The Spinning Spinny Circles

Okay so I went and got some feedback from one of my design employers and a few other facutly/students here about the hover effects I had on the thumbnails, and I tried out a few different options for each of them to see what they liked best.

What I tried was:
-Begin as circle, spin into larger circle (like a mini-lightbox with motion)
-Square to larger square
-Square spinning to larger square
-Circle to larger circle
-Square spin to circle
-Circle spin to square

(I've also slowed the speed of the spin down, because I think part of the craziness of the effect was it was going really really fast)

Ultimately the feedback I received was that circle spin to square was actually favorable to those I talked to, especially to one of my bosses who works with design. He thought it showcased a technical skill above and beyond the regular 'make it larger' or 'put a border' or 'change opacity', and that it wasn't "necessarily a bad thing" if they wanted to sit and hover on my images...as he said "I would be thinking 'hey that's cool, maybe I want that on my website and I should contact her about it'".

Of the changing shapes/spinning, they liked the circle to square the best because it felt like it was unraveling into its original shape, as the square "looks" larger than the circle even when they're the same size. They also liked the changing shape because it "made it look different" which made them "instinctively want to click it".

My website is updated to reflect this change, and I would really appreciate the feedback. It's not that I didn't want to listen to anyone...I've just gotten a lot of positive reviews outside of the classroom on this effect and so its hard when you have conflicting opinions to know which to listen to.

swearstudios.com/portfolio/galleries/weblayouts