Employers to Promote Myself To

I am going to use this blog post to showcase potential employers that I am going to promote myself too. These are employers that fit within the industry I want to work in and who I feel my skill set lends itself towards.

Scorch London:

Source: http://www.scorchlondon.com/wp-content/themes/scorchlondon/img/logo.png

Scorch London is a production company based in London. Who have a very extensive and hugely impressive list of clients:

Source: http://www.scorchlondon.com/?gclid=Cj0KEQjw7r-rBRDE_dXtgLz9-e4BEiQATeKG7AoLcqLlWSyWUD6Sz8ap-ZDaTebXAJAy68dSW46k_sAaAjPa8P8HAQ

They produce everything within the video sphere from adverts to motion graphics, they handle the lot. This would be a great company for me to be a part of and to recognise my work. My style suits theirs I think and the all-encompassing nature of their products fits with my work ethic and ethos.

I am well versed in all aspects of video now and this company seem to thrive through diversification. That is something that really interests me and something that I think will keep the job interesting and fresh. 

Liquid Productions:

Source: http://quickfilms.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Liquid-Productions-Logo.png

Liquid Productions are another company similar to Scorch. They are a ubiquitous all-encompassing production company again with a hugely impressive list of clients. They appeal to me for a similar reason as Scorch. Their work is of a very high standard and the sheer variety of things they produce fits with my ethics of production.

The min thing is to not feel pigeon holed or have too much of a repetitive aspect. I think a production company like either of these two would be a great place to work as the sheer variety will inject interest and validation.

Also they produce incredibly high quality products and that would bring with it a strong sense of pride, achievement and teamwork.

These are definitely two options to advance with.

Final Portfolio Site

Here's the link to my final site:

www.danielmole.co.uk

So I have finished the changes to my site. It hasn't come too drastically far from it's initial look but it works a lot better now. The whole site looks a lot cleaner and nicer as a whole and there is more unification overall. It is more user-friendly, better to look at and more intricate. Everything I have added are really just finishing touches and I am much happier with the whole site now.

Given some time over the summer I will tweak it a little further, hopefully adding an actual contact form, and also updating the content to my latest stuff.

All in all though I really like my site and I think it looks and feels a lot better than a vast majority of other sites out there in the similar field.

Contact Into

I couldn't find any contact forms that really fit my aesthetic and it would be very time consuming to make one so for now I have just placed some simple information in the footer:

I like this addition as it is incepting with the sites styling and the link, when clicked, will open up your default email application and start a message to that address which is really sophisticated.

Favicon

I couldn't figure out last time how to add a favicon but after a bit of research and some help from a friend I got it down. The favicon I chose was just a simple red square in the same colour as is prominent throughout the site. This strengthens brand identity and just adds little life into the address bar. Here's it all finished:

I think it's a really subtle, nice touch and something that is way overdue.

Gallery Changes

The gallery is one of my favourite parts of my site. I think it looks really strong and makes my work shine. I didn't want to change anything substantial just update an effect that I felt wasn't really working. The effect in question was the hover effect. When hovering previously the key colour over wrote the image. Like this:

Idle:

Hover:

This looks good and really fits with the style and theme of the website as a whole which works well. However, the fact that hovering over the image and having it completely vanish isn't a very clever design choice as it makes it so the art disappears. To fix this I simply added a border to all the images and had the colour appear onto the border as a hover effect:

Idle:

Hover:

This still has all the clarity and stylistic impact as the previous effect however, now the image remains visible throughout the hover and makes for a more consistent and less jarring viewing experience.

Navigation Changes

The navigation for my site was tricky. Back when I first made it I couldn't get it to work sitting under the logo so I locked it to the bottom of the page. I knew this wasn't the right move but it was a quick fix. So I used this as an opportunity to revisit this aspect and get it how I wanted it. This is how it looked:

So I moved it to the top of the page underneath the logo. This is the conventional place for the navigation to be located which as a result makes my site as a whole far more navigable. I also re-styled it pretty substantially. I wanted a cleaner more elegant look to the navigation. This is the end result:

I also think that this looks a lot nicer too. It is clean and gives the logo itself a little more character. Once other thing I wanted to do was fix a glitch that had been bugging me for a while. That is that when you go to the mobile size and open the navigation then move the page back out the mobile navigation stays underneath the main nav. Like this:

The menu at mobile level:

When the page has been scrolled back out to desktop size:

So I went into the code and added this:

And with that the problem was solved. This little bit of code ensures that the mobile navigation cannot be visible at any size above the size that it becomes viewable. It was a quick, simple fix that works really well. So with that and a bit of styling the mobile navigation went from this:

To this:

Again this styling makes it fit in a lot better and I think that it is a lot clearer to use now. I think overall I have really improved the navigation capabilities of my site just through these changes.

Analysing My Own Portfolio

So here is my current portfolio:

I am still really happy with it to be honest. I really like the design and principles overall but there are definitely a number of factors I want to change. I am still really happy with the colour scheme. I think I am going to keep that the same.

The typography is still something I like. I may address the logo at the top as it doesn't quite work for me anymore so I'll need to look at that.

I need to add in a favicon to the address bar just to keep up with brand identity. And also I think that I want to move the navigation system to a more conventional position underneath the logo. I'm not 100% sure of that decision but I think that it will make my site more instantly navigable.

Other than that I really like everything to do with my site and don't want to change too much.

As I mentioned in the last post I really like simplicity in portfolio design. That was the main thing I had in mind whilst designing it in the first place. I thought about it from a clients point of view. Since I want to be a pretty flexible artist I wanted to showcase both my video and design skills in equal measure as concisely as possible.

Everything was to be as straight forward as physically possible. The first thing seen on the page is the logo which details my name and what I do. Then the main thing to attract the eye is the showreel. It is clearly labelled and very inviting to click on. 

After that is a simple box with my social links and then finally there is the sites main navigation. Everything makes sense and is displayed as simply and cleanly as possible. This gives a god indication of my design sensibilities and also I think invites potential clients and employers to be able to quickly and easily summarise what I can do and get an idea for my style.

So in summary I want to change a few aesthetic points and also maybe address some aspects of the structure. If I have the time and can find the right asset I would also like to incorporate a contact system into the site but I'm not sure I'll be able to do that in the time limit and make it look the part.