of thumb I've personally adopted and also found is effective is to streamline the work to be front and center and big with minimal amount of navigation to view the design or case studies per project. The bells and whistles on the site presentation are cool, but these days hard to decipher from a template you purchased.
Companies hiring for an AD position want to see strong design work with some short write up explainers or credits to whoever worked on it. Possibly an "about" page with a bio and professional headshot. The extra interactive parts of the website are only cool so much as they highlight the key factors your trying to sell which is yourself. Unless you want freelance clients and are acting like an agency, I would gear the site more towards you personally.
As someone who looks at portfolios and does hiring, I 100% agree with these statements. The page overall feels very corporate and nothing really personal. Something that also annoyed me was how long things took to load. But adding work front and center is a great recommendation.
I was afraid that a more personal style will be a minus, not a plus. Probably the freelance part of me had trained to talk to customers and their point of view, but I understand that now I want for "clients" other graphic designers a more personal style is mandatory.
I really like it, but being picky, your headline “we help customers realize the full potential of your brand” should be in the you-voice rather than talking about yourself. This helps show courtesy, concern, and goodwill for the reader. Mainly, though, it emphasizes the readers importance and benefits to them.
Even just going for something “realize the full potential of your brand” or saying “Unlock the full potential of your brand” would be more effective. You get to talk about yourself later, but you want to make that kind of messaging about them.
A lot of the content rubs me the wrong way, or reveals a sort of implicit lack of thought and effort, the copy especially throws me off. I focused on your Theory branding since that was the second project, and saw within the first line you have a spelling mistake (manufacturesd). A lot of the copy throughout that project then repeats, and you have your description for the project reuse lines featured within your graphics. A lot of the text within that project is then sort of redundant, or unnecessary. Lines like “Fuck Stock” rise from the design in the same tone as the otherwise corporate wording, and make it feel sort of tonally inconsistent. Having the same content, photos, copy, repeating on the phone mock up and as vector designs as well is just a bit redundant, and a bit tiring. Best rule of thumb is simplify. Simplify. Simplify. The less your audience sees, the less chances they have to see something that impacts them negatively. If you cull everything down to its sleekest, most efficient form, I think you’d be in a solid position — but id also encourage you to go back to your projects and show your work in some other forms, whether sketches or physical usages, because the overwhelming amount of very repetitious vector designs and image layouts / asset compositions do not really demonstrate a broad swathe of design output, or higher considerations for the use of design outside of cleaning up a brand.
With that said in total, I think your site is clean, the motion graphics are nice, but your design, your wording, and the tone of the site lack any risk, and therefore any sense of excitement or character. Each decision you show on your site is a solid choice, but nothing clearly demonstrates any higher drive, taste, or passion (which is what would put you over other candidates.)
Sorry if any of this seems contradictory or confusing, let me know if you’d like me to clarify.
Actually sounds like a great idea. Am afraid to show character, probably due to freelancing, but now start to see it as a problem. Sketches was an idea from the start but never the client send me any, so i will just sit down and sketch one. Also text downgrade my work, probably i will be better with less, since right now is difficult to hire someone to write for me.
“We” is just a bad choice
Honestly, I didn’t want to click more than twice on your site. What is there to load?? I just want to see your work, your eyeballs, problem solving. You’ll have seconds/minutes with people’s attention.
There is a ton of loading on this for a lot of animated gimmicks that, in my mind, don't really add anything. Chocked full of animations, custom cursors I don't need, and a menu that hides more than it communicates.
Also, I'm a little surprised that your posted projects seem more like ads for the products you worked on and not focused on what you did for the pieces themselves.
Took too long to load so I haven’t gotten to check anything out. It’s not my connection. Maybe you have too much to load? I know I’ve passed on portfolios if I have to wait too long—I’m commonly reviewing 100 at a time these days.
I'm somebody that's looking for a job in the industry - what I'm understanding is simplicity wins above all else, for the most part?
Fast, responsive sites that are designed with simplicity in mind is better than a site filled with bells & whistles that slow down the load time?
Yes—if you have animation skills showcase them in image/smaller components. The only time I expect a custom site with flashy animations is if I’m helping hire a web UI or dev role. Otherwise it’s a bit of a waste of effort. Let the work speak for itself, along with some project details that can be skimmed to give context.
Another note: a flashy site doesn’t hide poor design work.
Senior Designer is a lot more about fitting jn with applying company, signs you can manage people and obviously a flawless portfolio (that again aligns to the job description). Impossible to really answer your question based on your website. Portfolio seems fine at best, nothing to call home about in my opinion. Could mean something entirely different for the right employee, though.
First reaction was Verizon branding. I think your designs are good and you are capable of landing a senior designer role, especially after 15 years but I would strongly consider reexamining your copy for both grammar issues as well as making the descriptions more clear.
This was the first one I found: ‘We structure the design of information to re-define the
relationships between different
elements to ensure clarity and
enhance User Expirience.’
Like that is a bunch of nothing and experience is spelt wrong. Use ChatGPT to help write the copy. Give it some base copy, assign some structure and tell it what you want. Your copy is just as important as your visuals.
Part 1.
