Raffael Stuken / Buro fur Grafik Design Website Critique

I came across this website by Raffael Stuken who is a German designer based in Koln. His work is similar to the style I like and his website stood out to be straight away.

His website can be found by visiting www.raffaelstueken.de.

The website is appealing and uses a slideshow script to show examples of his work, although I feel myself that is goes through the work too quickly and doesn’t show the image for long enough. Another downside is, is that you don’t really know that he is a designer at a first glance due to only these images showing.

I was surprised to find out this website is not Flash based, and is in fact HTML based using Javascript/JQUERY to show the content and add some animation to the website.

When I first saw the website, I thought it was flash because of the icons and the way the website looked. The use of navigation by links and the use of using keys on the keyboard such as the arrow keys are pretty impressive.

You can still use a click on the images to view parts of the content that also makes it easier for any user to view his work.

On the contact page I like the movement that you can with the image which makes it almost 3D, although I wish more could be done with it as each time you try and move it after the first instance the navigation/content comes back up and slightly ruins the experience,

You will notice that when you place your cursor over the image or at the bottom that boxes appear for navigation.

I like the use of a quick switch when you press “English” or “Deutsch” to change the language of the website and how easy it is to find his work straight away.

One thing I don’t like too much thought is the speed on the website and the way the content loads up and closes too quickly on some occasions.

The loading of the website in some areas can be slow, which reminds of Flash portfolios. The reason this is slow is because he uses large images which load.

Rafael could have also added more information to the artwork pieces he has created, as all you go see is the images of the projects and not the information.

The use of his name in the title will help people find him quicker on search engines, although the only problem is, is that it doesn’t say what he does in the title, which could be a floor. He has linked many resources to his portfolio website which helps extremely in SEO.

The use of HTML for the website, instead of using Flash is also an important factor as this helps search engine robots find the website and search the content of this website. One more advantage of using HTML instead of Flash is the fact that his site can be seen on more devices, from computers to tablet devices.

Other then that mentioned previously, the visual look of the website is perfect, clean, interactive and appealing.