Easy as ABC...

I found this while looking for graphic designers. You open up the page and find a sticky animated gif for the opening graphic that blinks and flashes and goes to the logo. The logo it's self is nice and simple, following the trend of current logos. Scroll down (yes a lot of scrolling on the index page), and you get to the menu. Very simple going along with their ABC, separated by 100% width unstyled tags. Another thing that kind of doesn't seem to work well is the amount of colors used. It seems like every other line is a different color and in a large bold text. If you want to learn about what this company does, you have to click on a small white link titled "info" under one of the horizontal lies.

You click the links to view samples of the artist's work. The main problem with these pages is their consistency. Each page has a different header graphic with the company name on it. None of the pages use the logo that we see on the main page, instead some styleized text that looks like word art from MSWord.

The last thing that irks me about the page is the address. They stay with the members.cox.com address. A lot of times when people are searching for portfolis on line and they see something like this they will just skip over it. It dosn't give a very professional look. Even if you cannot afford a monthly fee for your own web hosting and you use a free service, or are hosted by a friend, look into investing $10 a year on a domain name that you can cloak your old URL with. Domain names can be registerd with many companies, I use www.godaddy.com and pay $10 per year for it.

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My suggestions for designing your web page/ portfolio page is to study other people's pages. Look at your favorite artist or designer's pages and see what they do. If you like something figure out how you can borrow it or incorporate a similar element in with your design and make it your own Don't copy it directly, just borrow an idea and make it yours. A simple Google search will let you find numerous elements for fee that can help make your web page pop and look more professional. http://www.dynamicdrive.com has may elements that you may like to incorporate. Do not go and add a million onto your pages because you like them or want to use it. Think about it first. Does it have a purpose? Is it something that will help users navigate/ view your page? Is it needed?

Also, keep scroling to a minimum. Yes you will have to scroll on a page that lists your resume, or short biography, maybe even your portfolio. Try and keep your index/ splash page very short. Your logo, contact information and navigation links are all you really need on this page.

Keep your sub pages similar looking. Develope a nice header with navigation links and logo that will stay the same and in the same place on each page. If you want you can have a banner that works with it and change the images depending on the page you are on, but keep the logo and navigation in the same location to keep with uniformity.