Portfolio of Daniel Bulli

Great interface design for this photography site submitted by Daniel Bulli, who designed and built the site himself. He set up his website with scalability in mind, so that it’s really easy to add new photographs on an ongoing basis. Which is good since his mission is to post a photograph each day.

http://photos.nuff-respec.com/

The Website of Photographer, James Quantz Jr.

Building a story, that’s what James Quantz Jr. does.
Taking what starts as a concept, James skillfully crafts what he captures in the camera into a one-of-a-kind visual production that grabs hold of the imagination in a truly remarkable way.

James’ terrific new online portfolio and iPhone website was created by the talented Michael McDonald, founder and creative director of Organic Grid. Michael was recently kind enough to answer a few questions for No Plastic Sleeves about online portfolio design and development. You can read that interview here.

http://www.quantzphoto.com/

Portfolio of Designer, David Arias

Smart looking, comprehensive portfolio package for graphic designer David Arias. Includes portfolio book, resume and website.

I recently made this portfolio book for the purpose of showing my design work to potential clients and potential studios during initial meetings. It’s a perfect bound, 246 page book. The front and back covers of the book is my personal identity “DA”. – David Arias, http://arias.ca/

The Web & Print Portfolio of Winni Wintermeyer

Winni Wintermeyer, Photographer

Photographer Winni Wintermeyer recently submitted his portfolio to No Plastic Sleeves. In addition, I thought so highly of his website that I’m featuring it as a “Site of the Week”. Check it out at http://www.3am.net.

About the print portfolio, Winni commented, “It’s a Pina Zangaro Machina portfolio. My previous portfolio was square and completely homemade out of plywood…. [With the new one ] I wanted a warmer feel to it and finished the outside with a bamboo plywood. A couple photo editors have told me that they’re not too crazy about all metal portfolios since they tend to scratch furniture if not handled extra careful. Turns out that my customization wasn’t such an original idea because Pina Zangaro now has bamboo portfolios as well … but not in square, so I still have one that’s unique.”

Regarding his website Winni says, “I designed it so that on the front page you can get a quick overview of the work with big thumbnails. We all know that photo editors don’t have much time and everything loads pretty quickly just with HTML. The design of the individual galleries is very stripped down and I created a fluid layout that scales to different sizes and still looks good on a 30″ monitor. There’s also an option to go full screen and navigate with the arrow keys. Image captions are hidden and only become available when the user rolls into the upper portion of the image. Even though it’s done in flash it “deep links” to each individual image. That way the viewer can bookmark and forward links of their favorites – a request I heard from a few art buyers.”

Interview with Organic Grid’s Michael McDonald

I’m excited to share with you a recent interview I conducted with Organic Grid founder and creative director, Michael McDonald. His work includes numerous award-winning portfolio websites and has been featured in numerous international design reference books and magazines including: logo lounge, communication arts, layout workbook, interface, netdiver, www design, in your face too, simple websites, best websites from around the world, adobe flash film festival, graphic design usa, art directors club, media inspiration awards, print magazine, .net magazine, web designing magazine japan, web marketing association, flash essentials, web designer uk, practical web design magazine, sxsw web awards, and the fwa: favourite website awards.

Q&A
Organic Grid has designed and developed a number of really successful portfolio sites for photographers and other creatives. What do you think the key qualities are that distinguish a successful portfolio site?

The key qualities that distinguishes a successful portfolio site are the following: a minimalist interface and page layout, and large full-screen imagery that has good composition and is well compressed so that it downloads relatively quickly. The interface and overall design of the website should play a secondary and supporting role to the actual content and imagery of the website design. The content should be the most important element and design on the site. The website should be easy to update, edit or change with a (CMS) Content Management System so that the website appears to be fresh with new content, “Content is King”…

Are there any current trends in web design that you would recommend someone take a look at or perhaps stay away from?

There’s no real innovative or mind boggling web trends for 2010, but perhaps having an iPhone/Android/Blackberry version of their website available on mobile devices will be a key in reaching new audiences. The trend for large full-screen imagery, cinematic style websites and minimalism will continue to blossom in 2010 as consumers become more educated and get tired of viewing poorly design websites that look like everyone else’s websites. I have observed and becoming increasingly concerned that too many websites are being designed with boilerplate website templates. “They are cheap, dilute your brand and look amateurish”…

For a photographer or designer who’s in a situation where they have to design and develop their own site, what advice would you give them? Are there inexpensive resources you would recommend that could help?

