fi3er Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 before I post the link, I want to ask, if I even can. I finished my online portfolio and want to know others people opinions, BUT I also know that some discussion portals dont like such threads ( cgtalk for example ) so I ask if theres no problem to do it at cgarch?? jeff? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 theres no problem. post it up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fi3er Posted September 22, 2003 Author Share Posted September 22, 2003 ok, thanks for info STRAT. soo, here we go... www.fi3er.com C&C welcomed, whatcha think about WEB and about ARCHITECTURE presented ??? ( Iam a lil scared now ) :winkgrin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh1587140445 Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 Well I must say you need to chop up those images if you want to make this a good web page. Because when I opened up you index page I was able to read your info until the whole image loaded and then it reduced to fit the window. And I know you can expand it to original size, but you do not want your viewer to do any extra work. Also it is very graphic intensive. There is no real info on your pages, just images. That is nice and all, but what about some sort of description? Also, there is no way to navigate thru your page. You need a way for your user to be able to back to the index page without using the back button. You typically want a navigation bar that is visible at all times to your user. You cannot assume that all users are as computer savvy as you are. The best test is to take your website to someone you know that is not very good with a computer and see how they navigate and if they have trouble. It will be a little hard to sit back and watch, because what may be obvious to you, may not be obvious by your users. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 chopping up the images into smaller pieces will also make the pages load faster. this is true for most images. for example.... if you have an image that is 600 wide x 400 tall, and cut it into 4 300 x 200 chunks, and reassemble it in a table, it will load faster. use dreamweaver to assemble your pages, and not photoshop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethace Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 I think we must be careful here guys. Because obviously if Daniel was doing a project (and he seems to be really addicted to building what he designs as opposed to just visualising them like a CG Artist would do) he would present the project on an A1 board, or series of boards, to be read at a foot or two away in a competition or for a client to observe. The idea of building a web site, is a separate department, to the actual Architectural design department in practice. I believe Daniel is first and foremost an Architect. And how he organises his work, for presentation is fundamentally as an Architect would do it. To actually use the whole A1 board like a canvas, to pack in as much useful communicative visual information about a project onto that board. Normally the CG Artist only supplies material, which an Architect might arrange at a reduced format on his presentation boards, along with everything else. The less text on a presentation the better. The fact, that technology and internet bandwidth hasn't caught up with people like Daniel yet, is beside the point. Ideally, in the future, Architects will not have to present actually cardboard, or spongeboard mounted physical material anymore. But the judgement rooms for competitions will have a couple of A1 sized LCDs on the walls, and the A1 board will be displayed on these, directly from a huge 20,000 by 15,000 pixel photoshop or corel draw file format. Heres hoping anyhow. P.S. To be honest with you, I cannot see when more Architectural colleges buy into this large format LCD technology now, especially for interim crits where Architectural students may be working primarily on computers. Thumbs up to Daniel's web site, I say. He is just doing what any good Architect/builder of buildings would actually do. It just hasn't been 'cut up' for display on a 15-inch laptop screen that is all really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diego Rosales Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 In terms of usability, I would consider setting up the page so the user doesn't have to load a full 1024x2800 image at once. That's just overkill for low-bandwidth connections. Take also for example the fact that the people who will be interested in your work might not have a big graphic display like some of us, and might be running at a much lower resolution (1024x768). Anyway, even at 1600x1200 it looks huge. An important point is that people will feel much more confortable (and will spend more time looking at your work) if they "feel" they are in control of what they see at a given time. I would make the index more informative and try to cut the information (text, images, etc) into "chunks" delivered at user's request. Lastly I would make the links clickable and not just an image. This could be helpful: http://www.useit.com /Diego Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kid Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 great projects. very groovy interiors. I really like the foam blocks. I had no problem with the site design, it better than a lot of architects sites where there seems to be an abundance of useless and poorly executed Flash design. I did have a problem reading Czech though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazdaz Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 I think the site looks great... or more specifically, the images look great, BUT... ... and this is a big 'BUT', I would imagine that the site would be completely un-usable to someone with dial-up. I found it funny that even the resume (something that would normally be all text) was one large bitmap!... so instead of taking all of 5 seconds, if someone is on dial-up, it would take like a minute or 2 to load up. I would defintly look into changing that. While I like the simplicity of the site, there should be SOME navigational links to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethace Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 The guys criticisms are all valid ones, but I agree with Kid also. For those of us lucky enough to have a fast broadband connection, at work or whatever, the large images are no problem. My favourite was the foam block project too. I think a theoretical concept like the foam block concept, needs a big canvas to properly illustrate the notion. Similarly with the technological smart bath idea. Which are strong Architectural concepts, and cannot be said, on a 300x300 pixel image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 Originally posted by garethace: I think we must be careful here guys. Because obviously if Daniel was doing a project (and he seems to be really addicted to building what he designs as opposed to just visualising them like a CG Artist