Website Feedback Please...
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Hello everyone! I finally got my act together and got a website. It is still a work in progress, but I was hoping I could get some feedback. I am not a web designer so I might be making some incredibly stupid design decisions. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Also I would like to know if you think I should cut any of the pieces from the portfolio or which ones are your favorites.
Thanks in advance! Here is the link...
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@j-sienkowski NICE website! Love how streamlined and easy it is to navigate, with the emphasis on your art.
Your portfolio: for me, you're leading with your strongest piece and that's great. In a webinar, an art director recommended no more than 15 portfolio pieces, starting and ending with your strongest pieces. (They said that's what most art directors and agents want to see; they're busy people.) Your starting piece is strong. You may want to reorganize and end with a piece like "Recycle Bot", "The Space Attic", or another recent piece that you haven't included but feel is one of your best.
What you're doing great:
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Consistent, child-friendly style
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Professional-level drawing and rendering
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Cohesive color palette (Is blue your favorite color?)
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Great visual storytelling
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Variety -- while most pieces are set indoors, you do show that you can handle various subjects and settings.
A few things to consider:
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Sequential art. All the pieces in your portfolio seem to be standalones except for "Step One" and "The Great Cheese Heist". Do you have another illustration from that project that you could include? Do you have any other sequential pieces from a project to show that you can consistently render characters and color palette?
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Illustrating a variety of emotions. Most of your characters in your portfolio have happy, smiley faces or surprised faces. Do you have any pieces that show you can illustrate a greater range of emotions?
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Storytelling. For most of the pieces in your portfolio, you're a master at storytelling. However, near the bottom, things taper off a bit and there were three pieces in particular that left me wondering what the story was: "Where are the Cookies?", "Rock the Vote", and "Eureka!" The rendering and execution of these illustrations were beautiful but there wasn't enough visual information for me to understand what was going on without reading the title. Should these pieces be revisited? Or would your portfolio be stronger if they were removed? That's totally your call.
Oh, and if you really did illustrate a cover for Spider magazine, have other professional credits, or have won any illustration awards, you may want to mention that on your About page. It gives the impression that you have experience and that you know what you're doing.
Of course, this is just my take on it. So take it with a grain of salt and do what's best for you. Your portfolio is beautiful and even as-is, effective.
illustrator - author - smiley person
mbaileyart.com
instagram.com/mbaileyart/ -
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I thought it was really great, love the lettering and how your art is the first thing you see. I think it’s all very consistent but the interest for me kind of drops off after the spider mag illustration. In my opinion a few of them don’t really show any sort of storytelling to me they’re just good drawings. If you do have any sequential illos throw them in there! Otherwise we’ll done!
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@Melissa-Bailey-0 Thank you so much! This is so helpful. I can't believe how thorough you were. I really appreciate it.
I agree that the storytelling falls off with some of the pieces. I want to show some spot and vignette illustrations for some variety, but I tend to struggle in the storytelling when I do. I guess I'll work on it some more.
As for the sequential art, I could break the "Step One" into two separate pieces. That's originally how they were created. The "Where are the Cookies" has two other companion illustrations I could add too.
I should have more variety of emotions in my characters. I think I enjoy working on silly/happy illustrations more so than others–so those illustrations tend to be my "better" work or at least the ones I prefer. I'll work on it.
Thank you again! It means a lot that you took the time to do this for me.
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@Asyas_illos Thank you for the advice! You are right. The storytelling could use some work on the back half of the portfolio. I'll work on some more sequential illustrations too. I appreciate the feedback. Thanks!
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@j-sienkowski you're so welcome! Your website and your art really is great; it was an honor to take a look at it.
As far as breaking "Step One" into two pieces, that could work. For me, though, after realizing that "Step One" and the "Cheese Heist" were sequential, I wanted to know what happened after the heist. Were they successful? Did they get caught? Did things not turn out as planned? Having that third piece in the sequence could "finish" the story you show in your portfolio and that might be more satisfying for super curious viewers like me.
P.S. - I LOVE illustrating happy characters too -- showing a variety of emotions is something that I'm also working on in my portfolio.
