How Not to display your artwork on the web.

**Costau D** · June 1st, 2007, 08:25 PM

Interesting article that was also posted over in CGtalk.com.

I have to say, a lot of this stuff has always bothered me before the article was written.

http://www.linesandcolors.com/2007/0...rk-on-the-web/

**Elwell** · June 1st, 2007, 09:00 PM

Absolutly brilliant.
Every single point, dead on.

**JL.Alfaro** · June 1st, 2007, 09:11 PM

Oh crap, maybe my site is not up to par...

is my site user friendly guys?

-JL

**Sepulverture** · June 1st, 2007, 10:35 PM

awesome stuff there. Now I know what to do when I make my portfolio (in fifteen years after I stop sucking that is)

**Craig D** · June 1st, 2007, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by JLAlfaro

Oh crap, maybe my site is not up to par...

is my site user friendly guys?

-JL

not according to that guys blog

**Sepulverture** · June 1st, 2007, 11:18 PM

JLAlfaro - I just checked out your webpage man. Good stuff, nice intuitive layout. The music is a good touch too, not overwhelming and not understated I guess, although kind of repetitive. The only critique I have at first glance is the way you have your gallery set up where it just has the little folder icons for each set of illustrations. If it were me I'd probably change it to something more descriptive than just the little folder icons. Good work though man, and I could just be nitpicky about the folder icon thing, it just seems so nondescript and when I first saw it I kind of wondered about them for a few seconds, nothing major.

Sorry, ranting now.

**Elwell** · June 1st, 2007, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by JLAlfaro

Oh crap, maybe my site is not up to par...

is my site user friendly guys?

-JL

Um....

I'll just say, if you absolutely MUST have music (and really, must you?), make sure you have a big freaking unmistakable "SOUND OFF" button in an obvious location. And no, a little bouncing equaliser among all the other background animations doesn't count.

And your popups aren't sizing properly for me (Mac, Firefox).

**timpaatkins** · June 1st, 2007, 11:54 PM

Originally Posted by JLAlfaro

Oh crap, maybe my site is not up to par...

is my site user friendly guys?

-JL

No dude, sorry, Its confusing and jumpy and everythings moving about and blinking and the sound! couldnt find the off button, thumbnails with two previews only.... SB link in a completley unrelated place to where the other links are... Goals statement ect coming in popup form in a completley different style than the main page. If I had multiple pages up i wouldnt associate it with the main page, could get lost.

Time for an overhaul buddy!

**Costau D** · June 2nd, 2007, 12:09 AM

I think what everybody is saying JL, is let the artwork do the talking. It's not that you shouldnt have a nice website, but remember effeciency and simplicity comes first.

**Adam Nowak** · June 2nd, 2007, 12:13 AM

Here’s another good trick, use JavaScript on your thumbnails so that they can only see your full size images on rollover, and the instant they move the mouse, change the image. The self-control necessary to keep the mouse steady, or carefully take their hands off of it to view the image for more than a split second will keep them on their toes. You don’t want any slackers looking at your stuff! Plus, this has the added advantage of making them wait for the images to pre-load before they can see them.

I have never seen that. People actually do that one?

**Magic Man** · June 2nd, 2007, 12:22 AM

Excellent article, very true on every account too. Also, an entertaining read =)

**Magic Man** · June 2nd, 2007, 12:24 AM

Originally Posted by Gamerhomie

I have never seen that. People actually do that one?

Definitely seen that one a few times, its not too bad if you have a fast connection, but it does get annoying if all you want to do is look at a specific image and get off the web.

**JL.Alfaro** · June 2nd, 2007, 12:48 AM

Thanks guys, I will definitely work on that- as for the music part, I dont know how to turn it off on the programming part!
I'm at programming like a monkey is at chainsaw ice sculpting- not good. But I got a guy who helped me out with it, guess I can give him a call...

thanks again
-JL

oh yea, thanks 2bdeadbeat for the post

**Moai** · June 2nd, 2007, 01:03 AM

Use tiny, square thumbnails with a nondescript crop from some obscure corner of the artwork. You wouldn’t want someone to miss the fun of playing “Concentration” when trying to remember where a particular image is; and if the thumbnails clearly described the images, visitors might actually go to one they like in the eleven seconds they have to look at your site.

