You’re creative. You’re talented. You want the world to see who you are and what you can do. But the world’s a big place, and it’s hard to stand out. If people can’t see your work, they won’t come knocking at your door. You need people to see what you’re all about, and that requires a strong, professional presence on the web. Luckily, there are online tools that can help you do that successfully.

You need an online portfolio.

It should be easy to find, easy to browse, and easy on the eyes. It should also be easy for you — to set up, update, and customize without taking up too much of your time. It’s easy enough to upload some images to a popular photo site like Flickr, but do you really want your gallery to look like 30 million others? Software packages like WordPress can be tweaked to look pretty, but do you have the time and know-how to maintain your own web server, configure PHP files and learn an elaborate content management system?

Embrace the new

Luckily, the web is changing. New tools are being created that eliminate the trade-off between capability and ease of use. In other words, you don’t need to be a certified geek to pull off a great online portfolio. One service to consider is 4ormat, which gives you a slick portfolio instantly, and lets you customize the look and feel with just a few clicks. It’s also optimized to look great on mobile devices like cell phones or tablets, so you can show off your work wherever you go. 4ormat even lets you connect your portfolio to your own domain, if you happen to have one.

Manage your résumé

Especially if you’re looking for long-term work or contracts with larger agencies. First, make sure it’s accurate, readable and convincing. Liberate it from typos and punctuation errors. Then, make sure people can find it quickly. To do that, make sure it’s available on your site in “plain text” format so that it’s easily indexed by search engines. Job search sites like Monster and CareerBuilder post your résumé this way, as does the aforementioned portfolio site 4ormat. This can also be done with WordPress, but it’s a bit trickier. You should also convert your résumé to PDF, an almost universally accepted document format. PC users can do this for free using software like CutePDF Writer and on a Mac you can simply use the Print to PDF feature.

Use social networking to your advantage

If you don’t have one already, put up a Facebook page with examples of your work. But you should also consider building a profile on other popular sites. LinkedIn caters to a more business-minded audience, so it’s key to developing your professional reputation. Twitter lets you post frequent, short updates for people to follow, letting you connect with potential buyers, collaborators and mentors. You can also “follow” the posts of other people, keeping you updated on the latest insights, trends and opportunities in your field. Whichever sites you use, make sure to include some form of contact info, and always link back to your online portfolio.

Help people find you

Submit your portfolio site to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Search engine optimization, or SEO, will help your site show up in searches. Many free guides exist, but there are a couple of obvious techniques. Use metatags and keywords that relate to the subject — yourself — and to your work on every page you create, so people can find it easily. Link to your portfolio wherever appropriate and try to get others to link to it, too.

Manage your rep

Now that you have an online presence, it’s important to maintain a consistent and professional identity. You also need to stay active — in the social world, the key is to “just show up.” Do one thing daily to promote yourself and your work, but don’t spam. Forge beneficial relationships by communicating with people in a style reflective of your personality and values. And remember: what you put online can stay there forever, for anyone to see. Your reputation is as valuable as your work, so make sure both are at their best.

Finally, motivate yourself. The web has some amazingly powerful tools, but the rest is up to you!

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Making it as a Creative Freelancer: Online Portfolio Tools You Need to Use

“We don’t work on assembly line anymore, we work on projects.” – Seth Godin

And I cannot disagree more. I often catch myself telling my friends that I couldn’t pick up their call because I was working on a project. But really, I was not. I was not being a white-collar innovative creative genius who was working on a project but a blue-collar worker who had to drag another design project thought an assembly line:

Get a Brief > Make a Mock > Make Changes > Repeat Previous Steps if Necessary > Start Developing > Test > Done (+ loads of name calling & hair-pulling in between)

Yuck! That looks like an assembly line. I wanted to innovate and create something new, something brilliant and not yet super brilliant but a soft innovation. And that is exactly what I am not doing. So whom do I blame? Let me think…

… The Evil Client sent from Hell! (official website)

When I started out as a designer, I wanted to use my abundance of wisdom in creating something innovative, doing new things and making things work for people. But I ended up with being treated like a Photoshop who’s being told by a non-designer about what to keep and what not.