would do) he would present the project on an A1 board, or series of boards, to be read at a foot or two away in a competition or for a client to observe. The idea of building a web site, is a separate department, to the actual Architectural design department in practice. I believe Daniel is first and foremost an Architect. And how he organises his work, for presentation is fundamentally as an Architect would do it. To actually use the whole A1 board like a canvas, to pack in as much useful communicative visual information about a project onto that board. Normally the CG Artist only supplies material, which an Architect might arrange at a reduced format on his presentation boards, along with everything else. The less text on a presentation the better. The fact, that technology and internet bandwidth hasn't caught up with people like Daniel yet, is beside the point. Ideally, in the future, Architects will not have to present actually cardboard, or spongeboard mounted physical material anymore. But the judgement rooms for competitions will have a couple of A1 sized LCDs on the walls, and the A1 board will be displayed on these, directly from a huge 20,000 by 15,000 pixel photoshop or corel draw file format. Heres hoping anyhow. P.S. To be honest with you, I cannot see when more Architectural colleges buy into this large format LCD technology now, especially for interim crits where Architectural students may be working primarily on computers. Thumbs up to Daniel's web site, I say. He is just doing what any good Architect/builder of buildings would actually do. It just hasn't been 'cut up' for display on a 15-inch laptop screen that is all really. he asked for a criticism of the web part and the architecture part both. the suggestions applied to how to make his web site more usable to present his ideas. if the web site is not usable, then not many people are going to stick around long enough to look at the projects. yes, presentation of information is an important part of architecture, and it is important to use each type of media appropriately. if the image will be displayed on an lcd screen or projected, it makes it that much more important to take full advantage of the technology rather than just using it as a display tool. lets say you use flash for example. what ways can i use flash to help better communicate my design? the obvious would be setting up interactive overlays that correspond to section cuts on the bldg. click the spot in the floor plan, and have that section be displayed next to it, ect... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethace Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 Yes, I completely agree with you. THere are some very good examples of flash, as used to explain the architectural purpose around. The make-up of the building etc. And then there are very, very bad examples where flash, is just flash for the sake of it, and slows down a web site. Daniel Libeskind's books, and exhibitions are exactly the kind of architecture which could be 'told' in flash. But is Daniel Libeskind himself going to take time away from his traditional balswood models and A1 tracing paper drawings etc to learn how to use Flash? That is the cruncher. Preferably Daniel Libeskind would employ a good CG person like yourself, with intelligent views on how best to employ CG to gain communicative visuals. What I am saying is, our Daniel here, is a builder, an Architect. Not a flash user, a web designer or a CG Artist. And too many great Architects nowadays want to become CG Artists and Architects, go too far down the In Design/Flash/Premiere route - to make building designs, which could be better, look fabulous to look at in presentation but dull to experience when build. As another Architect, I sense a great ability to build something real, from Daniel's web site, and hope that he develops and grows in that direction. Rather than thinking that Flash web design, is going to help him build any buildings. Hopefully, he will make enough money to employ a top-notch person to do this for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazdaz Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 What CRAZY HOMELESS GUY says is totaly valid. Too many times I see architects are way too caught up in their 'grand vision', and not realize that it just can't be built, or is too expensive for the budget, or is just plain not practicle. Your not gonna have a portfolio with just a bunch of video clips (with no text, no descriptions), right?! Its just not practicle. Well as nice as the images are, the size of those files are just not practicle to anyone with dial-up. And seeing how totaly computer illiterate most architects I have met are, I would say lot of them do not have DSL or Cable. Thus either give up on the 'grand vision' or adapt it to the medium you are using. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 I am going to have to agree about the cutting up. It's nice work, but I'd like to be able to see things on demand, not all at once. A simple solution would be to put thumbnails in a table, then use an iframe to load the larger image into. It's quick to make, easy to update, etc. I wouldn't go larger than 30-50kb per large image, without a preloader. I did a similar iframe/table thing on my site, feel free to snag any code (I am not saying my site works extremely well, but the idea I think works). It's pretty much all over the web, too. It's even easier with flash, and you could probably put it all in one movie, just make sure you have a preloader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisus Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 Why not make the large images scrollable instead of scaling down to fit on screen? (Or does the browser do that automatically?) I'd love to take a closer look at the projects, but although they look great at first, I'm too lazy to save the files and watch them using ACDSee... Fi3er: If people are as lazy as I am, you will have missed the opportunity to showcast your work. Don't do this!!! Take your chance! Remlinds me of the story of the girl who had the answer to everything, but died before she had told anyone! (Somewhere in the Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy? Not?) rgds nisus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fi3er Posted September 22, 2003 Author Share Posted September 22, 2003 WELL GUYS, THANKS A LOT TO EVERYBODY. you gave me loads of feedback and thats what I need. Youre definetly right with that grafic intensive problem. By the way, Im on very slow connection, so I suffer with ya. Thing is, for now, I dont know if its better for me to learn some dreamveawer, or to focus on what I do for living, i.e. architecture, earn some money and pay the proffesional webdesigner. Cus there was one very truth reaction, from someone in this thread: I express my self as I would as an architect, using huge printouts. So the question is, should I explore "webdesign" or should I stick with what Im identifying myself whith, i.e. architecture ?