Building a simple and free blog from one of the numerous resources available today i.e. WordPress. Publishing your work/portfolio on the various social media websites i.e. (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc…) are effective ways of getting your ideas, work, name and brand established. Purchasing a template from Livebooks.com is also quick and inexpensive alternative to getting your portfolio published quickly, the only downside to using something like LiveBooks is that there are hundreds if not thousands of photographers that will be sharing the same identical template “look and feel” as you. Simplifying your website and portfolio will always serve you best in establishing and differentiating yourself from other artists. Creative directors, art directors, and media buyers alike do not have time to look through hundreds of photographs and or figure out how to use your website, “Less is More”…

I noticed that most if not all of your portfolio site designs are created in Adobe Flash. What do you think the benefits are to creating a portfolio site in Flash (versus a CSS/HTML type site)? Are there any drawbacks to using Flash?

The benefits of creating a portfolio based website using Adobe Flash simply outweighs building a website in CSS/HTML, in my personal opinion. Adobe Flash allows me the opportunity of creating an immersive, seamless, full-screen, and cinematic experience that creates a visual impact and helps show off the artists’ work and talent. The drawbacks of using Adobe Flash to build a portfolio based website is that currently there is currently no Adobe Flash plug-in support for the iPhone, and that the time & cost to building a custom Flash website is more expensive than building a traditional website in CSS/HTML.

What do you enjoy most about what you do?

I personally enjoy working and collaborating with other talented and like minded creatives who value good design, and are willing to take calculated risks. I really enjoy creating simple, effective, elegant and meaningful interactive experiences that help my clients sell their work, build their brand, and expose their talents to wider audiences on a international scale.

Site of the Week: Peter Schafrick Photography

Peter Schafrick
http://www.peterschafrick.com/

Peter Schafrick is a commercial photographer with studios in New York, Toronto and Chicago. He specializes in shooting products with an emphasis on liquids. He has won several international awards. His website was designed by Organic Grid. It’s an excellent example of a portfolio site design. The interface is intuitive, seamless and unobtrusive. The images are large and clearly the focus of the site design. There’s also some nice integration of “behind the scenes” video. The site was recently featured on the DesignCharts Weekly Top 40.

*Click images for larger view

An Integrated Portfolio Package: Photographer, Terry Vine

Check out these well-designed and thoughtfully integrated portfolio pieces from photographer Terry Vine – including portfolio books, promotional books, cases and website. http://terryvine.com/

Terry had this to say about the work -
“The portfolios were designed by Amanda Love of Love Leaf Press in Chicago. She worked hand in hand with my rep, Patti Schumann, to come up with a unique presentation and a way to tie together the varying segments of my work. We wanted to include my personal fine art images along with the commercial images and have it all work together. She came up with the idea of three separate books presented together in a slipcase. We titled these books Life, Luxury and Leisure which tie in with galleries of the same names on the new website. The new website was designed by Marketa Hand of Wired Hand Design.

Separately we did a new promotional piece, Seven Assignments, that feature the work of the seven “Project” galleries on the new website. The new promotion piece was created by Chris Hill and Bobby Van Lenten of Hill Design (http://www.hillonline.com/) and was printed by Blanchette Press. And And finally we did a series of ePromos that were sent out, each one featuring work from these same galleries that link back to the website.”

Site of the Week: Fernando Guerra, Architectural Photographer

Fernando Guerra, Lisbon, Portugal
http://ultimasreportagens.com

About the site
This site was recently submitted to No Plastic Sleeves by Fernando Guerra.

Fernando says, “My site was ready just last month after a year of (in-house) work. The thing here was how to show almost 400 projects on an interface that is nice and sleek but above all: it works. We are the number one place to see what´s new regarding architecture and we have to be very easy to consult and search on.”

In Print by FG+SG, founded by Fernando Guerra and Sérgio Guerra
Book 04 – Santa Marta Lighthouse Museum, Cascais | Aires Mateus

“Fernando Guerra and Sérgio Guerra founded studio FG+SG – Fotografia de Arquitectura in 1999. They have been responsible in large part for disseminating contemporary Portuguese architecture over the last 10 years. Fernando Guerra photographs the architecture, while Sérgio Guerra is responsible for producing the articles and managing the atelier. After 5 years of activity, they decided to establish ‘FG+SG – Livros de Imagem’ publishers to promulgate the various architectural works they photograph.” – http://ultimasreportagens.com/bio.php

Site of the Week: James Meakin, Photographer

James Meakin, London, UK
http://www.james-meakin.com/

Great use of thumbnails and full-screen images. Navigation works well. Nice extra touch with the fade transition between photographs.

Andreas Smetana, Photography Website

Andreas Smetana, Photographer, Sydney, Australia
http://www.smetana.net/

Jeremy Levine, Architect

Portfolio Website
http://www.jeremylevine.com/

Marija Ivkovic, Photographer

Marija Ivkovic, Photographer, Online Portfolio
http://www.marijaivkovic.com/

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Gary Paitre, Digital Dude

Gary Paitre, Online Portfolio

http://www.gary-web.com/

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Cubic Studio, Brazil

Portfolio Website
Cubic Studio, Brazil
http://www.cubic.com.br/

The design concept for this portfolio site utilizes pictograms as a means to organize content and navigate.

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