How in the world I ended up there? Is there a way out? You bet!

It starts with thinking differently. I am going to show you how you can use the things you’ve been using all along in a different way to rule world… err.. you know what I mean.

Prototypes aka Mock-Ups

It’s the most obvious tool and yet badly used. It becomes ‘the’ vision of what end product will look like and a well-meaning client ends up throwing ruthless and meaningless comments on it.

Let’s revisit the idea of creating a prototype. It’s supposed to be communication between you and your client so you both know where you are going. It’s one of the ways you communicate your solution to a client in a way he can understand.

So if it was communication, tell me again why did they tell you to add half a pixel.

There is something that you know and I know but they don’t know and you are afraid to tell them.

Tell them that it is a damn rough idea of what it will look like and it’s a basic blue print, a general direction. And the vision will develop all along the way.

Use it to communicate security and progress not to judge the poor pixel.

From personal experience, the best of my designs were built evolved on the fly (over a period of time) with very rough idea in prototypes and later development of individual elements.

Innovate

So much emphasize is put on making it easy and obvious for users. They even have a name for it… something called User Experience. But what they fail to realize is that it is an evolving thing. Users evolve over time, and so does design trends but why not the basics?

Why do we still have menus on top or sidebars? Why a menu at all? Why do we confirm to these untold rules and stop the way for innovation? The web is not expensive at all for innovation and testing.

I will tell you what; you can’t lead industry with your wow designs (even us high school kids can do that and way better than you). You will have to dare to innovate. And innovation doesn’t need a huge change all it needs is a different way of looking at things.

Did you really think of creating navigation or you were wondering about how hover state of that horizontal menu will look like?

Portfolio

On a speaking event, I was talking about these ideas, the general response from audience was that they don’t just get such clients.

You know what that means? You failed to project yourself. Does your portfolio speak of all the pretty sites you made? Damn! That’s where your fault is. You are selling pretty sites and that’s what kind of buyers you are getting.

Sell the process instead. Show them how you work how your vision evolves over time. That’s why blogs are way better than showcase. If they are happy with way you work and communicate – they are going to be perfect clients.

Your portfolio isn’t a bunch of business you have done. It’s a story of evolution of emotion to reality. Does it tell your story properly?

Expertise

You know what Google does when people don’t click your AdWords ads? They fire you! A company fires a client. I hear you say, “Of course they can do that. They are Google.” But they are Google because they set themselves aside as experts.

If you want that kind of authority over what you do with projects you touch, if you want your client to trust you with every bit of it then you have to be an expert.

But you can’t be jack of all trades; you have to be a master to fire your client. You need to be very specific about what you sell.

There was a trend when portfolios said: Hi! I am a designer, Illustrator…

Then they learned this lesson and evolved to: Hi! I design user interface.

And then: Hi! I design user interface for web apps.

But before anyone grabs it be an expert and say: Hi! I design blogs for Thesis & WordPress (that’s what I do)

Or maybe: I design websites for creative people

Sure it limits the niche you get, but that is what an expert does. I am from India and know the mystics at work in here. It’s so damn easy to spot an Indian on freelancing sites:

1. They use “Sir / Madam.”
2. They try to hop in every project they can get their hands on.

Result? India becomes known for cheap labor, and experts? Rare!

So you have two choices: Be an expert or be a labor. In case you choose, I will be sad to see a scientific artist go (That’s what a designer is).

PS: What happens when everyone catches up with your specifications of expertise? Psst… you innovate.

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Design, Designer & Designing – Redefined

You don’t have to be a web designer to create an amazing portfolio – maybe you’re a photographer or illustrator or God knows what other type creative soul. And you don’t have to spend two months waiting for some friend to help you with a microsite. Noo sir! – there are very easy ways of doing this by yourself in just a few simple steps and this is one of them!

