Suggestions for my portfolio

Originally Posted by randyriver10 I was kind of hoping to keep the design but just change the colors.

It's not just the colors. The overall design is too busy (as many people have pointed out), and the typography is nowhere near as pleasing as on most other sites.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Okay, I've looked at your page for 10 seconds and I'm going to respond exactly as I would if I stumbled upon it. If you need to strap on your asbestos bunny-suit, please do so now. But I would also politely say that "this is business," and none of the unvarnished, visceral reactions that I am about to tell you are "to be taken personally." These are how decisions are made: in 10 seconds. Bottom Line: "Sale?" No. Why? Read on. In no particular order. (1) This web page is about you. "I don't give a fsck about 'you.'" I'm your prospect: I give a fsck about me. The first thing that I see should therefore be connecting to me, and furthermore it should be doing it in a context that makes your product-or-service instantly irresistible ... in terms of that connection. In other words, in terms of me, not you. (2) Don't say "hi" to me. This is business. I want to make gobs of money. I want my first glance to persuade me that you're going to be the one to help me get some gobs. (3) "If I am interested in your work?" What the fsck do you think I'm here for? (G'bye!) (4) I don't give a damm about your other clients ... or that you obviously don't have any clients since you're building that car-site for yourself. (5) Hmm... last paragraph says you've written some how-to's. My first pique of interest. Get rid of all the garbage and give me one hot-link, not to "your blog," but to the top five articles. Get rid of all of that blah-blah-blah and put in five hotlinks. (6) Why do I give a damm about your updates, or your recent blog posts? You have five seconds of my time. Sell to me. Earn the next fifty-five seconds. (7) Why would I possibly be interested in your "favorite technologies?" Like I want to know my general contractor's favorite brand of wrench or hammer? (8) Every single one of your blog-posts are self absorbed and self self self ... and you tell me that you were born (as it were) on 2012-10-09 23:52:00. G'bye!! --- Take a moment to re-position your asbestos bunny suit. (Or if you prefer, take your ego and scram.) Then, let's continue. Go thee now and buy a copy of The Little Red Book on Selling. (Gold comes in small nuggets between red covers.) This is the real business that you propose to be in; WordPress and all the technology blah-blah is entirely secondary because in a scant two years that technology will all be gone anyway. Business, however, hasn't changed much in many centuries. It frankly doesn't matter much that you're reasonably adept (so you say...) on WordPress or even Linux or what have you. There's an ocean behind your ears when it comes to business. There are thousands if not tens of thousands of people out there in the world right now, all of whom "know WordPress" and all of whom are equally within my reach. You certainly can overcome that sales-objection ... there are tens of thousands of general contractors; hundreds in my city; one that I've used over and over for twenty years. All equally-adept with wrenches and hammers, so wrenches and hammers must not be the reason why I picked one and keep doing so. You've got to sell. If you learn absolutely no other skill, if you want to call yourself a "freelance anything-at-all," you must learn how to sell.

(6) Why do I give a damm about your updates, or your recent blog posts? You have five seconds of my time. Sell to me. Earn the next fifty-five seconds.

I felt like the index should be the same type deal as a newspaper front page, it contains snippets from all of the other pages. However, I should probably make the "headline" news story a little more clear ("HIRE ME").

(7) Why would I possibly be interested in your "favorite technologies?" Like I want to know my general contractor's favorite brand of wrench or hammer?

This shows my interest in all types of technology. Is there a better phrased way to show what technology I know?

(8) Every single one of your blog-posts are self absorbed and self self self ... and you tell me that you were born (as it were) on 2012-10-09 23:52:00. G'bye!!

It shows a potential employer my code and my train of thought when approaching a code related problem.... Well, thought it did I checked my google analytics account, and the referrals from my linkedin account spent an average of 41 minutes, and visited 23.64 pages per visit on my website.

I will update the timestamps to be a more user-friendly format.

