Folio site redesign
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- Baskerville
I'm now starting to look for a new job and I'm realising that potential employers will come into contact with my site long before they meet me. I'm at the stage where I don't want to email the link to people because the work is not really up to date and so mis-represents me.
I've had the same site for a while now and I haven't been bothered to update it in ages because it was designed in Dreamweaver a while back, all the button are images etc, so adding new links takes ages.
I could set aside a weekend or two to redo it but I'm looking for a better design – something that doesn't involve images for buttons etc.
I also want something really easy to update, so I can be adding new stuff all the time. I guess I need a framework that I can populate as and when I need to.
I've just made a list of what I want to put on the site, and there's about 40 projects of varying sizes, plus articles, contact info, cv etc.
What do people recommend for this kind of site.
Is there a simple CMS I can use for free and customise myself? It would need to be able to handle images and captioning etc.
I'm a bit clueless about web stuff but know some html etc so could tinker a bit.
thanks
- Dancer0
Wordpress or Text Pattern is your best bet. But to be honest I would look at spending some time to redesign it yourself. You don't need to create buttons from PS (if your really that lazy ;). I didn't.
Failing that jut use an Eatock Frame structure....?
P.S where's Para ?
:P
- Baskerville0
Thanks dancer. I really want more complexity that an 'eatock' frame. That's kind of what I have at the moment.
I really like the way your site works - in a kind of tree configuration.
How did you make yours. Could I do something similar in Wordpress?
- Dancer0
It's meant to make a point of a "step by step" experience – a little like A Dance!!
Mine was done with built with CSS & DHTML, In a word no. Wordpress is essentially a template that you edit, but has a load of plugins that can help you. Sumo's http://www.serifpublishing.com/ was built using Wordpress, but it is mainly a blog, which is what these are blogging software.
If you want to build your site using this then ask around here. I have no experience of them but have seen a few posts about them.
- Dancer0
...also if you don't claim to be a webdesigner why don't you just split your portfolio into sections and design some nice PDF's and post on a holding page...
p.s 40 projects is way too many IMO
- Baskerville0
Hmm, maybe I should be lazy and try and use a blogging webapp for my folio site. I should just write it in HTML.
I really like the way The Chase's site works. Everything is neatly categorised and you can always find your way around easily. Essentially it's 3 frames:
http://www.thechase.co.uk/portfo…
they have close to 90 projects on there but it's easy to choose what you want.
I like the Sagmeister idea that you can show everything and let people make up their minds. In that situation the hierarchy of projects plays a huge role.
As long as it's not presented in a way that makes a large volume of work seem daunting
- Baskerville0
Plus the 40 projects/pieces I have made a list of is a longlist. I will cut it down to the best of the best. But I still want to show lots of work. And update frequently
- Dancer0
A mate of mine did The Chase site (he no longer works there though). It was one of his first PHP sites, it's not actually frames but just a new page everytime. It loads quickly becasue there is No Frames or Tables. just CSS.
- kelpie0
right, I'll try to express this in a way that doesn't come out as total nonsense, but be warned it may well do...
if I was going to be putting lots of new stuff up all the time and couldn't predict infallibly the amount of items in menus, images I'd want to show, project categories or anything really that could be termed as variable content (that is, aside from your header graphic, or stuff like that) - I'd be tempted to keep things traveling in a vertical direction on the page, and not to arrange elements depending on horizontal alignment across the page - this has biffed me out on many occasions with content managed sites; you design something harmonious in what, to you, seems a logical way to arrange elements on a page for communicative purposes, then once the thing takes on its own life, those element begin to push outside your initial size boundaries - an image may be bigger than intended, or two extra lines of text make a content block break form its alignment with a consecutive element.
that's why left hand navs work so well, that why scrollies work so well etc - for me you'd be better looking at improving your current set up than going for something like the chase, notice how they have no opportunity to show any print work at a larger size, or really focus on anything? there's a guy on here has a great site, mr mick or somthing, have a look at that.
sorry for the horribly long post and gobbledegook - good luck with your site, you're work deserves a really good place to be seen :)
- kelpie0
having said all that at great, plodding length - you probably won't have so many problems as the content creator and administrator than on many client sites, after all you're visualy aware and in control of your own thing.
*cancels out relevancy of own previous post
- kelpie0
man, I'm like marvin the paranoid android at the moment, I enter rooms and people sigh, I enter threads and people float away.
god damn this day of love.
- monkeyshine0
you could also use something like carbonmade to accentuate your portfolio. That's what I've done temporarily until I have time to redesign my site.
- myobie0
Baskerville, if you needed help with the php needed for something like that site, I could point you in the right direction
Just let me know
- Baskerville0
thanks guys. Talked to a friend over lunch who's down with all the php, xml, css etc and he suggested I learn to do the site myself in xhtml and CSS. That way I get the site that I want and learn a new skill along the way. He's already offered to do the php side of stuff if I need.
Kelpie, you did actually make sense to me. The way I solved the whole image size problem at the moment was just to keep all images 1 size and have close ups. Might need some rethinking on the new site. But essentially every project will use the same content template so there shouldn't be too much to think about I'm more worried about keeping work in the right categories/groupings.
- johndiggity0
while i have not personally used it, might be something to look into:
http://www.medialab.com/sitegrin…i'd just make nice with a font end developer and offer to scratch their back after scratching yours.