The web design standards and expectations are constantly changing, and thousands of photography portfolio website has fallen behind with the times. If you think your website is one of the culprits for holding up progress then now is the time to redesign your photography portfolio website.
Tips to Create Perfect Photography Portfolio Website:
Read this article to get a number of top tips to help ensure that your new website design is a winner with your visitors.
Tip 1 – Think About Your Target Market:
Your portfolio needs to reflect your services and your website design needs to reflect your target demographic.
If you’re a wedding photographer then you want a crisp clean web design that compliments the theme of the event itself. Of course, if you’re a fashion photographer you’ll want big full screen images full of hip outfits and beautiful models.
Think about what your target market want and expect to see, and think about what your design says about you.
Tip 2 – Wire-frame Your Website:
You’d be surprised how many website owners fail to wire-frame their website prior to development, and this shows once the site goes live.
Untidy and inconsistent designs, clunky graphics and poor navigation are key indicators that little to no planning went into the design and functionality of the site.
Tip 3 – Think About Dynamic Content:
Gone are the days of static websites, these days you need to be thinking about how you will maintain your photography portfolio website and what sites you would like to integrate into your own site.
Dynamic content is key to keeping your site fresh and informative for people to use as well as making your website SEO friendly.
Tip 4 – Use High Contrast to Make Your Images Stand Out:
Images, as a general rule of thumb, look a lot better when viewed on a darker background. This is because there is more contrast compared to images viewed on white backgrounds. Contrast helps to intensify the colors of your images helping them to appear more bright and vivid.
Try putting your images on a dark background and compare it to the standard white background and see which one works best.
If you decide to design a dark website then it’s a good idea to add a flare of color as a highlight. A little color can add a lot of character to your website.
Tip 5 – Condense Your Portfolio:
It’s all too easy to assume that the internet can provide infinite digital storage which means that you can feature your entire portfolio on your website, but this just isn’t the case.
Too many images can reduce the download speed of your website, and it can make it difficult for visitors to filter through all of the images. Instead, condense your portfolio and set a limit on your website to only allow yourself ‘x’ amount of images on your site at any one time.
This will force you to keep a tight rein on your portfolio size and it will help to ensure that your portfolio is crammed full of only the very best of shots!
Tip 6 – Strategically Place Your Photos in Your Portfolio:
Once you’ve agreed to condense your portfolio it becomes even more important to strategically place your photos within your portfolio.
The best technique is the ‘strength sandwich’, place your strongest images at the beginning and the end of your portfolio, and place your weaker images in the middle.
Strong images at either end of your portfolio will help to grab the viewer’s eye at the beginning and will also ensure that your visitor leaves your portfolio on a high note.
Tip 7 – Watermark Your Work:
No matter how hard you try, somebody, somewhere, can and will steal a copy of your work. The only way to protect your photos from would be thief is to embed your images with watermarks.
However, there are two downsides to using watermarks:
- Adding watermarks will add time to your image editing process
- The images on your portfolio will be slightly impaired.
Not all photographers use watermarks, and some photographers don’t use them at all. This is a personal choice and one you will need to consider for your photography portfolio website.
About The Author
