Laying out a portfolio is best done by allowing visitors to click on the examples of work that they wish to view. Your solution seems to forbid this. A visitor is forced to view the entire gallery and they may not want to do that. I would be personally frustrated if I didn’t see large enough thumbs of the work that I could selectively view and I’m sure I’m not alone. Moreover, your system doesn’t allow navigating from the 1st piece to, say, the 7th. It restricts visitors to view entries one at a time and in sequential order. I may want to jump back to the 3rd entry I saw after seeing the 8th, but then would have to click 4 times? This seems annoying and less than efficient.

The thing about usability is not what you find the easiest to do, but what the majority of people find. As such, only usability analysis can provide an answer. We can bounce around theory upon theory, but eventually you’d have to set up some usability studies to reach a real solution.

There are two ideas I’d like to share:

1) IMHO a brief explanation of the context of each design is important. Good design is not just how something looks but also the (client’s brand’s) universe it’s going to exist in. To judge true quality the two can’t be separated.

2) Don’t lose track of the fact that for the client design is a means to a business ends. You might luv design but ultimately they are just trying to solve a problem. Scream all you want about design but ultimately you need to make sure you’re perceived you as a flexible “problem solver”.