Guidance & Advice Please!!

[PR Design]

Hi all,
I was wondering if I could have some advice/opinions/guidance on a new venture of mine. It is a personal portfolio as opposed to my flagship site. It's a completely new style for me and I'm not entirely sure how to go about tackling it. I want a less "clean" and finished look, but not grungy. Anyway, here's the link to it http://www.prdesign-studio.co.uk/HarryRoberts/. It's just the VERY basic layout at the moment so it has no content. I was thinking about using Java accordions to give a bit of movement to it... If you could just give some crit. Thanks!!!
Harry

[Arkady]

My own personal opinion is that it looks a bit dated and a bit flat and lifeless. I'm no expert in graphic design and not really qualified to offer advice, but one thing that really shouts at me is the faked screwed up paper. I think this would look so much better if you photographed a real piece of paper that had been screwed up then flattened out and then use that as a backround to the text.

[ianm]

I agree with arkady about the dated comment, that's been done and has past now - i also agree that photographed material would be better if you go along that path. maybe use that as a theme, where even the navigation text is phptographed handwriting or something, you can make this look good if you just think about it as at the moment nothing fits together. the navigation is different from the blue paper and the background is aldo odd.

[Toon]

It's not bad but I'd drop the font used on the tabs, it's way over used.

[r-merone]

yeah a nice photographic touch to web design always looks impressive if done well.

[tommylogic]

the weave on the background will play tricks on people's eyes...
It creates a cool floating effect, but it will give an older client a headache and probably leave the site prematurely

[PR Design]

Hi guys thanks for the response. As I said, it's an experimental piece for me really. I wanted to try an alternative style and hopefully with some of your comments I may eventually grasp it!

Thanks, Harry

[zumojuice]

yeah - i'd go for a full on look. imagine what this would look like on a table ? ie - maybe the background is a table surface , and then you have your screwed up paper and all sorts over that. You might like to try actually making this on paper like a collage then transform that to the web