I'm designing a web-based portfolio for myself. Should it be simple and sleek or should it stand out more?

[M J]

I am designing a website to market my talents as a videographer, social media strategist, and pseudo-graphic designer. While I am leaning towards a simple and sleek design, am I making a mistake by not letting my design skills shine though with a flashier design?

[Meh]

Personally I would go for the simple sleek design. Because i find it frustrating navigating over designed web-pages. But I don't know what potential employers might think. As long as the design is intuitive and complys to standard web paradigms it shouldn't really matter.

Its a tough decision.

[Jane]

I would suggest simple where your work stands out without distractions, the navigation is easy with enough information to help visitors understand your knowledge and expertise as applied for that project. In the end what message you are seeking to convey matters more than just looks.

[Aubrey]

Flash and Java cannot be interpreted by Google. This means that if your entire site/imagery/content/information is embedded into Flash or Java, it will basically be invisible to the search engine's robots. If they don't have any content to scan and store into their index, then your website will never come up on Google when people do a search for the services/products you offer.