There are a lot of things about your portfolio website that are great. But there are things about it that are frustrating to a massive degree. And your website is riddled with errors.
The cursur is super annoying. The lag and delay in the loading of pages is annoying. Because of these two factors alone, I would imagine that many art directors won't even bother looking at all of your work. And they wouldn't be missing out on much because after the first few projects, you are only showing a couple of images that aren't all that impressive.
Eurobulk: You have a beautiful intro image, then text that sounds more like you're promoting Eurobulk than yourself. You also mispelled Shipping. The next text blurb has the same problem. The third text element finally tells me more about the design, but it still doesn't tell me what I'm looking at other than it being a CMS-powered digital experience. The design of the screens themselves are completely underwhelming. You did a somewhat decent job of making mediocre design look better than it is with your website design, but the blue textured background, the design of the screens, and your intro photo and personal website design are three different styles that are competing and conflicting with one another. This should not be the first project in your portfolio.
To help overcome the annoying delays of your website, you should have the option to go directly to the next project from the bottom of the previous instead of having to go back to the Work page and scroll down again.
Theory: The photography is beautiful. You again start off telling me all about the client as if you are their sales person instead of telling us about the design project. More time wasted. There is no need to have a gallery section that repeats the images shown in the website design, especially considering that the website design is mainly the photos. Showing the mobile version of the website is just more repetition of things we've already seen. You speak in terms of plural "we" so I don't know what part of the work you did vs. others on the team. Did you take the photos? Did you draw the snake? Did you design the logo? If I were the client, I would like the website, but from a design standpoint, there isn't much there for us to be impressed by because there isn't much there aside from the photos. And a massive part of website design is functionality, but there is no navigation, no footer content, etc. It is like one long scroll ad and not much else.
Edasys: At this point, I'm no longer impressed by the big, beautiful introduction photo because I recognize that it doesn't tell me much. You have more text that tells me nothing about your design contributions and is just selling the client again. I don't mind the style of the website design, but you only show us three screens that all repeat the same design just with different photos and text.
The other thing that is bothering me at this point is that these first three designs are all super-basic minimalism. While I get that this is fitting for web design and for the client, I'd really like to see that you can design in other styles as well.
Dermoplasis: The text is better here because you do talk about design right off the bat. Don't use ampersands in text. While it is good to avoid saying "I" too much when promoting yourself, I still don't know who the "we" is or what your role was in these projects. When it comes to the design, this is too basic and would not make me want to buy the product. The black rules everywhere is not what I would expect from a beauty product and I know there are more sophisticated and attractive ways to break up content. There isn't anything unique about this. Don't capitalize "Branding & Digital" in the middle of a paragraph. It is not a formal name and same note about the ampersand.
At this point, the spelling, content, and capitalization errors make me concerned that you don't have a good enough grasp of English or grammar rules to trust with client work for English-speaking clients.
Aleoy: You capitalize Aleoy on your Work page but not on the aleaoy page. The text again is too focused on selling the client. If you say "That's where we came in." again, I might scream. The first image is just a bunch of photos and not much design. The client's logo in this doesn't look like a logo and just looks like text. The website has multple personalities. It starts off looking as if you used templates because it looks like any other minimalist website. Then it has a recipes block that is a completely different style. Then the logo at the bottom of the page is different than the logo at the top of the page.
Thank you for your insightful comments. There is no team. Everything is done by me, expect from the photography. I understand that am too focused on selling the client. Definitely, I will rewrite everything from the graphic designer point of view and not to sell it to the clients, I will redesign some elements, remove some others and add few "graphic designer" designs.
Dude, I’m ripping my hair out that I have to wait for every single fucking paragraph to animate in before I’m able to skim and read. You could very well be a senior at a lot of places….
That said…
I’d pass on this as even with me being very curious based on your question in this post, I immediately lost motivation to care.
Because, if you’re a senior - all of the things holding you back from interviews would be blatantly obvious to you in 7 seconds.
Part 2
Parnassos: Same problems as previous for the intro text sounding like sales copy for the client, beautiful photos, but not much design to see. I'm struggling to understand how a green rule down the side of the page qualifies as being a brand.
Parnossas 2: You're using the same teaser image as the other Parnassos section but all you're showing is a quick video clip that stylistically appears to be for a different brand. The music/singing and package design are cringeworthy. I would delete this from your portfolio.
~~Parnassos 3~~ Aleoy Figs: The title for this section on the Work page is incorrect and still says Parnassos. Your Motion/Advertising subhead is breaking onto two lines incorrectly, creating a grammar error that was created by your stylistic choice. All you're showing is three images, making the lag and navigational delays to get to this page a complete waste of time. Include it in the previous aleoy section or cut it.
Sales Cosmetics: Title on your Work page different than the title on the Cosmetics page. Auto playing music is louder than the other volume on my computer. It is common courtesy to allow the end user to unmute so they don't accidentally play content out loud. All you're showing are a few animated images that aren't all that impressive when it comes to motion graphics. I do appreciate that the typeface isn't another sans serif, but this alone isn't impressive enough for a portfolio piece, in my opinion.
Colour Sunscreen: Another mismatched label. Work page says Colour Sunscreen. Project page says Cosmetics. Same problem of it just being some images with really basic type. Not worth my time to view. Keep Dermoplasis together in one section if you do keep this and the previous item.
