Design Review: Liam J Moore
32
As part of our feedback post, we promised to review one commenter’s site here on Pro Blog Design. Well, our winner was Liam J Moore, so we’ll be reviewing his site today.
A quick note to everyone who took part in the feedback post though, thank you for all of your suggestions! We’ve gone through every single one of them, more on that to come on Monday!
Now, to the review. Liam is a student completing his Masters project in Multidisciplinary Design this year. The blog currently serves a joint purpose; as a portfolio for his design work, but also as a progress log for the project.
The really interesting thing about Liam’s site is the style he has set it in, have a look:
(click it to view in full size)
What Has Been Done Well?
The most obvious part of this site that has been done well is simply how it looks. The color scheme consists solely of yellow, grey and white, all across the site. There are very few graphical touches, just large blocks of yellow or gray, all laid out to give quite a memorable appearance.
The vivid yellow is one shade you rarely find making up the background of a website. Combine this with simplicity of the setup to get quite a bold feeling from the website.
That leaves a good message about being brave enough to try new things as a designer. Perfect for a portfolio site.
Another unique touch is the picture in the sidebar. You’ll notice I couldn’t resist putting it into the intro image for this post, just because it’s such a cool idea.
A regular picture with a “Hello” speech bubble to welcome you to the site. Another simple effect. Another effective one.
Even the typography on this site is nicely set. The large fonts are effective where they need to be, and reading off the vivid yellow background is a lot more pleasant than I expected it to be. I don’t think it’s a move that any newspaper websites will ever copy, but given that this site is primarily a talent showcase, it might just be worth any small usability loss.
What Could be Improved?
One question I had to ask Liam before I wrote this review was this, “is the site primarily a portfolio, or a blog?”
The answer was that it had become both, but in the long run, the real purpose was to be a portfolio. Sometimes it can be hard to choose between two goals for a website, but to get the most out of it, you will need to make that decision eventually. With that in mind, let’s look at how we could re-assess the homepage.
The two things you will be drawn to first when you load the homepage are the large messages on the grey background in the center, and the “hello” image to the right. That’s fine. The text introduces you to the site, and the photo is a great personal touch.
But underneath that, there’s a large empty space. The sidebar extends 2 or 3 more screen’s worth down the page, stretching out the homepage where it doesn’t need to be. All of the content in the sidebar is useful, but not an essential.
Given the purpose of the homepage to drive readers to particular aspects of your site, we can take out some of this sidebar content on the homepage, and only display it on the blog pages instead:
- Hello – Introduces Liam. Given that this is a site about Liam, it’s obviously going to stay!
- What Am I Twittering? – Twitter is great, but perhaps this would be more relevant to longer term readers? (i.e. the people who will be on your blog page)
- Flickr – The Flickr photos here are great. There’s nothing wrong with keeping them here, or perhaps we could find another way of displaying them elsewhere in the site?
- Archives and Module Blogs – Both of these sections are navigation for the blog. But the reader hasn’t gotten to the blog yet, so let’s take them out.
- Search – Again, the reader hasn’t chosen to visit the blog yet, so a search engine may not be what they’re after. It’s a small part of the page though, so it won’t do much damage in staying either.
- Contact details – Always an essential for a portfolio!
- Blogroll – Nice to have on a blog, but it takes up a little too much room for the homepage.
Now we’ve cut down on the space, how are we going to drive users to the portfolio page?
The first step is the simplest; in the welcome paragraph, link the words “portfolio website” to the portfolio. You could even link “Web & Graphic Designer,” and there’s no need to change the appearance of the text when it’s linked.
Another option would be to display pieces from your portfolio. Displaying the full images might be a little much, but smaller thumbnails of each could be effective.
Some Usability Tips To Consider
Liam’s site looks great, but as I browsed around it, there were a few little things that bugged me occasionally. Nothing major, but when a lot of small things come together, it can make a difference.
- Logo not linked to the homepage.
- The logo shade of yellow is very slightly different to the shade of yellow in the rest of the website. It’s not something noticeable at first, but might be worth looking at.
