About making a Portfolio?

buddikaman

I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction. I am nearing the point of wanting to build a portfolio site, but have no idea really how to create or run my own website, i know there is a link on the forums for a quick portfolio site, is that really the best way or are there other options?

Thanks!

Mark Dygert

Rick Stirling has a great read about portfolios and how to create easy ones. I can't find it ATM but I know its there.
http://www.rsart.co.uk/?page_id=14

Personally the easiest way I have found is to go PhotoShop > File > Automate > Web photo Gallery, all you need are the images and some webspace. I highly recommend posting your portfolio here before sending it off. I also recommend dropping a tiny amount of coin and getting your own domain.

Ghostscape

yeah buy some webspace and a domain. If you're not willing to invest $100 in a years worth of hosting and a domain name or whatever, people aren't really going to see you as being dedicated to the profession.

Vig's suggestion is really easy and is honestly all you need. The flashier portfolios are neat but your body of work is what attracts people - if you have a complex web portfolio but shit work it's just going to look like you're overcompensating for something

I'm personally a fan of my setup: www.ghostscape.com and if you'd like to take a look at the full source (minus the two videos which are somewhat large) you can grab it here: http://www.ghostscape.com/web-content.zip Feel free to poke around and check it out and borrow any code you want.

Jesse Moody

Yeah check out dreamhost.com I go through them and they are just awesome. Fairly cheap, tons of bandwidth and space.

Let me know if you are interested. I have some coupons for discounts...

Michael Knubben

Jesse: i'd be interested, actually. Not for right now, but for fairly soon nevertheless

Asmuel

Yea the way I've made them in the past is pretty simple. Make a photoshop image of what you want the pages to look like, open them in image ready and cut them up into sections and create links where needed. Export as .html, then upload the html's and images to a web host. Might not be the best method but its easy for a dumb artist like me , I know thats how a lot of people do it when they cant be bothered learning anything about html etc.

IronHawk

I would also recommend browsing the W3 schools tuts here.

Try playing around with that and looking through some source code to get an idea of syntax.

Grab notepad2 or textpad for an editor.

best of luck!

Snowfly

i suggest you give wordpress a go, like rick stirling's little write up suggests. it's easy to maintain, well fun to maintain is more the case in my experience. so far, it's served me well, no one's questioned how serious i am about concept art at least. if you want a custom url, you can splurge a few extra dollars for one.

danr

Cannot agree at all that not having your own domain suggests you're not dedicated to your intended profession, that smacks of a classic bit of "I got me a job so I must be right" advice. It's the clear presentation of the content and showing how you can apply your skills and whatever experience you have that's the important thing. Post up an impenetrable and irrelevant portfolio on your own domain and you'll likely come off worse than just linking to a deviantart page ... "Check out this pretensious wanker" is not an uncommon phrase to be heard in studios at hiring time, whereas the phrase you want to be encouraging is "hey, this guy's really thought about his stuff"
. And it doesn't matter what you're hosting that on if you get it right

That's not to say that owned domains are a bad idea - there's nothing worse than a portfolio that comes with its own bundle of pop-ups, and you'll always be safe from this - but they're no substitute for relevant content.

Mark Dygert

I suggest getting your own domain so its easier for people to remember and hopefully get back to your site. If you go with [url="httP://bobs.free.host.service.freewebbylogs.com/yournamehere"]httP://bobs.free.host.service.freewebbylogs.com/yournamehere[/url] it could be hard to remember. A web address is like a sound bite in advertising you want to keep them short, simple and something people will remember.

Of course it's not critical to getting a job it just helps.

danr

Vig - when hiring, web portfolios are accessed by clicking on a link in a resume, either freshly arrived in the inbox or filed somewhere (the latter is the holy grail). No-one types them in from memory


Case in point, look at MoPs portfolio. Studios up and down the land know and lust after the content, and its hosted as as subdirectory off his girlfriends site.

Rick Stirling

What about Blogspot/Wordpress portfolios? I don't have an issue with them, but I know some people look down on them. At the end of the day you get a semi-sensible domain name, a simple template and its free, including the image hosting.