Already feeling the pressure of this challenge, I've been working a few things this weekend. Posting my ideas have made me at least feel accountable, like I can't let any of my usual excuses and procrastination allow me to just push this to the back burner as I have in the past, but maybe that's just the fire I needed to get on the right path. Whatever the reason, I'm already in motion!
I started my approach as I would any other client and tried to really focus on what I wanted to say with the portfolio site, what I wanted to focus on and even what I liked about the site as it is. The look needs dressing up and I think doesn't really convey any kind of message about me as a designer yet but I also felt there were some good parts I wanted to keep.
Right now, as soon as you pull up the home page, you can easily identify
-business name
-samples of my work
-how to contact me
These are important elements I feel should be right up front or at least very easy to locate and I know I don't want to lose them in the new design.
I had also been doing some browsing on my own and included looking through links on smashing magazines portfolio sites for inspiration:
30-single-page-portfolio-design-for-design-inspiration and saw some good, some bad and some really cool designs.
There were a few very visually appealing sites but they just didn't fit my functional requirements (way too much clicking to see work or find out about the person or company). Still, for style ideas, it definitely helped and the wheels were turning!
Next, I knew the right images for the site would be extremely important, especially for the background. After brainstorming, some of my key ideas were beauty, fun, feminine, strong creativity and a little vintage or retro feel mixed in if possible. Finally, I tried to keep in mind that this design had to translate well for everything I would need - business cards, post card design, blog and other social medias.
I was full enough of ideas now to start sketching and was able to get out a basic outline for the structure of the page and element placement. I didn't have my images yet but had more of an idea of what to look for and felt confident the design would work across the board (maybe with a little tweaking here and there but overall, I was satisfied for now). A lot of times, the images I find will guide or even change my original idea or direction with a site and finding the right images in the past have not been an easy task. I wasn't sure if that would happen here or not but felt fairly confident in my sketch.
Next stop - the quest for images begins!
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