Soh Tanaka recently shared his re-designed web presence going with something bold and typographic using a dark colour scheme. Though being dark, legibility is obviously not a problem and coding tricks on the website is perfectly executed and applied.

Navigation is easy to use and has great interactivity. It doesn’t get lost and most people often forget an active state that tells user where they are. There’s also a tactile characteristic of the design which is something even I should remember. It’s nice that on every mouse-over there’s a feedback. This design has some good subtle implementations of this throughout. These user friendly attributes of the design definitely exemplifies good usability.

SohTanka

It’s interesting how Soh Tanaka went a different route in terms of layout. With most portfolios they tend to have a banner area focusing on portfolio work. Was this way of differentiating or Soh Tanaka just felt introducing himself is more important? That’s the designer’s call.

I prefer seeing the work first before knowing who you are and where you live. In my mind what I want to know about you is really simple: can you design or not? Answer that question first and users would find their way to knowing more about you because your work is so bad-ass. I guess the point being made is that I feel his awesome portfolio is like a third-wheel.

SohTanaka

This design generally lacks balance to me and it has to do with layout. The columns on the main page have such short widths that the short lines of text is what contributes to that lack of balance. I think that’s really highlighted when you crop this specific part of the design as shown above. While the design does have good alignment, it has some inconsistencies in it. The 2 green lines drawn in image above highlights this. You’re probably not seeing what’s my problem but to illustrate further, see the image below:

SohTanaka

What the 3 boxes shows is how I see things chould be. Anything falling outside those boxes is what causes the design to look unbalanced because content seems to be where they shouldn’t be. Notice the second lines falling outside the green boxes? They’re just hanging there contributing to that unbalance.

I also think that the blocks of text on the main page could be better designed. It’s nice to see the text broken up in paragraphs as it makes reading easier and the copy seems less overwhelming. These really aren’t deal-breakers in the design obviously but the greatest designs are the ones that look at every single detail.

Overall the design is simple and effective. It does a great job of bringing the designers personality forward in an elegant interface. What are your thoughts on SohTanka’s re-design?

Critique Agent: "dmadray"  -  http://twitter.com/depthskins

Damian Madray is the founder & creative director of Depthskins Studio & DesignersCouch, his responsibilities are in the areas of branding, web design and project management. Damian’s keen eye is always absorbing design elements around him which lead to the creation of DCQ. More posts by this author.