Last week, I spend 8 days in a row, 10 hours a day, redesigning my portfolio website. Something funny happened in the last day or two. I started to question my branding and profession. Now, I am remaking the whole website and I don’t intend on making any changes. Why? Keep reading…
First I must stay I absolutely love my new website. I was inspired from D’arcy Benincosa. I first found her while searching for film metering techniques a while back. She does very high end weddings, commercial photography and recently has been pushing hard on mentoring, business strategy, etc… Following her on social media over the course of a year was basically a masterclass on designing a website that sells to clients. So, un shamefully, I took her website as a template, and adapted it to my own personal taste and artistic affinities.
From the adjacent video, I learned how to meter for fuji pro 400h for high key images. Click to see the gallery.
I quickly learned the shortcomings of squarespace. I have vouched and loved this platform for the past 3 years. And I still believe it’s an amazing tool for hobbyists, personal pages, small portfolios, etc… But for businesses or anyone trying to add a little more flare to small details, it leaves much to be desired. My main frustration was the lack of layout customization when transitioning between desktop, tablet and mobile views. Not a deal breaker, but made me aware that the next update probably wouldn’t be with squarespace.
When working on slow and tedious tasks on the computer, I usually will listen to podcasts or youtube videos. As I was working on a lot of graphic design, I mainly listen to The Futur. I found their content very inspirational and often help me consider options I was unaware of. As I was nearing the end of the website update, one of their podcasts fundamentally changed a core aspect of my freelancer identity. This could be a whole other blog, so I will just say that It made me reconsider who I am. I’m not a photographer or a filmmaker. I solve problems. This simple shift could potentially change how I position myself in conversations with clients. Being so far deep into the remake of my website, I couldn’t just throw all that out the window on a whim. For now, I see this as a potential new goal to achieve in the future. I’m working on having those conversations and positioning myself more as an expert than a freelancer.
What does all this has to do with designing new website? I concede, I got off track giving context. Let’s get into that. Again, I was listening to the futur, and stumbled on this video where they discussed this web platform called Webflow. The talk was very inspiring. Although I never had any interest of being a web designer or ever consider offering those services, that short talk made me think I could potentially do it. After all, I did a good job on this website, right?
So here I am, redesigning my website on a new platform. My current goals are to redo my whole website. I already have all the images pre exported, organized, content is all written and I already have a good idea of the websites structure. I think I can at the very least redesign my website and make it look a little better, smooth out the mobile and tablet layout. I also have this idea in my mind that I could eventually offer this service, but I must fist get acquainted with the platform’s tools and find a reliable workflow.