I just got the OK from a mod to ask for a critique of my new site, http://www.ChrisSrnka.com. Note that it is intended to be a portfolio/business site. I went to an art school that hit you with enough hard critiques to create a thick skin, so any and all constructive criticism is welcome…thanks!
If you’re showcasing your illustration skills, which you are, I would request to see much bigger pictures. I’m on a 23-inch monitor and the images are about 2x3 inches. You would have a lot more impact with bigger pictures. It annoys me when I go to a photographer’s website and the pictures are only marginally bigger than thumbnails. I want to see at least 720 pixels across on a horizontal-oriented photo. My favorite websites are the ones that scale to your monitor size and give you full screen, or significant-portion-of-the-screen resolution so you can really judge the work and be impressed by it. It makes a big, big difference to me in terms of making a first impression.
For an example of what I’m talking about, look at some of the websites at bludomain.com. A clean, simple design like yours, but with images that make an impact.
Bigger pics was my first reaction as well. The subject does not particularly interest me, and the site does not make me want to explore it further. At least no flash, kudos for that. Good navigation options, but I really do not like the way you include your resume on the About the Artist page.
Hope this helps at least a bit. Good luck.
I like the site design. Clean and simple. I doubt I’m the only one who would like more information though. What software did you use to create the images? I’m an amateur digital artist, so that kind of information is interesting to me.
What books and movies have they appeared in? You should boast a little more.
I’m using a 19" widescreen monitor so the image size is fine for me, but they could be bigger.
The watermark is good, it’s not obtrusive.
Don’t put a counter on your site. It’s extremely 1997. Go get an account at Google Analytics and put hidden code on your site to track who’s visiting.
Be careful about putting your email address out there on the site in plain text. You’re just inviting spammers to grab your address. Try one of these methods to hide your address.
I would like to see more thumbnails at the same time, at least 5.
Also a link page. When I find an artist that I like, I want to see what inspires him/her.
Ditto that.
I also agree with what other folks have said with regards to larger photos. I also would like to see maybe more than one thumbnail at a time. What if it’s images #17 and #25 that grab my attention, but I get sick of scrolling through to get there? Maybe also an example of a non-dino illustration on the home page as well as the dino one. I might go there and say, “gee, I don’t need a picture of a dinosaur, guess I’ll look somewhere else.”
But, the layout is nice and clean. It’s just that it takes a bit of work and digging to get a representative sample of your art.
Thanks for the feedback. I added some information about the programs I use, some more details about some clients I’ve worked for, and replaced the plain text email with a button. With my resume out of there, is it a good idea to list clients on that page, or have any kind of link to the resume at all? Or does that come across as unprofessional?
I’m a bit hesitant to take the dino off the front page, primarily because paleoart has been the most lucrative freelance market for me by far.
I’ll work on the larger images; that’s a bit more labor-intensive, though, so changes won’t come as quickly for that.
Eh, as long as it’s a clean design, Flash is great. I used to hate Flash when it first came out, but now, all my favorite photography websites pretty much use Flash at some level. I’m still against automatic background music but Flash? It’s great.
Eh, as long as it’s a clean design, Flash is great. I used to hate Flash when it first came out, but now, all my favorite photography websites pretty much use Flash at some level. I’m still against automatic background music but Flash? It’s a great presentation tool when used properly.
The email button is ugly as sin and distracts from the otherwise good site design.
…and bigger pics…
Working on the bigger pics, plus I’m going to be uploading more design samples, and giving the site a heavier emphasis on design, as that seems to be a more marketable skill overall; still highlighting the dinosaur art as well, since that’s my freelance bread and butter, though.
Yeah, I’m not especially happy with the email button, either. I was thinking of dropping the “button” aspect altogether and making a graphic of text on black background that just says “Email” instead.
Just one thing about this: I use Thunderbird and your button tries to open and set up Outlook, which is a pain. I don’t know enough about web design to make any useful suggestions. Jus’ sayin’, is all.
Overall, I like it.
Simple, does what it says on the tin.
The navigation is pretty good - you haven’t tried to be clever.
Negatives: the overall design is somewhat squished.
One big booboo: you’ve used HTML to resize gorgosaurus and boothdesign01.
Never do this. (1. HTML image compression sucks; 2. you whack bandwidth using a pic that’s too big for its holder; 3. it takes longer to load in.) Use a graphics program to resize, save out as a JPG, and use at original size.
You’ve also used an ugly-ass table on Pricing_and_usage_rights.
Google up a bit of CSS fancy table design and apply that.
NineToTheSky, it uses a standard email “mailto:”, which means your system is just launching its default mail client - not a fault of the site.
But my system’s default email client is Thunderbird. 
I like it, too.
Putting myself in the shoes of a potential customer, I have got two minor quibbles:
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in the “Pricing and usage rights” section you say: “The duration of these rights is three years from purchase.” Does that mean that e.g. when someone produces material (say a brochure, a book or a Web page) using one of your illustrations, after three years they have to trash the brochure, take the book off the market, or take the Web page down, respectively? If that’s not what you mean, perhaps you could clarify.
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personally I’d also like a physical address for a company I’d want to do business with (your address is available via whois anyway).
Bigger pics would be great. Lose that sad Courier-ish font; if you must have a typewriter font, use Lubalin or something.
I got a weird reaction when I clicked one of the images to see the full-size version. The link opened on a blank grey screen. You apparently have wide borders on the sides of the images and I’m looking at the border instead of the image (which I can scroll over to see). It’d be better if the link opened with the image centered on the screen.