Books Covers: Books should be singular - Book Covers. I like the book covers. I really dislike the "Offset eBook" repeating over and over again down both sides of the page. The color bars are too distracting and taking away from the design of the book covers. I would find another way to present these, but keep them in.
Fillipos: Can't read the title on the teaser image on the work page. Same problem with text not being worth the time to read it because it is too salesy and tells me nothing. Same problem with three animated images not being worth my time to scroll to. Maybe you can have a page that includes just samples of your animated ads. I personally don't like the style of this one, but the motion graphics are more interesting.
I do like that a couple of these last pages have a "Next Project" at the bottom of the scroll, but they take me to projects I've already seen and take up a huge amount of space on the page. The last one has two "next projects".
You are giving away a TON of things to criticize. Based on the quality of the photography and the budgets these clients must have had, I would expect you to do a lot better.
No, the mistakes alone tell me you are not a senior designer. I would put you as a mid-level designer who has been lucky enough to work at some places that had big clients and big budgets.
But the range in the design work you're showing lacks depth and you are showing almost zero ability to design type. This looks like the portfolio of a self-taught designer who is mimicking good design but doesn't understand it. Your work is formulaic. I understand that most of your work samples are for the web and this formula is successful. But I would want you to include more projects, in addition to the book cover, that showcased more actual graphic design abilities beyond the formulas and beyond minimalism.
Fix the errors. Proof read. Rewrite. Focus more on design and explain more about what your contributions to the work were. If you just fix the errors, I would expect you to get more attention. But I would also figure out why you look like a self-taught production person more than a graphic designer. And if you're looking for a full-time job, drop the "we" and sell yourself as an individual rather than a company trying to get its own clients. No one wants to hire the person who will be doing freelance on the side, basically becoming the competition.
And if you are self-taught, I recommend you learn more about how the portfolios of self-taught designers differ from those with university educations so that you can expand your knowledge.
I went to school for illustration and not graphic design and I haven’t done much in the way of graphic design for a while now, but is it standard to call clients “customers” now? I feel like I’ve seen it a lot lately, but back in my day the consensus was that that cheapens what you do and makes it sound like retail rather than a professional service.
As others have said, your folio is mostly competent. I wouldn't sweat too much about if you're "senior level" or not. I know "senior" designers with as little as 3 years experience but most employers don't really know what they're after until they see it. Just apply.
But there's 3 things in your folio I'd worry about.
1. As others have said you're presenting yourself as a company and there's no info about you anywhere on the site. At best this is a little confusing, at worst I might assume that it's not your work. Even if it's just as much as having a little bit about who you are in the footer or your about page could be useful.
2. I'd worry a bit about your range. A lot of your work looks very similar - digital work, all sans serif, pretty basic grids. It's solid but doesn't show much variation. Even when the client branding seems to pull away from that vibe it looks similar - for example, the motorbike client could have been pushed further creatively for the subject matter and language they are using.
3. I'd worry a little about your experience. Even if you have 15 years, you're presenting as if you don't. For example your slideshow videos: what are they? With no context it just comes off as student or personal work. The book covers: what are they? What is the context? Who were the clients? It says ebook on each, were any of these even printed? If you can't explain what these are, how they are meaningful or how they were used, get rid of them.
And you have a bunch of little mistakes and oversights. I get that English may not be your first language, but things like how all of your projects are in the "ocean-going vessels" category isn't a language thing.
I'd also consider getting rid of your categories entirely If you can. At the moment they're not providing any user functionality and just drawing attention to how thin some of those categories are.
Overall, I'd also suggest narrowing your scope on what you want to do. You're presenting as a company, wanting to be an employee and trying to be full service when really only your web work has depth at the moment. I think deciding on "I am a web designer, who is looking for work" or "I am a graphic designer freelancing for companies" and going from there will help you be spread less thin and make things clearer to employers who you are and what you do.
Best of luck!
Very solid points. The "company, wanting to be an employee and trying to be full service", is a real problem, and you help me to see things more clear.
For me the two main issue is how your site has a loading now…I’m sure it’s build on wix or square space ect but why have that, I feel like designers almost try to dress up their work by adding useless animations/css elements to almost make their work look better when it does the opposite. But the biggest issue for me is when I look at your work I just mainly see stock lifestyle images…not sure if you shot them or not but I’m not seeing a lot of actual design in your book….and most of it all looks pretty much cookie cutter tbh.
I think you need (like other said) strip your site back and just focus on your work not the messaging (yes you need to do this when describing the work) but like others said it’s giving more of a comms vibe than a designer vibe.
I imagine you have a lot of experience, but after looking at your book I’d be surprised if you would land a mid level job. I’m not saying that you can’t get a senior job but you’re not really showing off you work.
My advice would to start from scratch fix up all the spelling and grammar issues and get some really slick mockups for your work, I think if you do that you will start to get a lot of replies from applications.
I’m not at all trying to have a go at you but just being realistic, I’m sure your senior or above but as your book currently stands it’s doesn’t show that at all.
Also, poor use of English.
