In the very, very, very very super-first Be A Design Cast Donovan predicted that blog functionality would one day take over for content uploading and site maintenance. That’s a point that stuck with me from then on, as my own, woefully out-of-date site nathanvoss.com neither reflected my current work nor my current design sensibilities, not to mention nobody in the whole world calls me Nathan anymore. Really. I would not design a site like that today. To be honest, I’m so out of the game on web design I didn’t really know what to do when it came time to put a presence up on the web.

I began with three rules:

• Easy to update and maintain • Beautifully represent my work • Cost me next to nothing

Okay, easy. Rule number one means “blog” for those of us who don’t speak CSS. Rule number two means whatever blog I use has to have some sort of blog template that doesn’t make designers’ butts itch. Rule number three means… oh snap! Free blogs!

It took me a day of running around the web like an idiot before I settled on WordPress. I’m not even sure I remember why I did. I think Movable Type costed money, but now I’m seeing they have a free “personal” version so I’m going to have to take a look at that. (Movable Type is what we run BA on, so I’m familiar with using it)

Once WordPress won the non-battle, I got busy on the process of setting up the site. This is a pretty straight-forward process and I don’t want this to be a big “how-to” session, so suffice it to say I set up a blog.

As far as web design goes, I would wager you five dollars I know a thing or two about usability, flow, and navigation. Where I falter, and falter SO HARD, is making any of that go. Now my main man Tom has example number one for me that you can take a blog and dress it up to look however you want. Also this site and every other damn blog on the planet. Lotta people know how to do that. Me? Not so much yet. Donovan tells me this is easy stuff. For now, Chris Pearson’s “Cutline” theme seemed the least obtrusive to me and won out. Not the least for looking as much like Khoi Vinh’s Subtraction.com as possible (for a free template), which as far as I’m concerned is Website-Done-Right.

At that point we had natevoss.wordpress.com, the greatest free-blog-portfolio-standby site I’ve ever made. It’s a short list. We bought vossome.com and pointed it to the site, because that’s the professional name I’m going with (more on that later this week).

So I use the blog to make posts, and each post is a piece of work followed by a short description. These are then categorized by the type of work they are (posters, design, advertising, etc.) and organized on the left. So far, this organization method has served me pretty well. There have been, however, some downsides. WordPress, as I see it, does not have this nifty “continue reading” feature that BADG has, keeping 100% of my content on the front page for each post. Currently this is leading to a giant, fat ass of a homepage. Also, it would be nice if I could organize a homepage that contained, say, two projects, or one project, and then the category pages would house everything in said category themselves.

These problems may be fixable in WordPress and if they are, please let me know in the comments. Because hell if I know. But what I do know is this: This works. It works like a band-aid. It’s a temporary fix and should work for any designer who is just entering the field, is low on web experience, or who finds themselves out on the street and desperate. I highly recommend it, though I have not perfected the technique, it can be recommended on potential alone. If you are a designer with nothing more than a “designer’s name here.com” site that says “designer’s name here.com is coming soon!” and an e-mail address, I can tell you officially those days are done.

All-in-all this took about two days to put together, stretched out over several days.

A big To-Do item for me now is to learn the crap out of CSS. I am a print and identity designer by experience, but it’s very clear to me at this stage that if you are really going to stand on your own two feet in this world you’re going to have to know a thing or two about how to make the web Go. So consider this Vossome.com 1.0, which… ohhhh, I am so going to run over there and name it that right now… which means there’s going to be a mess of updates and reworkings and possibly movings to new bloggings in the future. And when I get that CSS mess down I’ll be able to PolyFro it all out.

Wednesday: No posts because it’s BADCast Day!

ps: Thanks to everyone who wrote in yesterday for your support and encouragement!

Comments (22)

Miles said:

In wordpress, you should be able to use the tag in the body of your post—anything after that is forced to the next page.

Posted on December 3, 2007

Inaudible Nonsense (DC1974) said:

First, thing: such beautiful work. I wish I had the opportunity to do some of that stuff where I work. I have differing tastes from my creative directors, which is really pushing me away from design right now. Anyway…

Secondly, I’m really interested to watch how this goes for you. I like the idea of a blog for my portfolio as well. Not the least of which is because I am really interested in how social media is changing the face of communications. And it fits with my interests of interactivity that I explored when I was getting my BFA in performance art.

