So, this is the first time I write about work I’ve done on my blog and I think the Smashing Magazine Web Design Challange is a great chance to do this and look at my own work with some critical thinking. The project I’m writing about is a website/blog I made for a friend some month ago. We know each other since we were 12…13 years old, and he always had the plan to become an actor. So after school he studied acting and he is about to finish his studies. So this website is kind of a portfolio to promote him and the projects he had done during the last years and I am supporting him with my webdesign and development skills.

Typography

The best thing was, I had a lot of good atmospheric pictures of him I could use. If you are a scout or into casting you search for a specific type of person or character and a picture (or a video) is the best way to transport that to this audience. The first thing you see when entering the page is this big box with pictures of the person, so you get this impression right away.

Color

I decided not to use much colors in the layout. The pictures are impressive enough, you don’t need to much colorfulness around them. The orange I used for the links needed to be striking to catch the eye and be warm in contrast to the very calm base of the layout.

Some self criticism: When I criticize layouts of others, mostly I my suggestion is, „can we make it more colorful?“.

Conclusion

I’m somehow out of the „designing business“ for a while because I work as a front end developer since I graduated. But sometimes I am the one giving feedback to the designers and I am the one asking the questions. This project was like testing if I still can design a website and not just developing the code underneath the hood.

And now, you’re pleased to comment and criticize!