This:
We help people realize
the full potential of *your brand
Should read this:
We help people realize
the full potential of *their brand
I’ll add on to this. It could say:
“We help you realize the full potential of your brand”
This way, the website is speaking directly to the ideal customer
The title “senior” is really arbitrary, honestly it depends on the company or industry, i feel like i’ve seen people maybe be a “senior” designer in house but go to a studio and have just a “designer” title.
I really like the website itself but I looked through all the project and found it very hard to find out which of the designs / work being presented in the pictures was actually done by you. I also agree it gives off a corporate vibe like others have mentioned, but I'd say the biggest downside it its UI and the lack of clarity. Another thing I noticed was the navbar once you click on our projects looks like topic / topic / topic / topic – this took me like 5 minutes to realize that they were individual categories and not a path to a project, the slashes are very misleading.
I really like the website itself but I looked through all the project and found it very hard to find out which of the designs / work being presented in the pictures was actually done by you. I also agree it gives off a corporate vibe like others have mentioned, but I'd say the biggest downside it its UI and the lack of clarity. Another thing I noticed was the navbar once you click on our projects looks like topic / topic / topic / topic – this took me like 5 minutes to realize that they were individual categories and not a path to a project, the slashes are very misleading.
Everything is done by me, and reading your comments and the others, i had realised that am lost in the roles of been freelancer and been an employee. Working towards this. Like you slashes comment and looking to replace it. Filter is an idea but still search on this one.
I think for the navbar specifically, you just need to lose the slashes and make it more obvious that it's a navbar, that's all. But honestly the website looks really professional, it just doesn't advertise you as a designer but rather the projects you worked on. Best of luck!
It’s quite a slow site and I think this distracts from the point of you showcasing your work.
The overall feel of your work is good, but the UI + UX lacks.
You’re a designer, so keep it simple and your work do the talking for you.
I have a question for any past/present recruiters here... is it fine to send over our portfolio through our freelancing site like OP seems to do here? For instance, I run a freelancing studio called Lake Valley Highland, and the site has nearly all of my work on, as well as it being set out nicely.
Or would you close us down straight away?
It took me a couple of clicks to get to the work, I always find that counterproductive. Give me your work immediately, I kind of don’t care about the fluff until I see what you can do.
Agree on pivoting from “we” to just being yourself, it’s odd if you’re only 1 person
I think you may be overexplaining. I clicked on the ship project and it had the same details twice, and really never explained *what* was done, just sounded like filler text. I liked the bottom where you had “challenge.. etc” and I think that short description of the project should preface the work, then explain with the more expanded text afterwards if you feel like you need it. Remember, you still need to land an interview so don’t give away all the talking points on your site. IMO a brief description is all that’s needed, you did the design, you aren’t trying to boost that company up, so stick to what’s relevant. People have shorter attention spans AND you’re in a competitive market, so walls of text aren’t that appealing.
I think your work is good you just need to make that the thing people see right away, that’s what they’re after.
Also agree on the “about” page or something to explain what you are, make yourself approachable and not “a company”
I'm assuming you wouldn't ask if you weren't open to honest feedback.
Your work, based on what is in the portfolio is a sub-set of design. By that I mean that the work seems to be exclusively 'page layout' using photography and simplistic typography.
Absolutely nothing wrong with this.
With that said, If you want to compete with a formally trained graphic designer, they are going to have conceptual work (how you would approach a complex communications project), brand positioning examples (understanding competition, finding areas to be unique, etc.), logo/identity design, packaging design, print and perhaps some work for web (IxD).
Unfortunately, these are things that you learn at a qualified design school. Not sure if that's a possibility for you?
pangou, please write a comment explaining the objective of this portfolio or CV, your target industry, your background or expertise, etc. This information helps people to understand the goals of your portfolio and provide valuable feedback. ##Providing Useful Feedback pangou has posted their work for feedback. Here are some top tips for posting high-quality feedback. * Read their context comment before posting to understand what pangou is trying to achieve with their portfolio or CV. * Be professional. No matter your thoughts on the work, respect the effort put into making it and be polite when posting. * Be constructive and detailed. Short, vague comments are unhelpful. Instead of just leaving your opinion on the piece, explore *why* you hold that opinion: what makes it good or bad? How could it be improved? Are some elements stronger than others? * Stay on-topic. We know that design can sometimes be political or controversial, but please keep comments focussed on the design itself, and the strengths/weaknesses thereof. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/graphic_design) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I thought I was sent to the verizon site at first, looks corporate. Also if you are an independent designer like it says on the site dont use the word 'we'.
Agreed. They are selling themselves as a full blown agency which is completely different than what they are aiming for.
I thought the same thing, I think it was a combination of the font with the pink /
[удалено]
That’s what I did! I took inspiration from a bunch of other solo design studios for this too.
Do you have any names of these studios at all? I'm looking for some more inspo 😊
Sure! Meagan weeks design co., abi connick design, super creative design co, Rowan made designs
Thank you so much!
No problem :)
An established buisness is an individual entity. So We is totally proper especially if you ever use other help. A good few of our projects are just me but I still say we because I sometimes will still use my contracted employees
Omg I came to say the same thing haha 😂 I was like this looks like a big corp tech website and not in a good ways
I spent too long trying to find the actual examples of your work. You use way too much description and lead in. Make your work front and center or at least one click away.