Originally Posted by dugan It's not just the colors. The overall design is too busy (as many people have pointed out), and the typography is nowhere near as pleasing as on most other sites.

I'm open to suggestions on where I can find a template that won't look like everyone elses.

I'd prefer to fix the design I have now. By repulsive typography are you referring to my font choice or color choice?

Originally Posted by randyriver10 I'd prefer to fix the design I have now. By repulsive typography are you referring to my font choice or color choice?

Font choice. Font kerning. Line spacing. Font sizes. Look. You admitted in your first post that you are not a graphic designer, so stop insisting on doing your own graphic design.

Also, since you did your your own CSS and Javascript (I think your portfolio site is just individual ASPX pages uploaded via FTP, which is a red flag to me because you didn't set up a CMS), I opened it in my iPhone and noticed that it's not responsive. Not good.

Honestly, you could get much better results if you just start with Twitter Bootstrap. It would also demonstrate your experience with Twitter Bootstrap, which is a saleable qualification.

As for the design here some links:
http://www.cssdrive.com/imagepalette/index.php
http://www.colorhunter.com/

Markus

Originally Posted by dugan Font choice. Font kerning. Line spacing. Font sizes. Look. You admitted in your first post that you are not a graphic designer, so stop insisting on doing your own graphic design. Also, since you did your your own CSS and Javascript (I think your portfolio site is just individual ASPX pages uploaded via FTP, which is a red flag to me because you didn't set up a CMS), I opened it in my iPhone and noticed that it's not responsive. Not good. Honestly, you could get much better results if you just start with Twitter Bootstrap. It would also demonstrate your experience with Twitter Bootstrap, which is a saleable qualification.

The website uses master pages, there is an admin end for editing everything all the pages, all the data is retrieved from a MySQL database. So in a sense, I made my own CMS. Which I think demonstrates some technical ability, lol.

Originally Posted by randyriver10 The website uses master pages, there is an admin end for editing everything all the pages, all the data is retrieved from a MySQL database. So in a sense, I made my own CMS. Which I think demonstrates some technical ability, lol.

This is not apparent from your portfolio.

And if you're going to respond by becoming defensive, then stop wasting your time asking for feedback.

Originally Posted by dugan If you're going to respond by becoming defensive, then stop wasting your time asking for feedback.

I wasn't being defensive. It just sounded like you thought my entire website was hardcoded. should I change the URLs to use friendly URLS (example.com/about-us)?

Trust me, my post-it notes are full of ideas now.

Originally Posted by randyriver10 should I change the URLs to use friendly URLS (example.com/about-us)?

Yes you should.

Most web frameworks (including ASP.NET MVC) and prefabricated content management systems just give you that.

Originally Posted by randyriver10 I'm open to suggestions on where I can find a template that won't look like everyone elses.

The above statement is a bit contradictory.

Don't aim at uniqueness for the sake of it. There are some design patterns that have worked for hundreds of years and there's a good reason for it. They work well. There's nothing wrong with using templates but they need to be appropriate to your content/the purpose of the website.

Anyway, check the Smashing Magazine website. They have got some useful info (+books)

Originally Posted by sycamorex The above statement is a bit contradictory. Don't aim at uniqueness for the sake of it. There are some design patterns that have worked for hundreds of years and there's a good reason for it. They work well. There's nothing wrong with using templates but they need to be appropriate to your content/the purpose of the website. Anyway, check the Smashing Magazine website. They have got some useful info (+books)

On it now.

Thanks everyone.

Well, it's converted over to a responsive design using the 1140 grid, looks pretty good on my three year old blackberry, I haven't checked any other phones. I'm going to try messing around with a lighter color scheme tomorrow and different fonts. I'm thinking about light blue and white...

Anyway, I'll mess around with the other things you guys mentioned tomorrow, I just spent the last 8 hours learning how to do responsive designs, so I'm pretty beat.