But I couldn’t seem to make Wordpress do what I wanted. I like the theme you picked (and looked at it myself — but I hate that header, and wanted to get rid of it, but don’t know enough about CSS to that. So I feel like I need to study up before even touching WordPress.

In the end, I touched up my old website in the same way that I had built it originally - all old fashioned with frames and tables and what have you. And probably not all that well. I’m not at all a web designer. And though I can tell you what I like about certain designs. And what doesn’t work about others. I haven’t a clue, so much, about how to approach the whole process myself.

I’m really excited for your new direction with your career and life path. I’ll be watching to see you succeed and pick up some tips.

Leslie Tane said:

Hey Nate,

I’ve been lurking around your excellent blog for some time now.

Check out this link to find out how to make excerpts on your WordPress blog: http://codex.wordpress.org/CustomizingtheRead_More

Good luck!

Nate Voss said:

Okay, great! I’m going to check that out, Leslie. Thanks for the info!

And thanks again to everyone for their encouragement. Especially folks that have been coming here forever, like DC’74, it means a lot.

Posted on December 4, 2007

Aaron said:

Not to sound like a douche or anything, but Nate — you spelled “invitations” wrong. :-)

Yikes. No, the douche bag in this case is usually the fellow spelling things wrong. Thanx Aaron

Prescott Perez-Fox said:

I’d like to think that a blog can certainly function as a portfolio site, and vice versa. (mine site serves double-duty these days). One thing to address is how regularly you add new content. With a date tag staring viewers in the face, they might expect that you are producing awesome work every week or so. Not a problem, until you go six months without updating the site. So you might wanna ditch the date/time tag in general, once you get better at WordPress.

The best thing about WordPress is that it’s completely customisable. It took me a few tries, but I taught myself enough CSS and PHP to make a completely customised theme. There are tons of resources out there, but the best way to learn is by taking apart other people’s code, and seeing how it all works. I’ll try and email you some links.

Um, can I get your email Nate?

karen said:

Thanks Nate for a great article. I can relate with much of this. I had significant technical/web assistance getting my portfolio website up over 4 years ago, and to update it I was always at the mercy of others. Which just meant I’ve spent the last couple of years with an embarrasing/out-dated portfolio—-just hoping my site would get buried. I got tired of the excuses—-and decided to go the route of using a program I can handle on my own. I haven’t checked out wordpress—-but I just signed onto Tumblr.com and got a site up this week. Technically, they call it “scrapbooking” not “blogging,” but its finally allowing me to be in control and current with my site. Its a great feeling—-and has taken an activity that used to fill me with fear and transformed it into something I enjoy.

Your site looks very nice, and I love the podcasts!

Posted on December 5, 2007

Geoff Thibeau said:

I’ve got one of those “zomg coming soon!” pages that hasn’t changed for over a year. Reason being, I wasn’t CSS-knowledgable until this fall. But I’m hoping to change that by the end of the year.
Icon 13. :D

Hm. Well apparently that link doesn’t want to work. But go here for Icon 13: http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/05/15/what-do-all-the-icons-mean/

Mark Jaquette said:

Thanx Nate for ‘web logging’ your thoughts about using a blog for a portfolio! I think the concept and utilization is great as well. I’ve maintained and managed several html sites, over the past 8 years or so, of my illustrations and graphics and am just recently joined a blog community. The only draw back i’ve experienced lately is that they can’t have my images large, to my liking. maybe i haven’t delved far enough yet to see how, so i revert back to my html sites and have my designs as big as i want! as pascal would say (in a lite/modern theoretical phrasing) if you can use Blogs as a portfolio site AND use the reciprocal of using your portfolio as a blog - the ‘product’ should work!

thanx - Mark - BAMm GRAPHICS - illustrationISM

Posted on December 6, 2007

p.berkbigler said:

Nate:

Having jetted over to Vossome immediately after finishing the read on this post, I’m convinced of one the best possible features of a portfolio blog:

The chance to actually read what someone is compelled to think / say about your work ASAP.

Previous portfolio sites have rarely been constructed to allow for anything like a blank wall to write glowing / steaming graffiti on about what struck you in the work you were looking at. I think of the infinite amount of written / verbal response that we make sure students get and leave education with, only to plop them out into the world where response often gets a little lost in the shuffle.