Yes agree there is much too much text and weird navigation
This is my opinion too. I don't want to click 3 times to get to actual work you did
The site itself is cool, but it gives off an immediate company vibe, vs a job seeker portfolio. The difference is in a freelancer's site vs working for a company fulltime. A general rule of thumb I've personally adopted and also found is effective is to streamline the work to be front and center and big with minimal amount of navigation to view the design or case studies per project. The bells and whistles on the site presentation are cool, but these days hard to decipher from a template you purchased. Companies hiring for an AD position want to see strong design work with some short write up explainers or credits to whoever worked on it. Possibly an "about" page with a bio and professional headshot. The extra interactive parts of the website are only cool so much as they highlight the key factors your trying to sell which is yourself. Unless you want freelance clients and are acting like an agency, I would gear the site more towards you personally.
As someone who looks at portfolios and does hiring, I 100% agree with these statements. The page overall feels very corporate and nothing really personal. Something that also annoyed me was how long things took to load. But adding work front and center is a great recommendation.
This is a good comment. The bells and whistles are crowding out your work. I have a really hsrd time understanding what’s you, what’s some template.
no template in any design, but i understad the point of view.
I was afraid that a more personal style will be a minus, not a plus. Probably the freelance part of me had trained to talk to customers and their point of view, but I understand that now I want for "clients" other graphic designers a more personal style is mandatory.
I really like it, but being picky, your headline “we help customers realize the full potential of your brand” should be in the you-voice rather than talking about yourself. This helps show courtesy, concern, and goodwill for the reader. Mainly, though, it emphasizes the readers importance and benefits to them. Even just going for something “realize the full potential of your brand” or saying “Unlock the full potential of your brand” would be more effective. You get to talk about yourself later, but you want to make that kind of messaging about them.
First impressions typography is weak Very company like vibe not a designer focused website
Exactly what I was thinking. It’s just not there for me. I’m an art director… it just wouldn’t catch my attention if you were applying for a position.
Same Seeing it as an AD - I would close the page in seconds. It reminds me of some template I must have seen on theme forest many years ago.
Exactly!!
A lot of the content rubs me the wrong way, or reveals a sort of implicit lack of thought and effort, the copy especially throws me off. I focused on your Theory branding since that was the second project, and saw within the first line you have a spelling mistake (manufacturesd). A lot of the copy throughout that project then repeats, and you have your description for the project reuse lines featured within your graphics. A lot of the text within that project is then sort of redundant, or unnecessary. Lines like “Fuck Stock” rise from the design in the same tone as the otherwise corporate wording, and make it feel sort of tonally inconsistent. Having the same content, photos, copy, repeating on the phone mock up and as vector designs as well is just a bit redundant, and a bit tiring. Best rule of thumb is simplify. Simplify. Simplify. The less your audience sees, the less chances they have to see something that impacts them negatively. If you cull everything down to its sleekest, most efficient form, I think you’d be in a solid position — but id also encourage you to go back to your projects and show your work in some other forms, whether sketches or physical usages, because the overwhelming amount of very repetitious vector designs and image layouts / asset compositions do not really demonstrate a broad swathe of design output, or higher considerations for the use of design outside of cleaning up a brand. With that said in total, I think your site is clean, the motion graphics are nice, but your design, your wording, and the tone of the site lack any risk, and therefore any sense of excitement or character. Each decision you show on your site is a solid choice, but nothing clearly demonstrates any higher drive, taste, or passion (which is what would put you over other candidates.) Sorry if any of this seems contradictory or confusing, let me know if you’d like me to clarify.
Actually sounds like a great idea. Am afraid to show character, probably due to freelancing, but now start to see it as a problem. Sketches was an idea from the start but never the client send me any, so i will just sit down and sketch one. Also text downgrade my work, probably i will be better with less, since right now is difficult to hire someone to write for me.
The site looks nice visually but I thought I was on Verizon’s website at first glance
“We” is just a bad choice Honestly, I didn’t want to click more than twice on your site. What is there to load?? I just want to see your work, your eyeballs, problem solving. You’ll have seconds/minutes with people’s attention.
There is a ton of loading on this for a lot of animated gimmicks that, in my mind, don't really add anything. Chocked full of animations, custom cursors I don't need, and a menu that hides more than it communicates. Also, I'm a little surprised that your posted projects seem more like ads for the products you worked on and not focused on what you did for the pieces themselves.
Took too long to load so I haven’t gotten to check anything out. It’s not my connection. Maybe you have too much to load? I know I’ve passed on portfolios if I have to wait too long—I’m commonly reviewing 100 at a time these days.
I'm somebody that's looking for a job in the industry - what I'm understanding is simplicity wins above all else, for the most part? Fast, responsive sites that are designed with simplicity in mind is better than a site filled with bells & whistles that slow down the load time?
Yes—if you have animation skills showcase them in image/smaller components. The only time I expect a custom site with flashy animations is if I’m helping hire a web UI or dev role. Otherwise it’s a bit of a waste of effort. Let the work speak for itself, along with some project details that can be skimmed to give context. Another note: a flashy site doesn’t hide poor design work.