- There are very few rollover effects on the site. Both the navigation buttons in the header, and the post headlines in particular, would benefit from the interactivity. For the post headlines, some CSS could be used to make the entire grey block into the link, and the effect only needs to be simple. Changing the font color to white would do it.
- White comment fields. Normally white is great to read and write off, but when the white is set against the yellow background here, the contrast turns it almost neon.
- Location of the Earth Divided tweet in the header. This tweet is exactly where I would expect a slogan to be. I was able to work out what it was when I saw the “22 days ago” at the end of the message, but for non-Twitter-addicts, it may be a little confusing.
- The social sharing links at the end of each post are in blue. Given how well the site sticks to the 3 tone color scheme, it would be nice to see these few links fall in line with the rest.
- When visiting the blog, you’re greeted with a lot of titles like “Tutorial #17” and a lot of talk about the Masters project. Given that the Masters is the focus of the blog for now and the next while to come, it would be worth giving a quick overview of what the project actually is at the top of the blog page. That way, new readers won’t be lost when they start to dive in!
- Bonus pointer; it still says copyright 2007 in the footer. Woops!
Conclusion
All in all, I think Liam’s site has a great style to it. It’s boldly different to the norm, which is a selling point for any graphic designer. The stark yellow may not be to everyone’s taste, but striking moves are what it takes to get attention in a crowded niche.
Now it’s your turn, what do you think of Liam’s site?
PS – I just wanted to give a shout out to one of Liam’s projects, Earth Divided. There are some great uses of graphic design in his logos (Plenty of people walking around Belfast will have spotted them before!), but for everyone else, you’ll find the Twitter profile is full of truly fascinating statistics.
Enjoy this post? You should follow me on Twitter!
Great post format. Are you planning to do more of these reviews?
I agree, these reviews are great. You’re giving really helpful incite not only for the website author, but for those of use as well that enjoy looking at other people’s sites as a way to better improve our own skills.
I would love to see more.
Thanks for letting me know you two enjoyed it! Because of that, then there definitely will be more posts like this! :)
This is only the 2nd review I’ve done this, but they’re more fun to write as well to be honest. Like practical case studies I suppose. Will definitely write more now!
I’d like to submit one of my blogs for review. Please let us know when the next one of these will be coming up.
Hey. I’m not sure how exactly I’ll be selecting sites to review. Some bloggers have written in paying to have their sites reviewed. Alternatively, I’d probably post up about opportunities on the Facebook or Twitter pages.
Or best of all I suppose, just pick some pretty interesting sites I find around the internet! :D
If he created and posted his site in 2007, he should leave the copyright as is. Copyright is to protect intellectual property, by indicating when it was created. It is not supposed to indicate the current year for the sake of demonstrating how up-to-date the content on the site is.
For example, if he posts his new site in 2007, someone completely rips it off in every way in 2008 (and says “Copyright 2008”), and in 2009 he updates his copyright to say 2009, the thief can legally say that he owns the ideas, since his copyright has an earlier date.
I’m not a lawyer, but isn’t the copyright date supposed to apply to the date the content was created?
What you’ve said makes sense if he is copyright the design. What if the content is to be copyrighted as well, it’s been updated in 2008 and 2009?
And last of all, another gray area for me, does content actually need to come with the words “Copyright” at all to be legally protected? Is creative work not protected by default, and you then have to specifically license it as free/distributable etc.?
Like I said, I really don’t definitive answers for those. But I doubt that if it came to a court case, the date on the bottom of a webpage would be the defining argument in the case. :(
Thank you very much for taking the time to highlight some of my skills and faux pas here Michael, needless to say, the faux pas are something I imagine my lecturer not being too happy with! However, there are some great pointers in there, and suggestions I need to improve upon such as the sidebar being too long, the slightly different shades of yellow and improving the navigation.
It really does take an outsider’s perspective to really notice pros and cons, as I’m sure you’re aware, being the designer you sometimes get wrapped up in the work and forget to see the other people that will use your finished piece.