My personal favorite.

**Evil_Sloth** · June 2nd, 2007, 01:16 AM

thats about 2 years of webdesign school in that little blog. tight.

**HunterKiller_** · June 2nd, 2007, 05:53 AM

Originally Posted by Moai

My personal favorite.

Ha! It's what all the cool artists are doing.

**magicgoo** · June 2nd, 2007, 02:54 PM

Yay! It looks like my site isn't sooo bad afterall. I'm only breaking like 3 rules!

**CaptainInsano** · June 2nd, 2007, 03:29 PM

Originally Posted by JLAlfaro

Thanks guys, I will definitely work on that- as for the music part, I dont know how to turn it off on the programming part!

yah, your site breaks almost everysingle rule there JLAlfaro. mine broke 2 or 3 of them as well (fancy flash anim in the beginning + tiny thumbnails).

It's easy to turn off the music. Just open up the flash file contains the opening animation, find the layer that the music is on, and delete the layer. Takes like 2 seconds and requires no experience at using flash.

**dkounios** · June 3rd, 2007, 03:53 AM

i "lol'd" at some of those..even though im breaking a few here and there.
very good points though for anyone starting out.
definately bookmarked. thanks for the link

**Earendil** · June 3rd, 2007, 04:31 AM

I am going out an buying a domain name...

HTML is simple...I can be simple.

**Qitsune** · June 3rd, 2007, 07:38 AM

The best part is designing a good website should take less time than designing a bad one, no time spend searching clever ways to confuse the visitor and creating long intros. I only break the pop up rule, but I have to admit that in my original design (some years ago) the images were displayed on bright yellow and orange backgrounds, before I went back and changed it to light yellow/cream.

**Jason Snair** · June 3rd, 2007, 07:52 AM

great article. I think I've avoided most of those, pretty much all except one, maybe two. I do use thumbnail rollovers to view the artwork...I do have some sub-galleries.

hmm. I may have to clean thing up a bit.

**Carnifex** · June 3rd, 2007, 09:26 AM

i'm only confused about the popup display thingy...if i want to do it otherwise,should i really create a new page for every single image,or is there some script to load one page and just have the images load into the middle frame or something?
what does the majority here think of that "lightbox" thing which seems to appear more and more?

great link anyways,good thing i'm seeing it before i've finished redesigning my site.

**Chingwa** · June 3rd, 2007, 02:16 PM

He makes a lot of good points. But then again, he's also being a bit closed minded. My site breaks a couple of his "rules" to wonderful effect I think, but to each their own.

**Costau D** · June 3rd, 2007, 02:27 PM

Yeah but yours is easy to navigate, and reacts quickly with selection. Plus the thumbnails are larger than what we normaly see when people crop a pic and thumbnail it. So yours is a good example of breaking the rules the right way. If that makes sense.

*Thumbs up*

**wild thing** · June 3rd, 2007, 02:32 PM

One of these days I'll get my own site, and then you'll see.

You'll all see.

**Njord-E55** · June 3rd, 2007, 04:22 PM

Originally Posted by Carnifex

i'm only confused about the popup display thingy...if i want to do it otherwise,should i really create a new page for every single image,or is there some script to load one page and just have the images load into the middle frame or something?
what does the majority here think of that "lightbox" thing which seems to appear more and more?

great link anyways,good thing i'm seeing it before i've finished redesigning my site.

Lightbox works great, nothing else to say. It's easy to costumize even if yo have no clue how to script in Java Script. Everything is put in a nice little "control panel" in the beginning. Try it, i think you'll like it.

http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/

**Farvus** · June 3rd, 2007, 04:49 PM

I might use lightbox on my website but I noticed some problems with it. When I open image the white "fog" sometimes doesn't entirely fade out and the pic looks pale. Maybe it's just my opera browser.

The article is really helpful. However I saw portfolios that have some of those points and are not annoying or hard to navigate.

**Nerahla** · June 3rd, 2007, 04:55 PM

Njord, I have to disagree - I think this is precisely the kind of thing to avoid.

Just use the KISS method.

**entdroid** · June 3rd, 2007, 06:00 PM

Yeah I agree with Chingwa. A lot of things in design depend on their purpose, so I wouldn't worry too much about breaking one or two rules on there... but it does bring some good points to have in mind for sure.