First draft of my website. Note: NSFW content.

[Piet De Ridder]

Administratror's note: This site contains some nudity and may not be considered safe for work (NSFW).

Hi. First post.
Got XaraWebDesignerPro a few weeks ago and here are the first results of my work with it: http://www.pietderidder.be/
(Many, many years ago, I worked with Xara Studio as well — the very first Xara graphic design & illustration software, if I’m not mistaken — and when I opened WebDesignerPro for the first time, I noticed that there are still quite a few traces of the original Studio software, which made my first steps in WebDesigner pleasantly familiar.)

Anyway.

I am a graphic designer and composer (Belgium-based) — not a web designer though, as you will quickly notice — and the site is intended to be a sort of permanent audio-visual exhibition of my work. Most of the graphic designs are for the (Belgian) music industry: artwork for cd’s and vinyls and such. The music (my music for films and tv, plus various other pieces) is a separate section.

The site is still very much unfinished though — that entire music section is still missing, and there is no text yet either —, but I would like, at this point, to get some first reactions and opinions to see if I’m moving in the right direction with this. Again: I’m an absolute beginner at webdesign and maybe I'm overlooking or ignoring basic things and techniques which shouldn't be overlooked.

Important to know is that there is lots of initially invisible content here. On almost every page there are a number of things to click (logo’s, arrows, circles, images, …) which will trigger the appearance of a pop up layer with additional material. For example, page 2 (the one with the large cup of coffee) has about 10 of these extra layers.
The hot spots (where to click to make a pop up spring into action) are not always obvious (most are very obvious though), but the mouse pointer does an admirable job of indicating whenever it hovers over something that will respond, so it shouldn’t prove to difficult to discover everything I’ve embedded. At the moment, there are only 10 pages.

Suggestions and advice are most welcome.
Many thanks in advance!

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[gwpriester]

I love the site. It is very creative and fun to navigate. Most excellent.

Rename your pages though. Right now they are all index.

[pauland]

Thank goodness for some fresh air. Great job on the website it's a pleasant surprise to see someone using Xara and breaking away from the usual boring formats.

Thank you.

[Cloud]

congratulations on a very good site. but and it is a big but. The navigation needs working on. People visiting a website expect the navigation to be a certain format and any sites which stray away from this format (regardless of how good and different it is) will quickly loose interest. Creatives like us love sites like this but your run of the mill site visitor might get frustrated. It is the reason that the vast vast majority of sites on the net from some very creative firms and individuals will have an easy to navigate site. For instance on a mobile phone one may end up being frustrated and leave the site - don't forget that there is no such thing as hover on a mobile device, people need to be shown where to click on a site viewed on a phone, which would be a terrible thing as the navigation aside it is a very good site.

[pauland]

I rather disagree with Sketch's view on navigation. If the subject matter were to be related to sales to the general public of commodity items, I would probably agree with Sketch, but in this case I think visitors who are on the same wavelength as the OP will take the time to invest time in the site because they like the content and because it is different and they want to find out more.

Sites that don't reveal everything without some work from the visitor can be highly engaging.

We don't all need to be spoon-fed and all websites don't need to be navigation bar clones.

[Cloud]

I completely disagree paul, as a designer the op will be hoping to get custom from his site and the point of such a site (portfolio) is to make it easy for potential clients to navigate to the good bits, that is why artists exhibit in galleries rather then hiding their work around the city to be found (although that sounds like a good idea). And as I said those on a mobile phone will either be clicking on everything like some demented idiot or they will simply leave the site because unlike a visitor on a pc with mouse hover effects, mobile phone users will have no clue on what to click. And Piet you certainly do not need to have a navigation bar like apple.com but make it easy for people to view the rest of the site, it is certainly worth it. Also the site; with some of the pop-up elements is very wide and causes horizontal bars to appear, and that's on my 1280px wide laptop.

[pauland]

It's not mobile friendly at all, so you are right, but then again any site made for a desktop isn't mobile friendly if it doesn't adapt to the format. It doesn't mean people can't have fun at desktop sizes.

I'm not saying the site personifies the best in design practice - it doesn't need to.

Piet, still thumbs-up from me.

[gwpriester]

Part of the fun of the site for me is the navigation and the surprises. Totally am with Paul on this one. This site is a big credit to Xara and demonstrates that you can create really excellent sites with this product. I suspect most visitors will think the site was created with Dreamweaver.

@Sketch - I am a big fan of your design and your clean and clear easy to navigate websites. But this is a designer's portfolio and as such should push the boundaries. I defy anyone to go to this site and not be intrigued and entertained with the creative effort that went into the site.

[steve.ledger]

Brilliant, I love it - especially like the Album cover section. Very tasteful and a fun play of words (actually, the name Triptease is used for some travel websites.)

I have to agree with Paul & Gary.

[Piet De Ridder]

Thanks everyone.
I’m afraid I took the site down however, because (1) it still needs a lot of work anyway, and (2) I received a kind notification from TalkGraphics that the occasionally frivolous nature of some of my designs may cause unease or even offense with certain people in certain situations, a risk which TalkGraphics wants to steer clear from, and while that worry has me scratching my head a little, I do (have to) respect that point of view.

So, that’s that. Thanks again for the input.
Grateful regards,

Piet

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