This site was offline for a couple of days. I apologize.
While my former WordPress theme was great for its main purposes (portfolio, clientlist & contact), it did not allow for much else.
It is easy enough to change a WordPress theme, though. A couple of clicks, that's it.
But as soon as you have a portfolio, you might notice that different WordPress themes require different approaches.
In my last theme, Lookbook (GraphPaperPress), the portfolio was nothing more than a showcase of featured images of a standard blog. That is totally fine, and really minimalistic if you do not intend to actually add a blog with a slightly different focus, like I am doing here.
I have to say, I love that theme. Still do. And the added benefit for the clients, who could go ahead and pick and choose a selection of works to be sent to them as a pdf, was fantastic! A great theme for creatives wanting to work with agencies.
In this new theme, which is a little more powerful (and, as a result, more complicated), I get my portfolio via “projects”, which means that I need to redefine all of my content accordingly.
That's not all, this theme has different requirements for featured images (the images that you see on the overall portfolio page), and portfolio content – where you could, if you wanted, show more information pertaining to that project.
I have hundreds of potential projects with hundreds of featured images and several hundreds of additional images for the content. It adds up.
I admit that I also do not like the standard looks of this portfolio as much as I liked my former portfolio. There is always some sort of compromise – unless you want to spent real money to have it all programmed according to your wishes, which is always a possibility. But with 25 websites that I tend to, I learned to live with compromises very well.
Remember, most people make their websites too fancy and too complex – while forgetting the basics.
The minimum requirement for any kind of creative is, apart from the legal pages,
- a portfolio to showcase what you are offering. If you have a lot of content in that portfolio, it is good to offer some sorting mechanism on top of it.
- Then you need a clientlist, to build trust. Or a guarantee of some sorts.
- And lastly, obviously, you need to offer your contact information
While this sounds simple enough, I still see plenty of websites that require potential clients (and everyone else) to jump through hoops in order to contact you – and sometimes there is no contact information at all!
So, in the upcoming days, we'll be talking “website” for a bit.
And I'll explain, while I'm at it, what I'll be doing here on mine, and why.