PPP - Websites & Self-Promotion


  • We all need a website live by the time of PPP submission in May. 

Must have elements-
  • Consistent application of personal branding
  • A curated selection of your work
  • An engaging bio - What? How? Why? Structure
  • Always include contact details and social media
  • All links must function
  • ‘Mailto links’
  • Give projects context with well written copy
  • Take inspiration from other sites you like, see how they write bios and text, how is it engaging?
  • Personal branding in email footer is good idea

Website Platforms
  • You can either build or continue to write a custom site
  • Or use a template site
  • Squarespace - nice user experience, market leader, ideal customer has a retail operation however, a lot of features that aren’t needed.
  • persona.co - Smaller, less sites will use this, 
  • Cargo Collective - older however better suited to portfolios, also quick and easy
  • Adobe Portfolio - really bad a few years ago, doesn’t work too well, lots of people will use same templates
  • Readymag - slightly different, can be interesting without too much web design knowledge 
  • Format - 
  • Fabrik

  • Most of these services have free trails

Inspiration


Professional sites
  • Claire Koster
  • Fanqiao wang
  • Jules Morin - says last time updated so people know you’re active
  • Zack Wellin
  • Mariano Pascual
  • Roberta Donatoni


This session was really useful, I had been considering when I would need to make a website, but it seemed so complicated that I didn’t really know how to go about it. It was really useful to get some recommendations for template sites and also to see some really great examples. Some of my favourites included Claire Koster and Jules Morin’s sites; they were so clean and simple, I think if the design is incredibly minimal and you’ve got good shots of your work, then your work can speak for itself. These two sites are examples of HTML to build a site in a fairly simple way, so I would bee keen too check this out and see how complicated it is to do, however failing that, it was pointed out that you can still personalise template sites a fair amount. 




Some of the template sites that are appealing more to me, having looked at them are:

  • Persona
  • Cargo Collective

I really like the look and customisability of Cargo Collective, for example this website looks great and is incredibly simple, there a few different projects, and and information page, its so simple but it has been designed so nicely so it looks great and very engaging.





I want to start making a site as soon as possible, so I need to start choosing projects to put on, getting high res shots for these projects, and also start considering aesthetic and personal branding - How do I want my site to look? The cleaner more minimal sites let the work speak for itself and are simple to use, however sites such as this one on cargo collective look so good, they’re almost a piece of work on display, you’re instantly showcasing your design skills. 

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