http://www.jeffsarmiento.com/

Straight off the bat I have to say I really love this design. It has a lot of personality and has a great layout, with division of content/navigation occurring thanks to bold contrast of colour. First I’d like to talk about the style, though. It’s decidedly retro, but with a strange mix of influences – the rocketship that takes prominence on the front page smacks of pulpy, retro sci fi, while the left margin is occupied by what looks something like a damask pattern. Then on the upper right of the main content block there are rainbow like bars of colour that are reflective more of current design trends than anything else. Yet somehow this all works together to great a cohesive look thanks to the consistent texture and colour scheme. The little doodles on the page really get across that the owner of this site is a designer, for instance the underlines below blog post headings and little arrows on various links.

It’s very clear what Jeff does- web design. He’s taken the tactic of a little blurb under his name that is so commonly and effectively employed.

The designer has made good use of social networking, with his flickr taking great prominence in the main content section before even his blog entries, and a twitter feed on the right. Interestingly, blog posts take prominence over his portfolio, presumably because he feels the site’s design will speak for itself as a portfolio. This is something of a pitfall because his work is not front and centre, but it is featured on the front page at least.

One major problem with this site is the lack of activity! The most recent blog post, prominently displayed at the top of the landing page, is dated March 2009. The current Twitter feed on the sidebar is not enough to excuse that!