Ben Stoddard - Designer

    Hi everybody. I was a designer at Crystal Dynamics and finished up work on Tomb Raider, which I've added to my portfolio.

    One note, I mainly have videos, as about 98% of my work was scripting work, not layout work. Which... obviously doesn't show well in stills. I'm kind of stuck at the moment with the knowledge that recruiters look at resumes for like 10 seconds, and will likely not spend 3 minutes watching a video.

    Any feedback would be appreciated.

    http://www.benstoddard.com/

    Humbly, shamelessly, asking for some feedback from you fine folks. I've been out of work for awhile and have sent out resumes literally across the country and have gotten next to no responses. So either my portfolio is weak, or my resume is (or both...).

    It seems the general consensus is that people don't want to watch videos. So how does someone who did mostly scripting work display their work? It feels like misrepresentation if I show screens of a level I had no actual layout/art work in, but did all of the scripting. Am I just weird? I've looked at TONS of LD portfolios and I can't find any that fall into this category (of not having done layout work, but have done scripting) to compare against.

    While on the topic of videos... I have 13 videos on my webpage. THIRTEEN. That's probably 12 more than random HR person will ever look at. If you've done work spanning the entire game, not just contained to a few levels, how do you condense your presentation into something an appropriate size? Personally, I'd love to just have a 2 to 3 minute video of all the best stuff, but that means presenting my work with no context and just being bullshots. Pretty much a movie trailer... Surely this wouldn't be able to stand alone, it would still need content to compliment it. Riiight?

    Need halp...

    Hey Ben, you got some nice work but you definitely need a better presentation. While you don't need a professionally designed portfolio, you need something that's organized and appealing. Right now your portfolio looks like something you would expect from a student and not from someone with AAA development experience. I'd start by removing that logo (bevel emboss is soo 90s, definitely makes you lose a point or two, NEVER use that ) and replacing it with something simple. Even plain arial on a black background works better. Do a google search for minimal design portfolios for inspiration if you like.

    Another design problem with your site is that the navigation is very unintuitive... and that's not a good thing on a level designer portfolio I honestly didn't notice "personal work" was a link leading to more work simply because it looks like everything else in the page.

    Second, I think you need to broaden your skills. If you are not getting any replies it's either: your portfolio is not impressing anybody or there's simply no demand for your services. A designer that can lay out levels and do basic art passes is more valuable than one who only does scripting. You need to make it clear exactly what you do too, so a simple "about" section or introduction in the home page would help with that.

    Hope that helps and good luck with the job hunt!

    Zombie thread, coming through. Thanks for your feedback Minos, very much appreciated, if not slightly late. I actually started a redesign and then procrastination kicked me in the throat and I just kinda spent 6 months poking at it every so often. I'm a horrible person... I finished up recently; simpler, minimal-er (?) design, I hope navigation is more intuitive than before. I cut the amount of videos I had from 13 to 6. And kept them under or hovering at the 3 minute mark. And supplemented the videos with screenshots, for those that are adverse to them for whatever reason... I'm happy with it, more or less, unless someone says it's an assault on their eyeballs or something... Now I just have to do more projects to build up the content I have.

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