Lost in the Plot

So, after what has been more than a year of continuous tinkering with many, many designs, I’ve finally gotten my creative portfolio online with all the main ingredients I wanted. It’s nothing super amazing, but really the main things I’ve learned while putting it together are-

a) Encoding videos to be small in filesize but high in quality is an elusive, irritating art, even when making the most of Apple’s Compressor. I have yet to find the magic workflow that makes it easy.

b) It’s a strange struggle to decide whether to show fewer, larger images, necessitating more navigation and potentially hiding good work, or show more work, but smaller, and keep it simple to browse and see everything.

c) My attention span for personal web projects like this means I have to work fast to avoid changing my mind mid-way and starting again. This is irritating, since I’ve designed or built over two dozen iterations of my portfolio in the last year, and none have satisfied me. The upside, however, is I’ve gotten very fast at prototyping, building, and making stylesheets that I can quickly, dramatically rework. As a result, I designed and built this portfolio in less than one day, and because of that it still seems somewhat ‘fresh’ to my eyes!

I’ll post more later about the failed designs from the process, it’s interesting to look over them. There are many, and I think some nice ones too, but for now it’s nice to just have something finished and actually live!

Check it out at www.lostintheplot.com, any comments are welcome!