John Garcia - environment artist & level designer

[johnmgarcia]

My website has been redesigned once again!!! The entire portfolio section has a new layout style to hopefully better show off my work. Check it out at

www.johnmgarcia.com

and please let me know what I am missing or need to change to land a job in the industry!!!

[Vilham]

Honestly.

Very hard to navigate.

[luque]

Show something pretty on your home page.

No seriously, you want to attract whoever visits your site within a few seconds. I see you have a demo reel hiding under the portfolio section somewhere, why dont you put it on the home page?

Also you say you are a game designer but I can only find Level design and Enviroment art. These are different things.

[PhilipK]

Site itself looks nice imo, but I found the "hover on links to see content" was really annoying as you have to keep the pointer on the link while reading! I like to select text while I'm reading it etc. Saw that you could also press the links in the portfolio section, but in the resume only hovering the links work.

[ElectroSheep]

Like PhilipK said, pointing on links is annoying, especially when it's doesnt work well. Sometime, content takes several seconds to display.

Another point, your jailebreak level is not very remarkable. I'm not trying to criticize the work done on the level but you put too much pictures and they all show the same thing, a half life 2 typical bunker-like corridor. we don't realize what you're capable to do by watching yours pictures.

The home page look useless too. I remember when [HP] said that you have to show your work on the first page you show on your website and that you don't have to clic several times before watching it.

example of good level design porfolio imo : http://www.aarongarcha.net/?p=

All work is shown instantly and only a few pictures but it is sufficient to realize the quality of the level.

[johnmgarcia]

thanks for the responsesso far everyone!!!! im gonna throw the demo reel on the home page as a start while i try to rethink how im going to work all the navigations and such. I'm also gonna adjust the level design section to better show off what I made

[johnmgarcia]

the home page has been reworked to show the demo reel and a brief news update about having been accepted to compete in the Rosetta stone game jam

[johnmgarcia]

also changed: on resume page, clicking a link will hold the text on screen for that area rather than having to mouse over the whole time

[Campaignjunkie]

If you need a paragraph to explain how to navigate your website, and it's a paragraph that no one reads, then don't do it.

Change the page structure of your site entirely. Make it a lot simpler; there's too much hovering and clicking.

Look at this: http://www.magnarj.net -- simple pages that let their work speak for them.

[Em']

And be careful with typography, never use more than 2/3 typo in the same page.

Keep the same style for all your website : i see handwritting font, linear font and destruct font and the logo.

That's the same for the pictures for you likedIn / demoreel / contact buttons : they do not fit the the website.

My 2 cents.

[johnmgarcia]

ok, ill try to rework them. on my old site i had jus the handwritten and block texts but the big text areas were too hard to read so i decided to use a simpler font in large areas... the idea behind the whole site is to show off my architecture background with my game stuff

[neotic]

Are you equally a designer and an environment artist or does one describe you better? Buttons to models/demo reel/flash is to obscure. I only found the demo reel the first time. Scrap the "portfolio" section and just make a model section, flash section, etc. The flash is cool but I'm not sure how it applies to environment artist or level design... there might be some cool nuggets for game design there but I'd put those in the back somewhere.. not up front. I'd make your resume so it can be seen all at once rather than piecemeal. One huge problem with it right now is that I can't highlight its text to copy it if I were to want to.

[johnmgarcia]

thanks for the feedback neotic! im rather busy right now preparing for the rosetta stone game jam next month and developing curriculum, but I'm gonna make those changes as soon as I get the opportunity!

[johnmgarcia]

Bumping this to the top because I just finished redoing the entire portfolio section of my website. It now focuses on my three best projects, and does not include a dozen pictures for each that dont do them any justice. It is now just one page per project with info, 3 enlargeable images, and a link to a relevant video.

Let me know what you think! of the way my work is displayed and what would have to change to help me land a job!