( this was one of the most complicated english sentences I ever constructed, loads of errors I believe :winkgrin: ) ahoy fi3er Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh1587140445 Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 Well every thing that you posted on your website is great for print. But the web is a totally different animal. You can keep what you have on your website, and use them as downloadable attachments for your users to download and print. But for people to view on the screen they are horrible because you do not want your typical user to have to scroll all over the place to see something, and your overall idea may get lost because they can only see it is bits and pieces. You have to determine who your user is going to be. That will help determine how you will layout your page. Slice it up and only show the best parts. Don't give them a visual overload. And you NEED navigation buttons, preferably visible at all times so they can jump back at anytime they please. I would highly recommend do some research on web layout and navigation before you take your next stab at it. There are hundreds of sites out there that can give you the basics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Homeless Guy Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 Originally posted by fi3er: I dont know if its better for me to learn some dreamveawer,i would give dreamweaver a try. you could learn enough in an hour or two to do what you would need it for. you will also want to use a app like fireworks or image ready to slice the image, and compress it. if you have version 7 of photoshop, i think you can slice the image, compress it, and have it write an html file complete in table format. check the photoshop help or your manuals on slicing and compressing images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted September 22, 2003 Share Posted September 22, 2003 Dreamweaver is not that difficult to pick up, but it will take a while to becaome familiar with what you need. As for compressing images, imageready (included in the last few versions of PS) will work well. Don't try Fireworks if you are already familiar with PS, it just wouldn't be worth it. PS will write basic html for the slices, but I'd suggest avoiding slices altogether if you want to keep things simple. Tables and iframes will be the easiest, just make a table for the navigation and an iframe to have the image show up in. It also makes it easy to have news, or information show up in the same iframe. If you aren't familiar with this type of set up, take a look at some of the graphic/web design portals: http://www.pixelsurgeon.com http://www.newstoday.com (uses 3 iframes, maybe four) http://www.webmonkey.com search for iframes for instructions - it's really simple! I'd try to stay away from the scrolling images. Just let the user click once, see on image, click again, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethace Posted September 23, 2003 Share Posted September 23, 2003 Listen Daniel, from the way I look at it, as a trained Architect who knows, and has experience of the whole process of Architectural design from the sketch to the built reality, over the last ten years now (as some built projects do take that long I have noticed, so by the time you build it, the technology of visualisation has transformed totally) I would say your presentations look convincing enough to build. What you really need to do is to build something. Then in ten years time, look back on the projects you have built. Otherwise in ten years time, you will just look back on the web sites you designed, de-bugged and optimised. Which is fine if you want to be Jeff Mottle on CGA. But I trully do believe your horizons are much higher than this. (I hate saying it like that, as it obviously seems to undermine the status of individuals like Jeff) But it is true - all that Jeff (as much respect as I have, and as accomodating as most people here at CGA have been to me in particular) will have built in 10 years time, is more CG models, with technology that is improving every day. I spent a full year, on the tail end of a large town centre development in Ireland 3 years ago. And finally got to experience, and walk around it last week only! While working on the design of the project, I was largely responsible for the 3DS VIZ aspect of things - printing out the flashy visuals and burning them onto CDROM for people to use etc, etc, etc. Here is my written account of my experience. I want you to write a similar account of one of those projects on your web site, in 3 years time. So that you can tell all us CG hacks here, what we are really helping to achieve - in reality, in built reality. Because generally most of us, have to spend so much time fiddling with computers, we don't experience much of the built reality. You should talk to people at places like www.archiseek.com, or www.cyburbia.org where they talk about the real built environment. Because I think, you are talking to the wrong kinds of people here - and they are telling you a load of stuff about the wrong things. Have a read of David Wright's article here where he talks about the future for CGAs in general. From what I can ascertain, web designers are far too numerous nowadays and have to work far too cheaply to do what they do. Brian O' Hanlon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fi3er Posted September 23, 2003 Author Share Posted September 23, 2003 well GARETHACE, THANKS A LOT MAN, this really recharge my batteries. fi3er Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethace Posted September 23, 2003 Share Posted September 23, 2003 Stay in touch Daniel! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kid Posted September 23, 2003 Share Posted September 23, 2003 ...Because I think, you are talking to the wrong kinds of people here - and they are telling you a load of stuff about the wrong things... hehe, I'm trying to get stuff built in the real world too...trying Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethace Posted September 23, 2003 Share Posted September 23, 2003 Then you may just be interested in reading some of this discussion here kid. Brian O'Hanlon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethace Posted September 24, 2003 Share Posted September 24, 2003 Daniel, any opinions on the work at this E-Folio? I like to distinguish between E-Folio and something more like the large architectural company web site myself. Here is another very attractive approach indeed Because, the large architectural company web site, is likely to be shown to important clients etc. Like if I want to build a new office building in Ireland, i might visit this firm's web pages This was a quite amusing look into how many sites are ripped off! And here we have some of the theory behind what a web site, can actually hope to achieve, in terms of persuasion etc Brian O' Hanlon. [ September 24, 2003, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: garethace ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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