As we know from blogging in general, you WILL know what people have to say about you / your work / your words / your (fill in the blank) if you create the opportunity for them to do so - sounds like a perfectly chancy way to determine what could stay or go within your “book” from now on.

Peace, doctor…

Joe Moran said:

Good luck, sir!

Very Respectfully,

Posted on December 7, 2007

Jason T. said:

Hello Nate:

It was a very nice coincidence that I was perusing through blogs for a few minutes and came across this post, which has been something on my mind for the last few weeks. I also am victim to the “coming soon” page, not because I don’t have a site up but because I’m always redesigning (and unhappy enough with the previous look to take it down). I have been considering the jump to a blog for a while now, so your advice definitely comes in handy. I’m still weighing the pros/cons and am just now learning the full potential of CSS, but I think I might be going the same route.

Cheers, Jason

Mitch Canter said:

First of all, congrats for taking the gumption to learn CSS. I did the opposite from you; I learned web design early on, then transitioned over to print design in my last job. Knowing both sides of the spectrum will make you a very much more rounded designer, and you can start to use elements from one side in the other (using web “margins” to set backgrounds, etc)

As far as wordpress goes, I love it; i’ve used nothing but ever since I discovered it. You can set up categories for your different topics (web, print, etc) and then sub-topics for the different genres (illustration, photomanipulation, etc).

So, good luck on your CSS endeavors! It’s a magical language, with full control over… well, anything you want to put on the web!

Posted on December 8, 2007

david said:

Here is something else that is very vosome.

http://www.ommegang.com/index.php?mcat=1&scat=1&yr=1

Posted on December 9, 2007

Justin Paluch said:

I must sound like a shill, since I drop this every time someone says that they’re trying to learn CSS.

Buy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Web-Standards-Jeffrey-Zeldman/dp/0321385551

Seriously. I bought a lot of CSS books, and did a lot of reading online. But things didn’t click until I read that. I’ve been making web pages since ~96 or 97, so I could code HTML by hand, etc. Not sure if having table based design ingrained was a detriment, but that book finally overcame it.

Posted on December 11, 2007

Richard Holt said:

I too decided to use WordPress for my portofolio site. It’s online now and in the end has housed my portfolio, blog, photoblog and random scribbles. I’ve found it works quite well so far, although I had to do a lot of custom tweaks etc to get it to work exactly as I wanted and to feel less blog like in places.

now it’s almost finished, the work will pay off because it will be super easy to keep up to date from that point onwards…

Posted on December 13, 2007

Simanek said:

If you are looking for an excellent CMS and you know your way around XHTML + CSS, take a look at TextPattern. WordPress is nice, but it has a lot of bloat and you could spend a lot of time learning things that are useful only within WordPress itself. The TextPattern Book is a great walk through to help you get started.

I like and use WordPress, but I hate to invest a lot of time learning how to work around the CMS. TextPattern lets you build the site and then drop in dynamic content where you like. Building a site with it is an additive process rather than a, um, well, process of reorganizing a jigsaw puzzle (like WordPress).

Posted on December 31, 2007

Pixelsspectrum said:

Hi Nate, I like your style. Its fresh, funny and you can even to get to know something :))) Really good stuff.

Posted on January 24, 2008

Find physician jobs said:

I use 3 of my blogs for portfolio reasons, i think thats what it good about the blog network.

Posted on June 15, 2008

Be A Design Group

Be A Design Group

BE A DESIGN GROUP is an invitation to all people to participate in design. It is a place where designers can test new ideas, share observations, and comment on cultural trends. Our definition of design is intentionally broad so that the subject matter of our posts can be diverse and unlimited.

Blogs as Portfolio Sites?

by Nate Voss, (22 comments)

Sponsored by:

Comments (22)

Miles said:

Inaudible Nonsense (DC1974) said:

Leslie Tane said:

Nate Voss said:

Aaron said:

Nate Voss said:

Prescott Perez-Fox said:

Prescott Perez-Fox said:

karen said:

Geoff Thibeau said:

Geoff Thibeau said:

Mark Jaquette said:

p.berkbigler said:

Joe Moran said:

Jason T. said:

Mitch Canter said:

david said:

Justin Paluch said:

Richard Holt said:

Simanek said:

Pixelsspectrum said:

Find physician jobs said:

Post a comment