I was about to ask you whether you played ball on the Houston courts (bball, EVR) before I realized you live in Canada. Anyway, what's your hourly rate? Shoot me an email, please: zackster@gmail.cøm
Hello HN: I am quitting school for freelance, here's my portfolio
81–87 of 87 posts
Re: Hello HN: I am quitting school for freelance, here's my portfolio
#82I like your layout, it stands out.
I think you are perhaps dimming the texts to make the highlights more skimmable? It's a good idea, but when I read it I spent about 1 or 2 seconds on the highlights and started skimming the rest on my own.
Perhaps you can make the main text colour static, but highlight with a bigger, bolder font, or a different colour. Maybe a significantly different-looking font face, or highlight the text background instead.
I really like your barber's web site btw. Very straight-forward, and the aesthetic choice seems to be sending the right message. I had a chuckle at the first-aid photo. :)
http://ivzhao.com/belmont/imgs/11.jpg
Maybe I'll check out the place, a bit pricey for me though.
Re: Hello HN: I am quitting school for freelance, here's my portfolio
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for your suggestions (especially the one about Opera). I have darkened the text, now working on other issues.
Also note that most non-aesthetic mouseover interactions are pretty broken in modern usability models.
I knew about 'Mystery Meat Navigation', but this site offer 'Mystery Meat Text': Text that only becomes readable if you hover over it.
Re: Hello HN: I am quitting school for freelance, here's my portfolio
#84From your stylesheet: html { min-width: 1080px; } This strikes me as a bit radical. I browse on a MacBook Air (11.6"), and this resulted in me having to scroll my window both vertically and horizontally to read through the page. I don't have to do this, normally. Maybe shoot for 960?
Hi mlgrinshpun, Really appreciate your careful observation. I was aware of this, and it was a design tradeoff that I was willing to take (like this controversy "low-lighting" thing). The big dilemma is always "how to pack a lot of information into a limited space without looking cluttered". I also tried 980px but that extra 100px does make a big difference (plus considering the "flow" of the text). Therefore I gave u…
There's always people who don't have large screens (even on desktops) or who don't have their browsers expanded to the size you are looking for. The goal of a website, before any sort of graphic design, is to communicate information to as many people as possible. By making the website difficult to read (or completely impossible in many situations (IE, iOS, etc)), you're alienating people. If you're freelancing, that's definitely not something you want to be doing. You never know who's going to be coming at you with a work offer.
Cross-browser/cross-device compatibility is one of the most tedious things about web design, but if you're trying to drum up business, especially _for_ web design, you need to demonstrate your competence at it. Your portfolio is really the best place to do this. I'll be honest, if I was thinking of hiring a web developer, I'd be put off by your portfolio, because you're putting form before function.
Re: Hello HN: I am quitting school for freelance, here's my portfolio
#85Be pragmatic! Now you're saying you have skills with the Web and iOS, but you're website says otherwise. * If you're advertising skills in web dev, using invalid HTML appears sloppy and unprofessional. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fivzhao.com * If you're also advertising skills with iOS, do visit your website from iOS, like an iPad. Then realize there are no mouseover events. * Don't use absolute siz…
Not passing W3C validator check can hardly be called sloppy and unprofessional. Try running Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Google, hell even super simple sites like Hacker news through W3C and see if they validate (hint: They don't).
Agree with point 2 though, that one should be fixed.
Re: Hello HN: I am quitting school for freelance, here's my portfolio
#86Your site is broken in IE7. http://min.us/mvbDq8b As sad as it may be, IE6 and IE7 are still the most prominent browsers used by corporate America. If you are building b2b apps you must be conscious of these antiquated beasts. Best of luck in your freelance endeavors! EDIT: I have found this tool to be pretty useful in testing against various versions of IE, IETester http://goo.gl/4Egz9
You don't have the real url?
Re: Hello HN: I am quitting school for freelance, here's my portfolio
#87Well I think:
- The mouseover effect should be removed as soon as possible.
- The layout looks very random and seems to lack structure, I get that it can be printed on two sides of a paper, but doesn't really look good for a website imho
- Also I think it's pretty hardcore to achieve a diploma while working at the same time, quitting is like giving up.(highly subjective)