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Putting Your Portfolio on the Web

© Cecilia H. Lee

Hopefully by now, you've secured your little corner of the web. The next step is to build your online portfolio.

Preparing Your Portfolio

First decide what the goal of your website is. Do you want to sell your jewelry online? Do you want to get an illustration job? or Do you just want to have a "gallery" where you can showcase your works?

Finding a direction for your website will give you a direction to go. It helps to have some sort of focus in mind, so that you can gauge if your site is successful, and your site will appear to have a direction to even the most casual of visitors.

Gather any text an images you want to include into your site. Create a folder with the name of your site on your desktop. This folder will contain all the elements of your webspace that you will ftp to your site.

Researching

To help you get a better idea what you want your website to look, feel and interact like, you may want to visit some sites. Bookmark or download sites you like and make note of why you like them. For instance, you may like one site for its color design and another for its ease of use. You don't have to make a page from scratch. This doesn't mean you can steal other people's codes. This is just to help you get started.

After you've gathered some information, make a map of your website. I usually find it easy to sketch an idea of my site on paper first. I draw little circles and lines indicating which pages link to what, where the central focal point is, and how the user will navigate my site. Nothing has to be set in stone. You can change your mind as you begin to build the site, page by page, and see how it works together.

Building a Page

You don't have to know HTML to build a web site. Software such as Dreamweaver, PageMill or GoLive has made it easier to build a web site. If you're just getting started and don't want to invest a chunk of change on software, many free web services have tools readily available to build your site straight on the web.

Of course, knowing even the most rudimentary HTML codes can help you understand how the web works and how to build a better working and better looking site. Of course, there are hundreds of sites that offer free HTML help our there. Here are some to get started with.

The copyright of the article Putting Your Portfolio on the Web in Resources for Artists is owned by Cecilia H. Lee. Permission to republish Putting Your Portfolio on the Web in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.