New Site - Bespoke Responsive Portfolio WP Theme

[gord]

Been working on a new theme for my portfolio site as the old one is looking a little tired. See tiredness: http://www.rcsmith.co.uk/

Also, I don't really like the structure of that site. I've rethought how I want to present my work. If I had to describe the new one, it's fairly minimalist. I've ditched the social media icons. Now the icons are all about the technologies/techniques used. Anyway, see for yourself: http://www.rcsmith.co.uk/impact/

Based on the twentytwelve theme, I ripped that apart and built myself a boilerplate for future projects. I then built what you see above on my boiler. I'm using twitter bootstrap as a framework. The various size/orientation combinations of my work always pose a challenge.

Still have some things to do. Custom 404, bit of SEO work. But it's presentable at this stage. Feel free to critique.

Oh, I've not done much old browser testing either... wouldn't hold your breath on that one.

 

[gord]

I like the Hey Not Too Bright video.

Thanks, lots of work in that.

Not bad, but i hate the fact it takes up the full page width, feels un-natural.

It's not a fluid full width design. It uses the bootstrap responsive grid so it's a fairly standard 12 column layout. Are you on a smaller desktop? Or is it the backgrounds being full width that you're not keen on?

 

[gord]

I quite like it but the header section annoyed the hell out of me

Someone's critiqued the old site...

Thanks for all the feedback so far. A good mix.

The jenga tower comment I'm not sure on. Which part are you referring to?

My grey box on the homepage is a little incongruous but it didn't fit anywhere else. The page needed to introduce what the site is about, and the styling. So the featured item uses the same dark band that the items use. The items use that because it's perfect for framing. Then I thought it really should have more body text for my introduction and I'll link that box over to the DNA page.

 

[gord]

Thanks Wilko, that's great feedback. On your negatives:

- The feature bar height is dynamic, defined by the text content so that the text doesn't float about next to the image. In order to amend that I'd need to bring in more text which I'm reluctant to do, but I can test it out. I'll think about letting the image escape the confines of the band too. That could work nicely to emphasise the featured item.
- That text box has been mentioned as odd and lost, so I need to do something with it. Considering it is about me I'm thinking I should accent it with the green, not grey. I may make the bottom row a 4 column layout.
- I had the icons as white before. I quite liked the subtlety of the darker ones, but I could try a light grey.
- The category sections will grow to 3, 4, 5 rows as I add more items. I may adjust the category to use 3 column layout for the items instead.

 

[gord]

It's so nice to work with. Quick to get up to speed because everything is documented well. I've integrated it into my boilerplate so all of my Wordpress projects will be using it. It's definitely worth checking out.

 

[gord]

Cheers Helium. I thought someone would spot that here. I've used some JS trickery to make sure my preview content is aligned more centrally within its container. But I don't recalculate it when the browser changes size so you're seeing that effect. If you refresh it recalcs, but as you say you rarely resize. It does however effect orientations on devices, so I may introduce it.

 

[gord]

So I've spent my evening rejiggling that damn text box on the homepage. It's in the only place that makes sense to me. I have adjusted it's styles though, and made it a link, which gives it a better sense of place on the page.

Adjusted the spacing on the featured item bar so that it's a bit thicker. Having the item escape the bar is a no go.

Categories display smaller thumbs for desktops.