My Portfolio

[rAyVoLvEz]

Hi All,

Thought I will share about my new portfolio design. It is one of the hardest ever revamps I undertook, and I'm glad that I figured my way through theme-ing for wordpress. Getting wordpress to behave un-blog style, involves too much code hacking via the themes and the source files.

Wordpress is the backend content management system, but obviously, the front-end does not look a bit like wordpress (hopefully!)

I'm still in progress of uploading works.

As for the blog, there will be contents, but slowly.


Here's the link: http://rayvolvez.com


Comments are definitely welcomed!

[Hermie]

For à revamp I woud say it's ok but are you looking for a revamp?

After a while the design needs to be a new design. I think revamping is for those who want to change it a bit and later on doing a complete new design.

You used the same colors, good colors yes, but the same. Even some images are still there.

What I learned from you is to go out of the box and make a design that would make people stay at it to look some more, even when they visited a while ago.

All for now to say what I liked about is the navigation menu. Plain and simple and just words, nice...

[rAyVoLvEz]

Hey Herman!

Thanks. Design colours and elements basically remained, because of the fact that the colour scheme and and that signature image has already been synonymous with my identity.

For corporate portfolio and identity concerns, colours and basic elements should not be changed for sake of change? Perhaps, I'm not adventurous enough to do a complete overhaul of my already established branding.

Just as Colin will probably keep his orange on the word "Cafe", T-Mobile will stick to Pink, FedEx to stay with blue and orange......and the list go on for big businesses to even freelances.

We don't change, not because we do not want to break out of the box. More so, because what we have is already a representation of us. Frequent changes will possibly reflect instability.

Revamp is not complete renovation. And like what I used to say, why fix something that is not broken? Why change something that is working?

The revamp is pretty much on the overall layout and structure of the website, works remained (but selectively). More importantly is the cms behind.

What should bring visitors back should be content and user experience. The portfolio design only forms a first impression.

That's my opinion. Of course, I will have new works, that will hopefully feel out of the box. And I will write articles, which I hope to.

[kiwicolin]

Ray, I use a framework called Genesis by studio press
They use child themes and make it easy to build less wordpress looking site. You can see it on my blog, I still need to brand it a bit better though.. . http://www.photoshopcafe.com/blog/

You can check it out here, it's $59 but you can find some discount codes around

http://www.studiopress.com/themes/genesis

[rAyVoLvEz]

Hey Colin,

That looks like an amazing wordpress theme!
I'm using as well, a personal modded version of JournalCrunch on my chinese blog at http://writeonwhite.com, which I really love in terms of the theme structure and functions.

Will stick to what I did thus far, but will make some improvements here and there. Right now, need get more contents up and also to figure out a way to clean up the portfolio section. The contents are all jumbled together.

[pthought]

I consider myself a fan of your work, have been to your old site on more than a few occasions when needing a creative jolt. I loved your old design, and like this one. I have looked at your site on a mac and pc and the green text at the bottom doesn't seem to match the images at the top of the home page. Also, seems a bit harsh on the eye as the former green text was very soothing to my eyes. Still, your work remains amazing... It also seems there is a bit too spacey on the home page,particularly the menu items.

Finally, I don't think I ever noticed before, but the flower/star burst design looks a lot like the BP logo.

All that aside, I still think it is a nice design, especially for a transition from one framework to another.

[mkeefe]

I like the overall direction you took. It will be interesting to see how you'll incorporate a blog in a one-pager, but neat nonetheless.

While I know i'm a programmer before designer I will say Wordpress 3 has made it much easier to build a CMS on a stock Wordpress codebase. We (PixelBit working with Peniferella) just wrapped up this layout/code project a few weeks back which you;ll notice is very "un-wordpress". Of course if you start needing plug-ins and other custom code it can become a bit more complex for a beginner.

http://scootertraffic.com/

Lastly I never noticed the connection to BP's logo before but its subtle enough you'll be fine.

[rAyVoLvEz]

I consider myself a fan of your work, have been to your old site on more than a few occasions when needing a creative jolt. I loved your old design, and like this one. I have looked at your site on a mac and pc and the green text at the bottom doesn't seem to match the images at the top of the home page. Also, seems a bit harsh on the eye as the former green text was very soothing to my eyes. Still, your work remains amazing... It also seems there is a bit too spacey on the home page,particularly the menu items.

Finally, I don't think I ever noticed before, but the flower/star burst design looks a lot like the BP logo.

All that aside, I still think it is a nice design, especially for a transition from one framework to another.

Thanks Corey! Yes, I'm still tweaking that green. It is quite harsh to read.

As for the spacey feel,

As for the BP Logo, didn't realise and in actuality didn't even know about BP logo until now.

My logo is actually a bulb with a flower (symbolises ideas flowering) and if you look close enough, there is a "R" in between with filament. It is a new logo, needed something simpler than that big glass for documents.

[rAyVoLvEz]

Hey Matt!

Glad to hear from you. As for the incorporation, there is actually 2 loops on the front page to display posts from 2 different categories. For the self-introduction section, sadly, that is hardcoded in.

Yes wordpress structure is actually easy to use, or understand, if we really look hard and deep in there for just once. My next wordpress theme will be much easier.

BTW, I like scootertraffic.com, looks great. The pastel blue and orange works great for the site's purpose!

[kiwicolin]

Nice one MAtt, is that site using buddy press?