When I was planning my final project, which is a portfolio site for myself, I looked at the portfolio sites of other artists for inspiration. I paid particular attention to people I know personally.
I went to high school with Laura Ferreira. She is now a self-employed photographer and she's doing remarkably well. Her work is primarily portraiture that is heavily photoshopped, and I'm a big fan. Her portfolio site stood out for me with its distinctive aesthetic and layout, and I was interested in it particularly because she had designed it herself.
There is no splash page. The default page is the homepage, but this isn't really clear since the content of this page is "Recent News" and there is no selected state in the primary navigation. The first time I visited this page, I thought it had defaulted to a news page, so I clicked on the "HOME" button and nothing happened.
The primary navigation is clear: HOME, ABOUT, PORTFOLIO, LINKS, GUESTBOOK, CONTACT. I like the design of the navigation bar, too. The font is an eccentric sans-serif (the name escapes me, but it reminds me of the 'Lion King' font...) but the fact that it is white on a black background makes it very legible. The rollover state turns the words from white to deep green, which I find much more streamlined than having the background of the buttons change color.
Each page has the same template. At the top is a very large animated photo (gif?) of Laura herself, with extreme gothic makeup, with angel wings that move up and down constantly. Based on the style of her photography (gothic, dark, sensual, mysterious), I think the image is fitting. The only problem is its size. It's HUGE. My browser is open to its full size, and this top bar image takes up a third of the page. I think it could be much smaller. Even half its size.
On every page, the content is located beneath the animated image and the primary navigation bar. On the homepage, there is a lot of news content, so rather than having an extremely long page, there is a scroll bar within the content area which allows users to view the content and still have the primary navigation bar visible and accessible. The news content is full of large, colorful pictures which draws my attention much more than it would if it were text alone.
Her organization of the photos in her portfolio is clean: You open the portfolio page, and it defaults to the first image in her portfolio. Under this image, small versions of the other images are arranged horizontally with a scroll bar. You click on the small image to see a large version. The quality of all of the images is superb, but the issue I have with this organizational method is the fact that there is no further organization or explanation of the pictures. No dates, no captions. Almost all of the photos are portraits, with some fashion photography here and there. I feel like it would be more efficient to either organize the photos into categories or chronological order. The only reason that I know that the photos are organized from newest to oldest is because I am friends with Laura on Facebook, so I've seen her photo albums in order there.
Everything else on this site is very straightforward in my opinion. I particularly like the "Links" page. The links are in categories: "Other Sites I'm On", "Banners for My Site", and "<3", which I understood as being a heart emoticon, categorizing sites that she likes.
The "Guestbook" page is also very clear. At the top of the content area, you have the "Sign Guestbook" section where you fill in the boxes with your information and comments. Immediately below, you can scroll through other comments people have made, in order from newest to oldest. No thinking required: Send comment, read other comments.
The "Contact" page is the shortest of the lot. Laura basically gives just her email address. I find this sufficient, because I prefer to contact people via email rather than filling out a form on their site, but I can understand that, for some people, this might add an extra step that they'd prefer not to have to take (open their email, copy her address, etc...)
All in all, I think this is a pretty interesting portfolio site that is strongly linked to the aesthetics of Laura's work. A couple of tweaks, as I mentioned above, will make it even more clear and effective. Overall, I think it is a testimony to how talented and professional she is.
lauraferreira.com
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