Do images speak louder than words?; Presenting a design portfolio
A blog post sparked off another round of discussion in the Bourn Design Studio...
...The blog post titled "one of the best design agency sites I've seen in a long time" commented on a very simple website by a graphic designer based in NYC. It praised the website for it's simple, no-fuss style and applauded the site for not presenting any explanation of the work. The website was a single page with a continuous run of images. To navigate the site you just scroll down to view the work. At the bottom there was a simple message "Thank you. Please call etc". It was pointed out that within 60 seconds you can view all the work, decide if you like what you see and then get in touch. Simple. Genius. Naive?
Its not an uncommon move by a designer and I have seen it many times before. Even ad agencies are now opting for very simple websites. We took a similar approach ourselves with our own portfolio and we have often wondered whether existing and potential clients would prefer to see more information. A brief, a solution, a result and a testimonial are the standard types of information that are common on most portfolios.
The blog post triggered a series of comments (poor fellas ears must have been burning but I bet the links did him good!). The 50 + comments ranged from proclaiming the man as a genius, to reasoning that everyone on the post was looking far to deep, and not realising that it may not have been done intentionally by the designer.
The biggest clue for me came from looking at the code; the whole page was one single image, hinting (possibly) that the designer had little or no web skills and opted for a quick portfolio.
That said, the graphic designer's portfolio was good, but because I liked the work I wanted to know more about certain pieces of work; what was the brief?, how did he arrive at the solution?, how effective was the design?, how was the success measured? As another creative viewing his work it would be nice to know but for a marketing manager - or budding entrepreneur looking for an effective designer - it could unfortunately be a mandatory requirement.
If your a design agency and you are solely offering design services, then the design will speak for itself. If your an ad agency agency you need to communicate your understanding of advertising and marketing (for those with a background in marketing your probably shaking your head in disbelieve of how obvious this is) its a simple rule of marketing - you website must appeal to your target audience but its amazing how often its overlooked.
As a growing design agency that is constantly adding more and more marketing services we feel like we have one foot in each world. We want to show "the good stuff" but, with an ever growing list of on and offline services and a tally of happy clients we may be selling ourselves short and (even worse) not practising what we preach. Successfull commercial agencies realise that clients see creative as a means to an end or a remedy to a problem. The project brief, solution and the story of its success - for many - is "the good stuff".
Posted By: Mark
28 April 2009