Ak 443

Really cool 3d modeling and I especially liked the 404 Cartoon Illustration. Nice work on the rendering there.
Here are a few points to consider ..

The header on the top right explains exactly what this site is about. That works well.

The black background helps frame your photos. White may also work well.

the navigation is a little tricky. Rule of thumb is to have all the link options there. The method you have currently employed (where the link of the current pages disappears completely from the navigation) can get a little tricky as the site expands with the inclusion of more content.
Keep the navigation as simple as possible i.e Resume | Portfolio

On clicking on the portfolio it takes the viewer to a landing page which displays all the respective sub-links (illustration, cartooning etc) This actually breaks up the flow of the site. Options you can try out are, have all the listed sub-links on the main nav bar (i.e resume | Illustration | Cartooning ,,etc) Skip ‘portfolio’ completely because your site itself serves as a portfolio.

Keep the header part of the page kinda consistent in height. With your name on the top, and consistent header image size. Also make the header image a home button. It’s a general practice to hit that image to take a viewer back home. On that note, you can also skip using the words ‘home’ in the Nav bar. Alternatively , you can bake your name (txt) into the header image along with what the site description.

I agree with Nmfrazer, It would be nice to have an ‘about’ page telling your viewers what inspires you to do what you do. Probably a peek into your process of creating art.

The category section on the blog side has a drop down. Avoid that if you just have a few categories.
As mentioned by your wife and Nmfrazer, you should surely play around with photo galleries. Anything thats not too fancy so it does not take away the viewers attention to your art.

Hope this helps and yes, All the best!

Dude. I really liked you site! It has a lot of energy and showcases your character out there.
I just read your article on increasing one’s ranking on Alexa. It’s a good read. Overall I like your site, but it did take me a few minutes to try and figure out what kinda services where you offering initially.

Here’s my experience with smartboydesigns.

When I first landed on your site, I was not sure what I was looking at? Was smartboydesigns a site that offered actual web design service, art related? And with the posts on the home page.. this though totally left me not knowing what smartboydesign does. If there is a small blurb on the homepage about what exactly the viewer is to expect from here, it would be helpful. probably pull a line of two from the about page)

I stood a bit back to see what specific content or layout choices you had made that where standing out. I noticed that most of your H1 Headers were a bit too bold because of the font selection. This sometimes can feel a bit overwhelming. Try using other font thicknesses (if available)

Still unsure about what smartboydesign did, I went to the ‘hire me’ to get more specifics .. it was only at the lower part of the page (below the fold) that I got to see your gallery or works. I would proudly throw that into the front page so viewers would immediately understand what the brand is about.

I was not sure why ‘Archive’ was a link on top. Im sure you had a sound reasoning behind that. I felt that that could have been on the right side as a link widget in its respective page.

Just my thoughts.
Cheers

I kinda agree with wrool, some pages have a lot of white areas on the right side and those areas could displace respective information using a text widget. But I wouldn’t use a widget unless it has a very specific use. On the other hand, the site feels complete with the content. I would suggest using the same text size, font and style (that you have used for the home page) in the remaining pages.

I do understand that you were looking at filling some pages with more text and thus used the center justify text (like in ‘forums’ ‘rental list’ and ‘resources’) avoid the center justified text as it is not easy to read.

I do also have a suggestion for the text color. Try and use a darker shad of the blue header Hex value for the text on all pages so it feels like it fits in with the theme well.

All the best, Mike

Going though the general look,feel and layout of the site, I must say .. Pat your self on the back as you have a solid site here. The content is easy to read visually and the articles layout are well structured.

I did find the heading for each article a bit confusing as Im not a hardcore comic book fan and the content is not directed to me as a target audience.

I do have a few suggestions that may help the site
1. The header has this text that appears and disappears everytime on mouse over. This is a bit too distracting and I cannot find the need for it unless it’s just for vanity.
2. The articles had a comments form on the right side that seem to be over-shadowing the whole article itself. I would give the comments a lower priority .. or probably would get it back to where it is now once the site shows a lot more comment activity.
3. You should play around with the typography of the site. Headers that are currently bold can be a shade or gray, same applies to the content.
The footer text is all black and this takes away a lot of attention from the content section of the site.

Overall, good stuff here comicbookcritic
Keep the good work rolling

Hi EKC,
Just had a good look at your site and here are my thoughts and suggestions on the site’s load time and appearance.
1. I do agree with a couple of users here, do drop in some color.
2. The content area is surrounded by a drop shadow, and this effect is lost in the background(bg) color because the bg color is darker than the shadow (ref: https://i.imgur.com/6ZkWv.png). As an alternative you can change the gray bg color to white or something lighter
3. If you are gonna change the BG color, you might want to make the links a darker color so it stands out on the bg
4. the ‘home’ link is too small. General rule of thumb is making the whole header image link back to the ‘home’ page.
5. This sites’s been designed for a very large width. This makes the text in the content area stretch. The rule of thumb is to have 6-8 words a line before it breaks. This is easy to read, anything over or under that limit may make it a wee bit difficult to read. This point is not a necessity but worth checking into.
6. The header image can be limited to 960 pixel instead of 1050 pixel. This makes the site more easily readable on people’s computers with monitors of a lower resolution.
7. The left floating ‘social’ links rite now look a lill intrusive, they can be fixed to the page somewhere in the content. At times it covers up the ‘home’ icon and can be seen a s a bit unintuitive.
8. I would remove the “Site Lock Secure” feature at the bottom. If your site is what it says it is, dont worry about proving this to who ever lands up at your site that it’s not spam. Having this feature currently made me wonder if this site had spam content. If that didn’t exist I would have not though otherwise.
9. I may not be completely right about this, but I think everytime I go to a new link, the header image is getting downloaded again. I do believe there is a method of dropping in code at the .httpaccess, which instructs the browser to now constantly check to see if the header image is new and download it again. … Or it may be because my internet connection is slow this evening .. ??
10. The site’s content area has rounded edges. try and keep that consistent with the header image too.

I hope you find these suggestions useful
Cheers and all the best!