As a designer it’s important to have an online presence available for people who
need to see your work and learn more about you as a creative. This is extremely
helpful for those, whom you cannot meet personally to be able to get sense of
your process, character and talent. Having a portfolio site is essential to showcase
your work. When its done in a clever way, it can greatly improve the number of hits
received on your site.

A friend (THX AMAD) sent me a couple of links the other day of some very interesting
portfolio websites. When I first clicked the links, I was a little confused as to what exactly
happened. Had I somehow clicked my way into the artists desktop and was browsing
their HD? It then dawned on me as to what I was actually clicking… I was blown away
at the depth of this site and the pure cleverness of having a portfolio site laid out in this
manner! Utilizing Java and JQuery coding, these artists successfully gave the feeling
of a real desktop.

Clever. I felt it was a very intuitive way to get someone to click through all the projects.
Having the layout of the site mimic the user interface of an OS machine, I found myself
quickly clicking on projects and exploring more than I usually do on other, more traditional,
web-portfolios. Along with the intuitive nature of the navigation, It had the feeling you get
when you use the bathroom at someones home and curiously peek at what’s in their
medicine cabinet. The excitement of uncovering some hidden gem kept me clicking away!

While this format might not be great for everyone, both viewer and presenter alike, it
was an interesting way to showcase work. To get people to click deep into your site is
challenging. Using a design that is intuitive for strangers will help represent who you are,
not only a designer but as an architect of information and builder of user experience.

 

 

Three Examples of Virtual Websites:

http://dow-smith.com/

http://fatimaalqadiri.com/

http://gli.tc/h/