youssefsarhan.com - My Online Portfolio

Shrimp

www.youssefsarhan.com

My online portfolio has gone live today and i'd like to see how it's running at different resolutions/os/browsers ... I've used browsercam.com and it seems to be all smooth.

I'll be updating it regularly with new content to keep it fresh and exciting.

Let me know how it works for you. (loading time, etc)

Thank you!

Goodshape

Well, it's a flash site so I assume it'll look fine in anything 1024x768 or above that supports flash.

Using 1280x800, Firefox 2, WinXP SP 2 here and all looks well.

Personally I would have tried to create that same design with html/css rather than Flash, as I don't really see anything that would need to be sacrificed - except maybe the brief loading animation.

I do like it though. The design is nice and clean, and reflects what I know of your work - which is also very good. Only wish there was a bit more of it (your work that is) on the site. Seems a little barren compared to your Deviant Art page, for instance. Maybe you could add a link back to your Deviant Art from this site?. And how about adding an information page to each of the entries?

Also, could you make the video on the frontpage play automatically after loading?

the Guru

All flash not a big fan, and the intro ahhh I hate them, it would be nice if the video started when you arrived at the home page, looks a bit crap, with nothing there

Loads and looks fine on ie7 and Firefox.

on the up side your traditional art looks great,

Laslo

I think it looks fantastic! Everything except for the text on the nav - it's a bit hard to read and blurred. A nice pixel font might look better. You artwork's excellent too, well done!

CoNfOuNd

The site loads very fast.

There is a 'black margin' along the top of the flash that it would look better without.

Another improvement would be the ability to control the sound level on your flash animation, instead of just having a mute/unmute button.

GoneShootin

Gave up on waiting for the flash to load on ISDN. Why must you use flash!

nikimere

Nice site. A complete flash site is fine for a portfolio site imho.
Only thing i would say is the video player looks crappy. It's easy enough to make your own playin flash why not design something that fits in with your site?
The traditional art is amazing! Nice work :cool:

yeraulone

nikimere wrote:

Nice site. A complete flash site is fine for a portfolio site imho.
Only thing i would say is the video player looks crappy. It's easy enough to make your own playin flash why not design something that fits in with your site?
The traditional art is amazing! Nice work :cool:

I agree. The other two sections are great also.

Malice

I'm looking at it on Opera 9.21 at 1152 x 864 resolution on Windows XP and it looks fine. I would discourage the use of Flash also or at least offer some alternative for users that may not have it installed or have it disabled.

I also have to commend you on the standard of the artwork being displayed. It looks great!

Shrimp

Thanks guys for all the feedback and comments, really helpful.

I know what you mean about using flash, it can be a bit unnessacary at times. It's good for sites that need to be flashy, pun not intended, and i think fo ra portfolio site it's nice to stand out with a little flare. I think as malice_ said, and alternative page would be good, so people can choose. That's something I briefly thought about, but I was excited about designing in flash so I kind of forgot about it, but I will try it out.

As for the video playing automatically, that was a decision based on person taste, some people prefer when they can view things at will, gives the viewer a sense of control. Letting the viewer choose when to play gives them the opportunity to make sure their sound is at a correct level, if they are in a place where they want to be quiet then it wont impose on them, it allows the viewer to view that site at their pace. It doesn't force anything on them. That was the idea.

I will be adding alot more content in the next while, I've got some projects I've got planned so I will be keeping it fresh and up to date. I might have to reinvent the navigation when more content it added, perhaps a scroller.

Thanks again guys!

Shrimp

GoneShootin wrote:

Gave up on waiting for the flash to load on ISDN. Why must you use flash!

What browser/version & os are you running on? Thanks!

H3LLg0d

Very nice design and flash buddy:)

But all flash i would kill you and search also

nearly all the site could have been done in xhtml or css and have your few swf files integrated

Liam Byrne

H3LLg0d wrote:

Very nice design and flash buddy:)

But all flash i would kill you and search also

nearly all the site could have been done in xhtml or css and have your few swf files integrated

Same opinion here. If you're giving people the web address, you might be OK but no-one's gonna find it if it's 100% Flash.

Goodshape

Shrimp wrote:

As for the video playing automatically, that was a decision based on person taste, some people prefer when they can view things at will, gives the viewer a sense of control.

I'd tend to agree with you -- I'm not a fan of automatically playing videos or music most of the time, but that would be similar to my dislike of Flash websites and I also agree with you that a portfolio site can get away with it from time to time.

What you have at the moment though is a big blank rectangle as your 'front page'. If you don't want the video to load straight away, then why put it here? Maybe move it to a separate page which the user can get to via the menu and show them some introduction text or image on the frontpage instead.

crybaby

site looks great, but i would say sort out the text on the left sidebar it looks very blurred and muddled like its been in and out of photoshop, apart from that though it looks great

H3LLg0d

My other 2 cents on this besides what's already posted


I'm not a fan of automatically playing videos also
BUT
in this case what you have is needed , without the music vid playin as, a normal surfer im bored and its livens the page on-click

2.font is too small

3.few nicely and small ......coded divs would do the trick

Shrimp

Thansk for all the comments guys, it's good to know what ppl think!