The idea behind these efforts was to take up the challenge of building on a free platform something that was as easy to maintain as a blog, but didn’t look like a ‘blog’.

Well, the power of WordPress compels me to build a fabulous portfolio site using that platform.  Now, this is really not in the same spirit as the prior challenges, as a self hosted WordPress site is not a free option (note, the free option, WordPress.com, would not work for this).  And WordPress as a platform is considerably more suited to an effort like this–it’s hardly hacking when you’re just using the platform as designed!  So it’s not really fair to say that WordPress kicks the pants off the other options — they didn’t start in the same place.

So, I redid my friend Grieg’s photography website.  Check it out here!

If you guys are interested, I’ll do a tutorial/tips/lessons learned, and post it over at Dabbled|Studios.  I’m trying to move all my website related blogging over there.

In short, WordPress gives you a ton of tools and plugins which can really produce a professional look.  I will eventually get around to redo-ing my own portfolio site, which is still in Tumblr from the previous experiments.  WordPress is miles above the free options (like Tumblr or Blogger), but the free options do have one huge advantage… Free!  WordPress is technically free as well, but you do have to have your own hosting, which will run you around 5-10$ per month.  Not a huge expense, but not free either.

And if you want to see what we started with, you can see what the free Blogger version looked like here.

And of course, if you need a wedding or childrens photographer and you live in Georgia, do consider Grieg!

2-28-2011: Hi!  Although these instructions are, as far as I know, still quite valid, you may want to read this first.

As promised here’s a little info about making an art or photography portfolio using the free Tumblr blogging platform, like nancydorsner.com.

If you haven’t been following along, I set out on a quest to figure out how to use a blogging platform to create a portfolio site. (My first attempts were in Blogger, and you can view the write up here and see an example here.)

The idea was that “blogging” is easy, website design is not. Many creative types do not want to worry about keeping a portfolio site updated, and it’s easy for their sites to become out of date. Also, for struggling artists or photographers out there, they can get their feet wet with a portfolio site that doesn’t have any upfront or recurring cost to it.

Blogger had some limitations however, and while it was easy IF you already knew Blogger, it wasn’t as easy as I’d have liked.

Enter Tumblr.
Tumblelogs are incredibly easy to update. The Share on Tumblr bookmarklet added to your toolbar makes creating a new picture based post off a webpage almost effortless. Uploading a picture from your harddrive is also easy. For a portfolio site, these are key.

The one major con I have with Tumblr is it’s a relatively immature platform. It’s not got a huge feature set, and there are some buggy and awkward things. But I mostly encountered those in the customization of my blog, not in the actual post creation.

So, how to create your own:

First, create a Tumblelog. Takes 5 seconds.

Then from your dashboard, click Customize, then Info to setyour Title, Description (just make something up for now, its for testing purposes), and URL. You can either leave the address as yourname.tumblr.com or buy a domain (like $10 at Godaddy.com).

Also, grab the Share on Tumblr bookmarklet – it’s useful.

Now, don’t worry about format yet, just create some test content of pictures you want in your portfolio.
If you’re not already familiar with Tumblr, read this…
-If you already have pictures on flickr or somewhere similar, you can easily just go to the webpages and click your new bookmarklet button. In the window that pops up you’ll click Photo, then pick your picture. Caption it (replacing the current text/link). Click Advanced to tag it. I used the tags to create my categories.
-If you don’t have your work already online, just create a Photo post from your dashboard. Same process, just upload the file.

Also create a test Text post. (I use the Text post for my menus, and my About box)

Once you have a good number (say 10) of posts, you can now play around with the theme.

Your tumblelog’s look is determined by it’s theme. There are some interesting theme templates already out there. If one of these is to your liking, just snag it and go!

Check out these themes below, and install them each in turn on your tumblelog to see if they work for you.

First, check out the several different versions at hasaportfolio.com. There are several example sites at the bottom of the page, I love this one. I love the way this theme opens up the pictures on top of the page. Great for usability. He’ll also provide you a free URL – yourname.hasaportfolio.com which is pretty neat. (Free, but it’s nice to Donate if you use it)
This is easily the simplest and most usable of the lot.

I based mine off of this one: Beauty by Milo317 (Go here, and scroll or search for Beauty). But I made a bunch of changes to it to fit my needs.

Other cool ones for a portfolio:
Photoboard by Ben Delaney
Museum Theme by paulgiacherio
(Instructions to install at links)

You now have the basics for a portfolio. You’ll want to tweak it so it has your contact info, and whatever else you want.
If you’re comfortable with it, don’t be afraid to customize the theme (click Customize on your dashboard, and many themes let you easily set colors). Tumblr has instructions.

Also set up the Advanced tab (# of posts per page, etc). It’s pretty self explanatory.

Note: If you want to customize your site past the free templates I’ve given you, and you don’t have even a very basic understanding (or want to learn) CSS/HTML, you’ll probably want to hire someone to get the initial set up for you. That will require an upfront cost, but you won’t have any recurring cost since you have a free platform.

Some things I specifically did on mine:
– I used tags to categorize the Photo Posts, to create my menus (like robots, watercolors, etc) and just linked them with a regular href link: http://dorsner.tumblr.com/tagged/robots
– I used “Text” Posts for an About page, menu pages, etc. Some themes i linked to above don’t display text boxes, so if your theme doesn’t, you’d need to put your menu (if you want one) in the Description, or elsewhere on the page. Same for contact info, etc.
– I used an image for the background. A pretty easy theme tweak. If there is already an background image, just replace it with a URL to yours.
– Items display in the order of post date, so to change the order I manually changed the date of the post.
– Changed the links on the menu bars to more appropriate links (an easy fix with basic html knowledge)
– and a bunch of other more complex stuff! ..hence my Note above!

Once you’re happy with your site layout, just add content!

I hope this was helpful, or at least interesting. I do like tumblr as a blogging platform as well. In fact, you can visit my tumblr link blog HERE–it’s mostly random cool stuff I find (some of which ends up on Dabbled) and also my twitter tweets.