[zstout]

Hello,

I'm trying to get a direction for my portfolio site redesign I will be starting (hopefully) this week. My current site is a bit outdated and I was much less of the coder back than when I first coded the site than I am now.
With this all said, I am putting up some new work/revamping old and I would like to keep it as a one page folio with better organization/new layout and styling ideas. I do want comments or ideas about navigation in regard to the old vs my new redesigned direction.

Folio found at: zacstout . com

I appreciate any ideas/comments/rips in advance!

-Z

[CompelledDesign]

Hmm, although I'm not particularly impressed with the design, you've got some really nice work on there.

[zstout]

Yeah, the design to me is just "meh."

Appreciate the props and feedback.

[StisterMeve]

Agreed, nice work. Like the minimal approach of the site, but it could be more elegant.

[d*d]

just a couple of stylistic elements chucked together without any idea to hold them together.

[bazzle]

Lovely work, the site design doesn't do it justice. Get rid of the nasty gradient on your name. The boxes around the nav items look nasty aswell.

[zstout]

These are all great suggestions.

I love the use of white space (as in the color white, not just open space) in design and I believe for web, images look great framed in the middle of some white space along with a great layout/visual hierarchy.

popcornbox.com <- this is a great site that accomplishes its main objective: put focus on the work and images and not on the actual site. Ideally, I would like to go more in this direction and was wondering how easy it would be to implement this same structure into my new site. Is this a common wordpress theme they just customized or was it from scratch? Mite look into going this route if there is not a boat load of code to sift through. I can customize a theme but not completely overhaul one.

Thanks again.

[bazzle]

The popcorn site makes me cream. It shows how effective minimal is.

If your looking to go in that direction, design and code it from scratch. Don't cut corners.

[bslate]

Demo Site

Or just make it from scratch. Popcorn uses what looks like a 8 or 16 column grid. Its a nice site but its been done so many times before. Personally I think there is a disconnect between the playfulness of the logo/company name and the website.

[zstout]

bslate - Thanks for posting that theme's demo site. I do agree with you that there is a bit of a disconnect but I think that has something to do with the type that is used in the menu (sans-serif vs. serif). I do also agree that this "magazine" layout has been used time and time again but popcorn does execute it very well (minus the disconnect you mentioned).

So, when you both say code from scratch do you mean for a wordpress based website or just a standard non-cms website? Furthermore, do I really need to use a cms such as wordpress for this site or just make a regular static html/css site?

[bslate]

Wordpress would only be helpful if you plan on updating regularly. You need to build the standard html/css site to begin with, even if you go the wordpress route.

[zstout]

10-4 on that bslate. I do have a blog that would be nice to house within my site but otherwise I really wouldn't update it too often. I would really like to have the setup popcorn has because in the near future I will be putting up a fine art section for my oil paintings which I will be updating semi-often.

Hmmm...