Portfoli-Oh-so-pretty

Not gonna lie, it was hard to focus on the actual text and reading that we were supposed to do because all I wanted to do was scroll, click and surf through all of the beautiful web-portfolios there were. However, one section in the readings that caught my eye was the one on color choices..that 82% have a light design with neutral colors and 29% have bright vibrant colors, and the fact that dark sites have big typography and visuals...I guess for me it was interesting because I feel that a persons portfolio design and color scheme is very dependent on the type of work they have to display, and more importantly their own personal style and design tastes. BUT, it is good to keep in mind what type of colors you use as they can affect how users see your work (this is mostly applicable to photography sites- you don't want to use a bright vibrant color as a backdrop to your photographs).

I also picked up some great ideas just from browsing through all of the different layouts...as I've said about a zillion times before, I'm a very visual person, so instantly I'm drawn to visually pleasing and eye-catching designs..and like ALWAYS I tend to forget (well not forget, but just put a lot less though into) the structure and coding of the design...which when it comes to displaying your work is, as much as I hate to say it, almost more important than the visual design. I say this (through clenched teeth) because with a portfolio, the most important thing is giving people access to your work, making your work easy to find, easy to read, easy to access, not necessarily how pretty it looks surrounding your work--unless you are a web designer or graphic designer, where the user will be judging your work based on the visual design aspects of your portfolio as well. So keeping the structure in mind, I though the article that talked about the different navigation alignment, layout alignment, column use and interactive elements was very helpful, I'll definitely have to make sure I keep the structure in mind, my biggest downfall besides time managment.