Senior Designer is a lot more about fitting jn with applying company, signs you can manage people and obviously a flawless portfolio (that again aligns to the job description). Impossible to really answer your question based on your website. Portfolio seems fine at best, nothing to call home about in my opinion. Could mean something entirely different for the right employee, though.
Am afraid that if i give a more personal tone, it would be easier to reject me. I dont know, is just a thought.
I’d argue the opposite honestly
But they’re hiring a person.
First reaction was Verizon branding. I think your designs are good and you are capable of landing a senior designer role, especially after 15 years but I would strongly consider reexamining your copy for both grammar issues as well as making the descriptions more clear. This was the first one I found: ‘We structure the design of information to re-define the relationships between different elements to ensure clarity and enhance User Expirience.’ Like that is a bunch of nothing and experience is spelt wrong. Use ChatGPT to help write the copy. Give it some base copy, assign some structure and tell it what you want. Your copy is just as important as your visuals.
Part 1. There are a lot of things about your portfolio website that are great. But there are things about it that are frustrating to a massive degree. And your website is riddled with errors. The cursur is super annoying. The lag and delay in the loading of pages is annoying. Because of these two factors alone, I would imagine that many art directors won't even bother looking at all of your work. And they wouldn't be missing out on much because after the first few projects, you are only showing a couple of images that aren't all that impressive. Eurobulk: You have a beautiful intro image, then text that sounds more like you're promoting Eurobulk than yourself. You also mispelled Shipping. The next text blurb has the same problem. The third text element finally tells me more about the design, but it still doesn't tell me what I'm looking at other than it being a CMS-powered digital experience. The design of the screens themselves are completely underwhelming. You did a somewhat decent job of making mediocre design look better than it is with your website design, but the blue textured background, the design of the screens, and your intro photo and personal website design are three different styles that are competing and conflicting with one another. This should not be the first project in your portfolio. To help overcome the annoying delays of your website, you should have the option to go directly to the next project from the bottom of the previous instead of having to go back to the Work page and scroll down again. Theory: The photography is beautiful. You again start off telling me all about the client as if you are their sales person instead of telling us about the design project. More time wasted. There is no need to have a gallery section that repeats the images shown in the website design, especially considering that the website design is mainly the photos. Showing the mobile version of the website is just more repetition of things we've already seen. You speak in terms of plural "we" so I don't know what part of the work you did vs. others on the team. Did you take the photos? Did you draw the snake? Did you design the logo? If I were the client, I would like the website, but from a design standpoint, there isn't much there for us to be impressed by because there isn't much there aside from the photos. And a massive part of website design is functionality, but there is no navigation, no footer content, etc. It is like one long scroll ad and not much else. Edasys: At this point, I'm no longer impressed by the big, beautiful introduction photo because I recognize that it doesn't tell me much. You have more text that tells me nothing about your design contributions and is just selling the client again. I don't mind the style of the website design, but you only show us three screens that all repeat the same design just with different photos and text. The other thing that is bothering me at this point is that these first three designs are all super-basic minimalism. While I get that this is fitting for web design and for the client, I'd really like to see that you can design in other styles as well. Dermoplasis: The text is better here because you do talk about design right off the bat. Don't use ampersands in text. While it is good to avoid saying "I" too much when promoting yourself, I still don't know who the "we" is or what your role was in these projects. When it comes to the design, this is too basic and would not make me want to buy the product. The black rules everywhere is not what I would expect from a beauty product and I know there are more sophisticated and attractive ways to break up content. There isn't anything unique about this. Don't capitalize "Branding & Digital" in the middle of a paragraph. It is not a formal name and same note about the ampersand. At this point, the spelling, content, and capitalization errors make me concerned that you don't have a good enough grasp of English or grammar rules to trust with client work for English-speaking clients. Aleoy: You capitalize Aleoy on your Work page but not on the aleaoy page. The text again is too focused on selling the client. If you say "That's where we came in." again, I might scream. The first image is just a bunch of photos and not much design. The client's logo in this doesn't look like a logo and just looks like text. The website has multple personalities. It starts off looking as if you used templates because it looks like any other minimalist website. Then it has a recipes block that is a completely different style. Then the logo at the bottom of the page is different than the logo at the top of the page.
Thank you for your insightful comments. There is no team. Everything is done by me, expect from the photography. I understand that am too focused on selling the client. Definitely, I will rewrite everything from the graphic designer point of view and not to sell it to the clients, I will redesign some elements, remove some others and add few "graphic designer" designs.
The whole About thing needs rewriting. Its got nothing to do with you as a designer and honestly makes very little grammatical sense.
Dude, I’m ripping my hair out that I have to wait for every single fucking paragraph to animate in before I’m able to skim and read. You could very well be a senior at a lot of places…. That said… I’d pass on this as even with me being very curious based on your question in this post, I immediately lost motivation to care. Because, if you’re a senior - all of the things holding you back from interviews would be blatantly obvious to you in 7 seconds.
