If you want to grow as a photographer, graphic designer or some other creative professional, you’ll need to update your “public face” continually and let people know about your recent works or projects. This is like promoting a business and letting your customers know that you have great deals to offer.
Curating and maintaining the content in your image gallery, however, is time-consuming (and will make you question if this task is worth the effort). After all, you’d rather be out there producing photos or other works of art rather than spending time in front of your laptop managing your digital portfolio.
Don’t fret, though. There’s a platform that can represent your creative works in the most positive light, impress prospects, showcase your artistic expertise and boost your reach. You can achieve these (and more) by using Adobe Portfolio.
Adobe Portfolio: What is It?
This online tool allows you to quickly produce a simple personalized website and display your photography portfolio, videos, drawing, paintings and other creative works. Think of Adobe Portfolio as an online photo gallery that you can create with little to no professional technical knowledge.
This online gallery website builder can serve your portfolio needs, regardless if you are an established artist or a budding photographer or graphic designer. If you’re paying for the yearly Adobe Cloud membership, you can enjoy access to Adobe Portfolio at no extra cost.
Exploring the Features of Adobe Portfolio
This powerful tool comes with a range of features that will help you compile your artistic works with a presentable appearance.
These include the following:
Responsive and Customizable Image Portfolio Website
Adobe Portfolio enables you to create a highly responsive website in a matter of minutes. The initial site is composed of two pages: gallery and contact. From here, you have the option to change up the contents and modify as you please.
Splash Pages
This feature lets you create single-page image portfolio sites in seconds. You can quickly establish an online presence by designing a landing page, an event page or a welcome page. You could even publish an Adobe Portfolio website with modules, such as social media icons, redirect buttons and a section about you.
Domain Linking
Adobe Portfolio allows you to connect your domain to improve your website’s recognition. Take note, however, that the integration process won’t be easy. If you’re thinking of replacing a built-in Adobe domain, you’ll need a custom name purchased through the platform or other services, such as Dreamhost or GoDaddy.
Then, you’ll need to configure the settings manually. This involves changing the DNS records, as well as indicating the right IP host and address.
Unlimited Hosting and Pages
Once you become a member of the Creative Cloud, you’ll enjoy unlimited bandwidth and hosting. This means that you can upload as many pages to your Adobe Portfolio website as you want and share it across various platforms.
Premade Customizable Themes
You get to select from multiple available themes. Each template is responsive, attractive and unique. You can tailor these free themes to satisfy your preferences.
Access to Adobe Fonts
The right fonts can breathe life into your website. You can further personalize your portfolio website by using your preferred Adobe Font.
Password Protection
Passwords help safeguard your website against cybercriminals. Adobe Portfolio gives you the option to password-protect your entire site — or just selected pages that you want to remain private.
Websites Made Using Adobe Portfolio
How do you plan to leave your digital mark? Check out these examples made using Adobe Portfolio for inspiration:
Wensen Ning
This artist’s website fascinates visitors with a touch of mystery. The site beautifully showcases the images in full size.
Alice Soulard
This creative thinker, photographer and award-winning designer used Adobe Portfolio to create a personalized website that features a plain banner along with a clean and neat interface. She takes pride in displaying her best photography and design projects.
John Olson
John is an art director and graphic designer who used Adobe Portfolio to showcase images of his creative works together with projects hyperlinked to his social media pages. His website also contains pages that tackle how he accomplished each project.
Why Use Adobe Portfolio
Adobe Portfolio serves as a worthy platform for newbie and experienced artists looking to build a recognizable public face on the website. Using this tool lets you enjoy these benefits:
Zero Coding Necessary
When you build a personalized website from the ground up, you typically need to know the basics — especially HTML and CSS. This isn’t the case with Adobe Portfolio.
You’re not required to learn coding to set up your portfolio website. If you’re looking to create cover pages, eye-catching portfolios and dynamic galleries in less time, this website building tool is for you.
Effortless Image Resizing
Adobe Portfolio will automatically reduce the resolution and optimize your images when necessary. This helps cut down on website loading time. This also means that you won’t have to configure the pixel or color settings of your images before uploading them to your site.
Excellent Support
Another benefit of Adobe Portfolio is the support you’ll get when you use the platform. Adobe has a large community of followers, including users from around the world who are ready to help through the relevant forum sites. The platform also has a Help Center containing tons of articles and guides on using Adobe Portfolio.
Tips for Creating an Awesome Adobe Portfolio Website
When you’re building a website using Adobe Portfolio, you want to go beyond producing a site that displays your works. You should make a site that will do the following for you:
- Boost your visibility by getting your creative works noticed by a lot of people
- Obtain the exposure you deserve
- Emphasize your skills and strengths as a photographer, designer or artist
- Find the right clients
Here are a few suggestions to get you started on the right foot:
Add Media that Shows Off Your Best Work
Before you hit that upload button, take a step back and curate your creative works. Your website should resemble a professional portfolio, not an external hard drive. Take note that a few excellent projects are better than a ton of decent ones.
So, make sure you publicly upload the best of the best. If you have a thousand works, for instance, choose your top 10 or top 20.
Design Your Website Appropriately
Keep the design of your Adobe Portfolio website simple and clean. Your creative projects should take center stage. Refrain from introducing pointless design elements that will only clutter up your website.
Create an Effective “About Me” Page
When creating this page, resist the temptation of treating it like a resume. This means that you should go beyond listing your past jobs. Give your website visitors a comprehensive and memorable sense of who you are as an artist. It’s a page that lets you showcase your personality.
Here are a few guide questions to assist you in creating your About page:
- What led you to pursue a creative career?
- How did you arrive at where you are today?
- Who serves as your inspiration behind your creative works?
- What challenges did you face when producing your works of art?
Use Normal Case When Coming up with Project Titles
WRITING PROJECT TITLES LIKE THIS IS A CRIME AGAINST DESIGN. Instead of taking the all caps route, use sentence or title case. Remember that portfolio creation is just about uploading your photos. You’re giving your creative works a voice. So, make sure that the appearance of your text is appropriate.
Keep Your Descriptions Short and Straight to the Point
A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. If you’re going to add text descriptions, keep them succinct. You don’t want to bore viewers with overly long text.
Use Videos
Some artists go the extra mile by telling the story of their project in video form. You could use GIFs or upload a short video that communicates the additional aspects of your works.
Artists who have a Creative Cloud subscription should definitely take advantage of Adobe Portfolio to create a stunning portfolio website. The platform’s several features and ease of use are perfect for artists who want to showcase their talents without having to learn how to design and code a website from scratch.