Today’s post highlights the design of Julie-Hemery.fr, an online portfolio for a makeup artist done by Jérôme Ebzant. A prominent stylized illustration strikes a perfect balance with a flamboyant oversized logo and the leading quote. Note a radial highlight centered behind the illustration and a repeating intricate damask pattern set in dark ultramarine. The four-column grid extends into the footer that uses much less contrast (and no drop shadows) for the extra links.

Note how the visual balance is preserved by putting the icons in the two middle columns. Most of the icons play well with the ultramarine / blue / cerulean color scheme, and it might be interesting to see the icons styled with this scheme, revealing the full colors on rollover only.

It is quite a shame that the design is marred by four (!!!) ugly overlays of dubious design “awards” from the CSS aggregator sites (removed in the screenshot above). They add unnecessary noise, extra palette colors and even hide the last navigation menu item on smaller screens. While these may serve to promote the designer, it’s hard to see why the site owner would want these plastered over her professional web presence.