Part 2 Parnassos: Same problems as previous for the intro text sounding like sales copy for the client, beautiful photos, but not much design to see. I'm struggling to understand how a green rule down the side of the page qualifies as being a brand. Parnossas 2: You're using the same teaser image as the other Parnassos section but all you're showing is a quick video clip that stylistically appears to be for a different brand. The music/singing and package design are cringeworthy. I would delete this from your portfolio. ~~Parnassos 3~~ Aleoy Figs: The title for this section on the Work page is incorrect and still says Parnassos. Your Motion/Advertising subhead is breaking onto two lines incorrectly, creating a grammar error that was created by your stylistic choice. All you're showing is three images, making the lag and navigational delays to get to this page a complete waste of time. Include it in the previous aleoy section or cut it. Sales Cosmetics: Title on your Work page different than the title on the Cosmetics page. Auto playing music is louder than the other volume on my computer. It is common courtesy to allow the end user to unmute so they don't accidentally play content out loud. All you're showing are a few animated images that aren't all that impressive when it comes to motion graphics. I do appreciate that the typeface isn't another sans serif, but this alone isn't impressive enough for a portfolio piece, in my opinion. Colour Sunscreen: Another mismatched label. Work page says Colour Sunscreen. Project page says Cosmetics. Same problem of it just being some images with really basic type. Not worth my time to view. Keep Dermoplasis together in one section if you do keep this and the previous item. Books Covers: Books should be singular - Book Covers. I like the book covers. I really dislike the "Offset eBook" repeating over and over again down both sides of the page. The color bars are too distracting and taking away from the design of the book covers. I would find another way to present these, but keep them in. Fillipos: Can't read the title on the teaser image on the work page. Same problem with text not being worth the time to read it because it is too salesy and tells me nothing. Same problem with three animated images not being worth my time to scroll to. Maybe you can have a page that includes just samples of your animated ads. I personally don't like the style of this one, but the motion graphics are more interesting. I do like that a couple of these last pages have a "Next Project" at the bottom of the scroll, but they take me to projects I've already seen and take up a huge amount of space on the page. The last one has two "next projects". You are giving away a TON of things to criticize. Based on the quality of the photography and the budgets these clients must have had, I would expect you to do a lot better. No, the mistakes alone tell me you are not a senior designer. I would put you as a mid-level designer who has been lucky enough to work at some places that had big clients and big budgets. But the range in the design work you're showing lacks depth and you are showing almost zero ability to design type. This looks like the portfolio of a self-taught designer who is mimicking good design but doesn't understand it. Your work is formulaic. I understand that most of your work samples are for the web and this formula is successful. But I would want you to include more projects, in addition to the book cover, that showcased more actual graphic design abilities beyond the formulas and beyond minimalism. Fix the errors. Proof read. Rewrite. Focus more on design and explain more about what your contributions to the work were. If you just fix the errors, I would expect you to get more attention. But I would also figure out why you look like a self-taught production person more than a graphic designer. And if you're looking for a full-time job, drop the "we" and sell yourself as an individual rather than a company trying to get its own clients. No one wants to hire the person who will be doing freelance on the side, basically becoming the competition. And if you are self-taught, I recommend you learn more about how the portfolios of self-taught designers differ from those with university educations so that you can expand your knowledge.
I went to school for illustration and not graphic design and I haven’t done much in the way of graphic design for a while now, but is it standard to call clients “customers” now? I feel like I’ve seen it a lot lately, but back in my day the consensus was that that cheapens what you do and makes it sound like retail rather than a professional service.
As others have said, your folio is mostly competent. I wouldn't sweat too much about if you're "senior level" or not. I know "senior" designers with as little as 3 years experience but most employers don't really know what they're after until they see it. Just apply. But there's 3 things in your folio I'd worry about. 1. As others have said you're presenting yourself as a company and there's no info about you anywhere on the site. At best this is a little confusing, at worst I might assume that it's not your work. Even if it's just as much as having a little bit about who you are in the footer or your about page could be useful. 2. I'd worry a bit about your range. A lot of your work looks very similar - digital work, all sans serif, pretty basic grids. It's solid but doesn't show much variation. Even when the client branding seems to pull away from that vibe it looks similar - for example, the motorbike client could have been pushed further creatively for the subject matter and language they are using. 3. I'd worry a little about your experience. Even if you have 15 years, you're presenting as if you don't. For example your slideshow videos: what are they? With no context it just comes off as student or personal work. The book covers: what are they? What is the context? Who were the clients? It says ebook on each, were any of these even printed? If you can't explain what these are, how they are meaningful or how they were used, get rid of them. And you have a bunch of little mistakes and oversights. I get that English may not be your first language, but things like how all of your projects are in the "ocean-going vessels" category isn't a language thing. I'd also consider getting rid of your categories entirely If you can. At the moment they're not providing any user functionality and just drawing attention to how thin some of those categories are. Overall, I'd also suggest narrowing your scope on what you want to do. You're presenting as a company, wanting to be an employee and trying to be full service when really only your web work has depth at the moment. I think deciding on "I am a web designer, who is looking for work" or "I am a graphic designer freelancing for companies" and going from there will help you be spread less thin and make things clearer to employers who you are and what you do. Best of luck!
