Cargo Collective

How I Updated My Portfolio

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.

www.cargocollective.com/paulachandesign

www.cargocollective.com/paulachandesign

(more…)

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest

Progress on Upping My Game

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.

I’ve been working on it for several days now, and I’m getting closer to a stopping point–for now–there’s always new projects to include and old ones to remove. After I get the images up, I need to re-do my resumé and “About” page for the site. Then I’ll re-link everything and re-write some stuff on LinkedIn. I might also have the person responsible who pointed out the need for better representation of my work take another look and also thank her.

What are you working on for self-improvement? Please share in the comments.

Ciao! Paula

Facebooktwittergoogle_pluspinterest