Before Obama took the seat at the oval office, before the King of Pop passed, I launched my (2nd) portfolio website. After 7 years of rocking the same layout, which I’m proud to say was featured on Web Design Served, I’m ecstatic to announce my new-car-smell redesigned online portfolio!
Web design is a topic I do not take lightly. Not to insult your intelligence, but if you don’t think websites are substantially important to photographers in this day and age, then, well… your intelligence needs to be insulted. Yes, websites are important. It is practically the storefront to the world that is available 24-7. And when you step inside a virtual “store”, I want an easy-to-navigate experience with a well-organized layout.
With this website, you practically don’t have to move your mouse to view the work quickly. Basically you scroll down, click a thumb… which brings you to an expanded project… then after scrolling through the project you’ll see a full list of the projects again. So, click, scroll, click, scroll, click, scroll. Within seconds, an on-looker can quickly and efficiently view my portfolio.
Since 2009, a slew of beautiful open-source website builders emerged that made it easy for the everyday person to design their own website. The top 3 I considered were Format, Squarespace, and Semplice. I put those in order of simplest, to most involved. And seeing as how I don’t do simple, I went with the most customizable open-source web builder: Semplice. Semplice is a relatively unknown web-builder, but is fiercely regarded among some of the top designers in the world. That tidbit, plus being WordPress driven, is ultimately what made my decision to delve weeks/months of my time to build my website with Semplice. No, this is not a paid endorsement.
The past few months I’ve focused on meticulously redesigning/updating my blog, portfolio website, and social outlets such as Behance, Instagram, 500px, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. A much needed online-update in my eye. Let me know what’cha think!
MEGA thanks to Stephen at RIFT Solutions for consulting and helping me get over some speed bumps (literally), and optimize my sites to be as efficient and fast as possible.
