Yay! I get to do another Holiday Fashion post! I finally completed my portfolio re-do–for the time being (more changes planned, but I can’t get to my data storage right now.) Now for some fun!
I had a dilemma about what to call this post, as I came up with several fun ones: Fringe Benefits, Holiday Fringe, All In Fringe, All About Fringe. I finally settled on “On the Fringe” as it denotes “being on the edge,” which just sounded more interesting!
I’ve gathered up a nice collection of fringe! Skirts, dresses, tops and accessories. And I’ll tell you a little about my new favorite clothing line, which has several fringed pieces. Check my Pinterest for shopping info!
So I’ve been talking a lot about this design portfolio re-do, but being new to blogging, I didn’t realize I need to tell you how I did it. So here’s the how-to. I use Cargo Collective, “…a personal publishing platform aimed at creating accessible tools and a networked context to enhance the exposure of talented individuals on the Internet.” I’m using the “Polaris” template, very spare and clean, much like this blog.
DID THEY UPGRADE THEMSELVES?
I mentioned my portfolio was formerly rather anemic. In my defense, I’ve actually had this portfolio site for about a year or so, and I could swear when I first started using it, it was much more limiting. You were only allowed to post very few things for free before you had to upgrade. So I only posted a few things, more than I thought was the limit, and thought I would just wait to see if they asked me to upgrade. They never did. Then when I went to update it last week, it now says I can have up to 12 “projects” and 100MB of image storage.
IT HELPS TO HAVE PHOTOSHOP
I wanted to add new samples of my web design work first and foremost, since the last ones I did were 2-3 years old. The first thing I did was create templates in Photoshop to drop each kind of media into so they would all be the same size. This keeps the flow from one sample to the next smooth so your images are not “jumping” all over because of size changes from one to the next.
Today I’m excited to tell you all about the new things I did to my blog. Wow! A day of blog format learning! OMG! I learned so much from Jeni of The Blog Maven.
I followed her on video tutorial “How To Feature Your Most Pinterest-Worthy Posts In Your Sidebar.” She also offers a free PDF guide, “5 things you can fix on your blog in the next week to get more subscribers” when you sign up for emails, that was also extremely helpful.
Speaking of signing up for emails, I also figured out how to add a MailChimp widget to have people sign up for email newsletters. Please do sign up so my hard work was not wasted! (I sure hope I did it right!) The sign up is super-easy and right under my photo at the top of the sidebar, which I also learned how to do today! I even added the requisite MailChimp icon/link under the sign up area, in case you need MailChimp too!
Yes, I was very busy!
Again, please sign up for the newsletter, and share your in the comments about the Pinterest sidebar feature! Thanks!
Hooray! My portfolio / LinkedIn update is done! I’m still working on the “branding” thing, but I’m not sure how much the “personality tests” will help. In fact, there’s an article from the New York Times here that says these kinds of tests are basically worthless.
So I’m still a bit stymied for the “branding” thing. Nonetheless, that does not keep me from feeling a huge sense of accomplishment for having done a complete overhaul on my formerly anemic portfolio. I had gotten so far behind on updating it, that the mere thought of how much work it would be was overwhelming. I thanked the person who gave me the wake up call this evening; she will receive the email in the morning.
I spent a week editing the projects and preparing the Photoshop files and uploading them, sometimes several times to get the size of the image just the right to make a good page layout. The flow from one project to the next needed to be right as well, so there was a lot of shuffling the projects around. But now I can feel proud of what’s there, and it will give potential clients a much greater sense of the depth of my work. Yay!
I’ll keep working on the “branding.”
What do you think about the need for everyone and everything to be “branded?” Do share in the comments.
Woohoo! I am plugging right along with the portfolio update! And it’s paying off already. I had a phone interview today that went very well. Because I had loaded up so many more samples and organized things so well, I was able to point out specific samples to illustrate my expertise, and walk the interviewer through my concepting process. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had control of the interview and truly made a good impression.
I’m trying to get this done in the next day or so, as I’m dying to do another Holiday Fashion post that I’ve done the research for, but haven’t had time to write. It’s coming, I promise!
How are you coming along with any of your personal projects? What are you working on? Do share in the comments.
So I’m getting there. I’m making progress on Upping My Game. The first thing I’m doing is revamping my portfolio website. I’ve added tons of new samples and have a list for more. It’s taken a while going through so many projects and deciding which are useful and which are not. You can’t (and shouldn’t) put everything up.
It’s not going as quickly as I’d hoped. Part of the problem is creating web-ready images from other formats, and the other part is the website itself. It’s through Cargo Collective, one of those sites where you can upload stuff and hit the ground running to have at least a simple site up fast. But it’s not perfect and it has its limitations.
Several times after uploading an image, I didn’t like it and wanted to change it. But for some reason, no matter how many times I changed and saved the image in Photoshop, it reverted to the original version uploaded. Aaaarrrrgh! It also would not hold a 1 pixel border on some of the images, even though I could clearly see it on the file, and re-saved and re-uploaded it several times. Some kind of glitch in the system. I hope it looks fine tomorrow.
Trying to find joy during a stressful time is always hard. But there are ways.
A few weeks ago, I posted about a pro bono project I was working on for a shelter for troubled kids here. I completed the project and was concerned because I had not heard back from the client concerning receipt of the finished logos for about a week. Turns out his wife had to go in for an emergency c-section and their newborn son was in NICU.
He apologized for the delay, but when I found out the reason, I congratulated him heartily and wished the family well. The baby was in NICU because he had arrived early, and they just wanted to make sure he was all right. Mother and baby are doing well and should be home soon.
With permission from the organization, here are the finished logos, along with some of the explorations. You can find out more about Hearts With a Missionhere.