With Ubuntu Linux as a platform, a program called KompoZer, and a mildly improved understanding of html programming, I have managed to completely redesign my website from zero. There is not much in the way of new content, but I was hoping everyone could poke around there a little bit to make sure it is all working correctly. Any design suggestions would also be welcome, particularly by those professionally inclined to this kind of stuff.
My hope is that this is polished enough to be a good cyberspace calling card for my impending exhibition and legal employment hunts.
This project was also about learning to replace my last Windoze program. The only thing I have used lately on that OS is Planescape: Torment and I have had little time for getting involved in super intracate mind boggling wacky plot role playing computer games of late.
The Stars, Our Destination...
9 comments:
I didn't dislike the old presentation, this one is cleaner, though, and is more unified graphically.
My only editorial comment is that the banner under your name and navigation bar is a photograph from your source material. It works formally in terms of color and texture, and relates well to the type; but as the unifying element of the website it communicates to me that the source material takes precedence over the paintings; that the paintings' transformation of the source material is somehow incidental.
I'm not so sure that swapping out cropped oblong bar from one of you paintings is the answer either. I've seen too many poorly cropped paintings sold on tote bags and umbrellas to condone using fragments of paintings as graphic elements.
Actually, just now, on a repeated viewing, I didn't get that impression from the photo of the microbes.
In any event, the link for the Alzheimer's painting is misdirected to the Apoptosis image.
Crap. The last comment was rambling and non-communicative.
The new design works. It follows a tried and true pattern seen on many other portfolio sites. It doesn't present too much information, therefore doesn't confuse or distract the viewer, but offers enough "places to click" to access anything on the site in one or two clicks. In that way it is polished.
I did not quite catch that about the banner? Would you repeat your design suggestion? Specifically, is it distracting on the pages with lots of other images?
Well I think the banner might be a bit on the decorative side. Now if you made it a composite of the microbiological imagery and imagery of demons and such, like in Gothic tympana (links 1,2,3,4); that would demonstrate your thesis, and maybe not seem superfluous.
On the other hand, it is clean and looks good. Maybe stuffing meaning into it would be too heavy handed, or muddle it too much.
To actually answer your question. No, the banner is not distracting. :)
*scratches head*
*proceeds flogging dead horse*
Hopes this helps. What do other people think of this issue?
I'd probably scale down the main banner's size so it's 72dpi at 100% in the aspect ratio being used in your template. At the moment it's larger than it needs to be and has a noticeable load time.
You may also want to think about adding bars of color on the right and left of your main content area to define its shape a bit/bust up the blackness...
Other than that, I enjoy that you have common navigation elements on all of your main sections. Good stuff!
I agree with adding a few colors to add some dimesion to the site, whether it be bars, or what have you.
Seems pretty straightforward, which is nice. Nothing more irritating that having to work to find what you're looking for.
What happened to the old men photos?
Here's a really cool overview of how to use CSS to create a tabbed navigation system. Not that I'm saying you should do anything like this on your site, Dr. J. I just thought it was a fairly informative overview that all Astromen! touching HTML/CSS related projects might enjoy...
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