Hopefully when I get he time, I’ll be able to implement some of these ideas.
Thanks Liam, really glad you appreciated the review. Your site looks great and I love the design style, just a few little tweaks could go a long way!
But finding the time in the middle of that monster project will probably be the real challenge! :P
Well done Liam, it takes a brave man to have his blog reviewed.
And of course great review from MM.
The review helps us all ask meaningful questions about our sites. I sometimes try to persuade clients not to add things to sites, by saying that it does not add to the reason the site is there.
Perhaps before any of us start a new site, we should ask ourselves the question…
What is the purpose of this site?… to get new customers / members.
to express my opinions, to make money online….. add your own reason here.
I’m sure there are lots of other questions we should ask ourselves, but perhaps that simple question would keep us focussed.
I know what you mean Keith, and can understand the bravery part, but I’m always up for suggestions, other people’s point of view, and overall interest in my work! Honesty in any industry is needed.
I know what you mean too about asking for a purpose to a site. Sometimes I put stuff on my site without properly thinking, do I need this (Flickr, Twitter etc)? What will it do for my users? I realise after time that they aren’t necessary. It’s a question of designers asking honest questions to themselves, just because everyone’s doing doesn’t mean it should been done on our sites. In part that’s why I was bold with my colour palette, I adore colour and very rarely see it splashed around, I guess it’s a style I love adopting.
I’m looking forward to seeing more reviews from Michael in the future.
I really like the way you used the yellow in your design! I think yellow is quite a difficult color to use. At least I don’t use it very often. Good job and great site by the way!
Thumbs up for this review!
As a designer I think the website design is even more important, than a regular website. I personally would create some rounded edges its very “blockish”.
“just because everyone’s doing doesn’t mean it should been done on our sites” This is my favorite quote and highly agree with this one.
Great review – Liam, I think your main problem with this design is the sidebar. It is way too far down and just like PBD says, makes a huge amount of empty space that looks really ugly. If you change that (which shouldn’t be too hard, just take out a few widgets.), it’ll be much better. Keep it up!
your suggest is very influential.
Great post, more like this please!
wow these are very nice.. thank for this site staff
The website have a well designed navigation bar but I didn’t like so much is the color yellow background. Maybe I’m not just used to see yellow back ground. But this is just my opinion.
Hey check out this site called ShadeIt.net. They have coolaroo shade sails of all sizes and colors. I ordered my shade sail and it arrived a week later.
Great post, its good to have your design critiqued by an outsider every once in a while! I hope to read more of these reviews in the future!!
Thanks for sharing.
I really like the way you used the yellow in your design! I think yellow is quite a difficult color to use.
good to have your design critiqued by an outsider every once in a while
Considering all factors, you need to discover which aspect needs to maintain or to change in the long run. This can help the design in a much appealing to the users.
I’d like to submit one of my blogs for review. Please let us know when the next one of these will be coming up
Thanks for the great content.
“Honestly I was impressed with the layout. I would like to make this post as my resources for my school presentation, Thanks for this one.
The nervous system stimulant, used for cellulite. For this reason, pain-relieving properties.
Thanks for creating a really cool post which is actually very well penned. Will be referring loads of friends about this.Extremely well put. I visit a number of blogs to find out new points constantly. Here I found your blog to be quite interesting.
“Web design” covers a lot more then just graphic design, you know, of which coding is not the biggest part, but I feel one of the more specialist and for many designers one of the more daunting aspects of web design; that’s probably why there’s a bit more attention to it then to the other aspects.
I think that reviews like this are really useful, as Liam has said when you are wrapped up in the work and the actual content and items going into your website, little things can go amiss and it takes an outsider to be able to pick up on them as your are looking at and working on the site for long periods of time. I like the site and think that it works really well, yellow is a really brave colour but I think it works well with this site as its one of the main colours. A persons website really shows off their working style and personality so was good to see what others have thought.
Normally I don’t read article on blogs, however I wish to say that this write-up very pressured me to check out and do it! Your writing taste has been surprised me. Thanks, quite great post.