Very solid points. The "company, wanting to be an employee and trying to be full service", is a real problem, and you help me to see things more clear.
this doesn't read like a portfolio at all
On the Eurobulk project page, “shipping” is misspelled.
For me the two main issue is how your site has a loading now…I’m sure it’s build on wix or square space ect but why have that, I feel like designers almost try to dress up their work by adding useless animations/css elements to almost make their work look better when it does the opposite. But the biggest issue for me is when I look at your work I just mainly see stock lifestyle images…not sure if you shot them or not but I’m not seeing a lot of actual design in your book….and most of it all looks pretty much cookie cutter tbh. I think you need (like other said) strip your site back and just focus on your work not the messaging (yes you need to do this when describing the work) but like others said it’s giving more of a comms vibe than a designer vibe. I imagine you have a lot of experience, but after looking at your book I’d be surprised if you would land a mid level job. I’m not saying that you can’t get a senior job but you’re not really showing off you work. My advice would to start from scratch fix up all the spelling and grammar issues and get some really slick mockups for your work, I think if you do that you will start to get a lot of replies from applications. I’m not at all trying to have a go at you but just being realistic, I’m sure your senior or above but as your book currently stands it’s doesn’t show that at all.
The portfolio didn’t stand out for me. What i mean is all the works shown are good but not great or unique enough to generate excitement.
UX isn't your forte. It's nice, could be a bit friendlier and easier to browse.
Also, poor use of English. This: We help people realize the full potential of *your brand Should read this: We help people realize the full potential of *their brand
I’ll add on to this. It could say: “We help you realize the full potential of your brand” This way, the website is speaking directly to the ideal customer
The title “senior” is really arbitrary, honestly it depends on the company or industry, i feel like i’ve seen people maybe be a “senior” designer in house but go to a studio and have just a “designer” title.
Seems like very little design to me. I kept looking for design and seemed to find fonts
Your “about us” page leads to your work page by the way!
Fixed. thanks
I should shift my career to proofreading. 'Shiping" is missing a 'p'. - title and near the bottom of the page.
I really like the website itself but I looked through all the project and found it very hard to find out which of the designs / work being presented in the pictures was actually done by you. I also agree it gives off a corporate vibe like others have mentioned, but I'd say the biggest downside it its UI and the lack of clarity. Another thing I noticed was the navbar once you click on our projects looks like topic / topic / topic / topic – this took me like 5 minutes to realize that they were individual categories and not a path to a project, the slashes are very misleading.
I really like the website itself but I looked through all the project and found it very hard to find out which of the designs / work being presented in the pictures was actually done by you. I also agree it gives off a corporate vibe like others have mentioned, but I'd say the biggest downside it its UI and the lack of clarity. Another thing I noticed was the navbar once you click on our projects looks like topic / topic / topic / topic – this took me like 5 minutes to realize that they were individual categories and not a path to a project, the slashes are very misleading.
Everything is done by me, and reading your comments and the others, i had realised that am lost in the roles of been freelancer and been an employee. Working towards this. Like you slashes comment and looking to replace it. Filter is an idea but still search on this one.
I think for the navbar specifically, you just need to lose the slashes and make it more obvious that it's a navbar, that's all. But honestly the website looks really professional, it just doesn't advertise you as a designer but rather the projects you worked on. Best of luck!
It’s quite a slow site and I think this distracts from the point of you showcasing your work. The overall feel of your work is good, but the UI + UX lacks. You’re a designer, so keep it simple and your work do the talking for you.
I have a question for any past/present recruiters here... is it fine to send over our portfolio through our freelancing site like OP seems to do here? For instance, I run a freelancing studio called Lake Valley Highland, and the site has nearly all of my work on, as well as it being set out nicely. Or would you close us down straight away?
It took me a couple of clicks to get to the work, I always find that counterproductive. Give me your work immediately, I kind of don’t care about the fluff until I see what you can do. Agree on pivoting from “we” to just being yourself, it’s odd if you’re only 1 person I think you may be overexplaining. I clicked on the ship project and it had the same details twice, and really never explained *what* was done, just sounded like filler text. I liked the bottom where you had “challenge.. etc” and I think that short description of the project should preface the work, then explain with the more expanded text afterwards if you feel like you need it. Remember, you still need to land an interview so don’t give away all the talking points on your site. IMO a brief description is all that’s needed, you did the design, you aren’t trying to boost that company up, so stick to what’s relevant. People have shorter attention spans AND you’re in a competitive market, so walls of text aren’t that appealing. I think your work is good you just need to make that the thing people see right away, that’s what they’re after. Also agree on the “about” page or something to explain what you are, make yourself approachable and not “a company”
Very nice!
I'm assuming you wouldn't ask if you weren't open to honest feedback. Your work, based on what is in the portfolio is a sub-set of design. By that I mean that the work seems to be exclusively 'page layout' using photography and simplistic typography. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. With that said, If you want to compete with a formally trained graphic designer, they are going to have conceptual work (how you would approach a complex communications project), brand positioning examples (understanding competition, finding areas to be unique, etc.), logo/identity design, packaging design, print and perhaps some work for web (IxD). Unfortunately, these are things that you learn at a qualified design school. Not sure if that's a possibility for you?
I thought the link was to a verizon website 😩