Welcome to day 2 of the Portfolio challenge! Today you’re going to choose your favorite layout as a starting point for your portfolio. Then, you’re going to add your name or logo in the site title area.
Sign in and choose your layout. To get started, go to myportfolio.com and sign in with your Adobe ID/Profile.
Then, click on Layouts and choose your layout (template).
There are 5 layouts to choose from, each one has suggestions next to it showing its strengths. Take a few moments to pre-visualize what your images would look like in each template keeping in mind the type of work you do, the quantity of work you want to show, and the presentation style that will resonate with your viewers. Scroll through the different templates and take advantage of the links to “View a live example”. If you’re having a difficult time deciding, don’t worry, Portfolio makes it easy to switch layouts at any time – even after customizing a template. (FYI, I chose Sawdust as my starting point.)
Did mysterious projects automatically populate your Portfolio? Ok, we need a small time-out here so that I can explain something. If you’ve previously posted your work to Behance, those previously posted projects will automatically synchronize with your Portfolio (like the “what i dream” project in the screenshot below). This is a great feature if you want to use the same projects that you have posted to Behance, in your Portfolio galleries. However, I am going to show you how to hide your Behance projects. Why? because I have found that the galleries of images that I want to publish to my Portfolio are different from the projects that I share on Behance.
If you’ve never used Behance, and have no idea what I’m talking about – don’t worry you won’t have any mysteriously populated projects and can just skip to the next section – Customizing the site title. But now that I’ve mentioned it, if you’re curious about Behance, I’ve added a little more information, at the end of the post.
So, for those that have published to Behance, if you want to hide the project, click the Manage content icon.
Note: You will only have to click Manage content if you have published images to Behance and don’t want to include them in your Portfolio site.
In the Manage Content window, click the switch to toggle the visibility of the project(s) off.
Toggle the switch to hide the project(s).
Customize the Site Title. Ok, now we’re going to change the site title and start branding our Portfolio. Hover your cursor over the site title area (in this layout it’s in the upper left and has automatically added my name from my Adobe ID), click the pencil, and choose Customize.
In the Site Title window, enter the text for the title and customize the options as desired (font, alignment etc.). Many Portfolio settings have multiple states that can be customized (Normal and Rollover for example). If you prefer to use your logo, click the Image tab and upload your logo. To change indents, click the Margins tab. You are more than welcome to modify as many of these attributes as you want, or you can choose to leave the layouts as they were designed and move forward!
If you want to get fancy, you can toggle the switch sent to Site caption and add additional text.
Click the Logo Container to change the width, as well as top and bottom spacing for your site title area.
And, that’s it for today. Nicely done. Tomorrow we will start adding our galleries.
If you need help at any time, be sure to click on the “i” icon or, click this link: https://help.myportfolio.com/
Behance and Portfolio – a little additional information. In my mind (and I could be wrong!), the difference between Bechance and Portfolio is the type of work that I post to the sites. The projects I post to Behance might include my latest images from Poland or Shanghai (or, if you’re a designer, maybe it’s the latest logo/video/animation that you’ve created), as well as a little back-story or techniques that I used to create it. Once posted, these projects can be discovered by any of the over 6 million members of the Behance creative community. These members include creative professionals from all sorts of different backgrounds as well as creative directors and hiring managers who are looking for creative talent. In addition, I get inspired from the Behance community, interact with and make valuable connections with other artists, and push myself to improve and incorporate different techniques and concepts into my work.
When I post a gallery of images to Portfolio, I really only want to showcase my best, finished, work. For example, only one or two images from a project that I’ve posted to Behance might make it into a gallery on my Portfolio site.
It’s really up to you. I know many photographers that post the same content to Behance and to their Portfolio. It’s a personal choice and really depends on the work that you do and the audience that you are presenting to. Fortunately, projects posted to Behance or galleries created in Portfolio are automatically synchronized making it easy to incorporate them either locations as needed while also having the ability to keep them separate which allows me to tell my story in the right way, to the right people. I would encourage al of you to show your work in whatever form makes sense as they can both help to get your work discovered (because even if I have the best portfolio in the world, it won’t do me any good if no one can find it). : )