First you’ll need to sort out your projects and make sure you’ve selected your best pieces that you’re going to showcase. Once you’ve done this you should be ready to cut out some images of the project that you want your visitors to see. You can start creating the thumbnails (220px by 162px) and your main project images (with a 700px width).

After this you’re ready to set up your portfolio! You can download this free xhtml/css portfolio theme called Medifolio made by our friends from LogoMoose, upload your files and your own thumbnails & images to your own server. All you need to do now is make sure that you’ve got the image URLs right. More info on how to do this and on how to edit the projects info is available in the Help file from your download.

Mediofolio | Free | Demo | Download

Note: To get the contact form working you still need some help from a programmer :-]

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How To: Create a Sleek Single Page Portfolio in 10 Minutes

With WordPress becoming more popular every day, maybe in the near future Google will index just WordPress websites. Or maybe not, but still if you need a quick and neat portfolio for you or your studio, you should definitely check out these beautiful themes for the most popular CMS in the world.

Vanilla | $25 | Details | Demo

Vanilla WordPress CMS Website Template is best suited for corporate, Business and Personal websites along with Blog facility.

Portfolious | $35 | Details | Demo

Portfolious is the profesional Fulll WordPress CMS functioning theme for, well anyone!

Suit And Tie | $70 & a free theme | Details | Demo

Suit and Tie Suit & Tie is a stylish business theme by top designer, Bryan Veloso. The clean & trendy style inherit in the design will definitely keep your business up-to-date with current online trends, whilst the attractive homepage slider will be woo-ing most of your customers.

Photocrati Polarized | $59 | Details | Demo

Gallerific | $35 | Details | Demo

Gallerific is a Pro Photography WordPress theme and is loaded with tons of great functionality.

Memex | $35 | Details | Demo

This theme is a fixed layout with two columns built using 960 Grid System. This site is best suitable for a business, company, blog, portfolio, or freelancer portfolio website as well. Customized with Lots of features.

Universum | $25 | Details | Demo

Universum is clean and modern template designed for companies, small business and individuals. It combines fresh modern look with great functionality.

Photocrati Focus | $59 | Details | Demo

Unique Portfolio | $25 | Details | Demo

This theme is best suitable for the freelancers, personal blogs, gallery showcase, business portfolios and suitable for many more other categories.

ePhoto | $20 & 23 free themes | Details | Demo

ePhoto was created for those looking to turn their blog into a photo gallery. While the theme was created with photographers in mind, it can certainly be used to display any type of digital imagery.

Business Inc | $25 | Details | Demo

This theme is best suited for business, corporate and personal websites.

Smart Portfolio | $25 | Details | Demo

Easy to customize 1-4 Column layout on the home page.

IdealCorp | $30 | Details | Demo

This wordpress theme is ideal for the business, corporate site. It includes everything you possibly need for presenting your business online.

BusinessFolio | $30 | Details | Demo

This theme is a fixed layout built with 960 grid System and best suitable for a business sites, Company Portfolio, Freelancer Portfolio or blog sites who want to have it in web 2.0 Style.

Flashlike Photographer | $25 | Details | Demo

Flashlike Photographer is CMS Theme for photographers. It allows you to publish your photos and present them in the best way possible.

Portfolio – Your Online Showcase | $25 | Details | Demo

This is great solution for everyone who is looking for a nice and effective way of showcasing his work to the world. It comes packed with a lot of jQuery powered effects (fading tooltips, social buttons rollover, top drawer animation).

Big Header Folio | $25 | Details | Demo

Big Header Folio is a WordPress template aimed at providing designers with a place to showcase their work as well as the option to post their own blog.

More

For a bigger selection and to stay updated with all the new releases, check out the best WordPress blogs in town: WP Zoom and WP Best

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15 Fresh WordPress Themes To Get The Coolest Portfolio For You Or Your Studio