Create a website to post my mapping portfolio?

[psyekl]

I'm hoping someone here has the knowledge to help me in this area: Physical portfolios are no longer acceptible for most artist/cartographer jobs I've been looking into applying for; they want a link to a digital portfolio. What I'm looking for is a way to post my work online along with room to post an "about me" resume. I would prefer to have my own address (.url?) so that potential employers don't have to write out a paragraph just to see my work. I'm willing to pay for a personalized web address, but I have absolutely no experience in this area so a templated creation process would be nice.

EDIT: I am looking at available website creators, but there are so many to choose from. What I am looking for here is recommendations and reviews, along with any helpful advice :)

[tilt]

If you want the "cheap" solution go for wordpress - it's free, and you can add pluging to show pictures and write all the text you can dream of - my business page www.pogg.dk is a wordpress page. My other business page www.catapult.dk is also an online cv for me but that is made in HTML, but you can practically make your homepage in photoshop today, I made a really simple one some years ago with a frame made of thumbnails and mouse-over function made the picture in the middle change when you moved over the thumbs.

[thebax2k]

You might want to send a message to or at least take a look for design pointers at the sites of Mike Schley, Christopher West, or Andy Law. All three have websites that serve as cartography portfolios with contact info: West's is http://www.mapsofmastery.com/index.html, Schley's is http://www.mikeschley.com/, and Law's is http://www.hapimeses.com/ . You may also want to take the route that some artists and illustrators do and have a deviantart.com gallery or similar type of gallery on a hosting website.

[torstan]

cghub.com is another good site - which is set up to be both a networking site for artists as well as an online portfolio. It's well respected and has a great clean look to it. I'd say that's the easiest way to create an online portfolio.

I'd also look at blog software - blogspot or wordpress - as they are well organised for this sort of work. Finally, there are many website templates that are more or less designed for this sort of work. I looked into http://www.squarespace.com/ a while ago and it looked like a pretty good solution. However I eventually coded my site myself by hand.

[RobA]

Many (most?) ISP's also give you some web space that can be used to host web pages. If that is the case you just need to by a domain name and get it pointing to your subdomain.

-Rob A>

[bambua]

This is actually one of the things I do for a living. A lot of the time we end up using Wordpress as a backend and then do some custom work to set up a gallery with information about the artwork that's being posted along with using a custom template for the site. It doesn't really look like a blog when it's done but it's very easy to manage. If you want some more information shoot me a PM I'd be happy to help out.

[loongtim]

If you want your own domain name and hosting, WordPress is an easy way to go and you can probably find a free template that's geared toward photo galleries. A lot of hosting companies have 1-click installs, so you don't need to be a tech whiz to get set up. Check out BlueHost, DreamHost or HostGator - I think they all have affordable hosting plans and 1-click installs of WordPress.

[tilt]

And just a note - even setting up WordPress without having a host that does it for you isn't very difficult, takes about 10 minutes the first time you try it :)

[craggles]

I am a Wordpress addict now - all new clients of mine are being pushed in that direction for it's easy management even by a new user. I normally set everything up for them and then give a little tutorial on what they need to do to update pages, add more images to a gallery etc.

My Sketchpad site is http://craigssketchpad.co.uk/ which uses a Wordpress system.
Also http://craigjohn.co.uk/ & http://graphicbasics.co.uk are too. :)

My business site isn't a Wordpress site but it has all the pricing info - http://www.cjproductions.co.uk/ but I'd recommend looking elsewhere if you're in a hurry - I've got several large projects that need finishing first (no maps unfortunately, but loads of illustrations and page layouts). :)

[ravells]

Hey Craggles! Long time no see!!

[craggles]

Hey Ravells - I sometimes get a quiet moment and pop back here to catch the latest. :D

[Midgardsormr]

I use Wordpress, also, hosted at A Small Orange (http://refer.asmallorange.com/13697 — Disclaimer: that's a referral link). I've found them to be the most affordable and easy to work with host that I've ever had. I pay $50 / year for hosting and $10 / year for my domain name ( http://www.bryanray.name ). That comes with 750 MB of space and 15GB / month of transfer bandwidth. They have a smaller plan that's only $25 / year for hosting with 150 MB storage and 4.5 GB bandwidth. All of their plans have unlimited databases, email addresses, subdomains, and add-on domains ( http://www.christian-gamers-guild.org is also hosted on my site, and the only extra I have to pay is for the domain name). It will probably take a little bit of learning to set up there, but they've got active user-to-user support forums where someone will likely be willing to walk you through getting things configured.

Another service that's been popular with people at my university is the Cargo Collective: http://cargocollective.com/ I'm not real sure what the features are, but one of my friends has been very happy. From what I understand, it's an easy to use template site with a content management system similar to a blog. His site is here: http://www.ludlowdesigns.tv/ Their page is not very forthcoming about how it all works, though, so I can't say much more than that.

[Gandwarf]

And using a website like www.deviantart.com ?
Having your own domain and website will look more professional though!

[JoeyD473]

If you can't get hosting you might want to try Wordpress.com It allows you a free blog using wordpress. Though I don't know how good it will be for a portoflio (not wordpress itself, but wordpress.com) because unlike when you set it up on a personal server, wordpresss.com limits you on themes, plugins etc.

[psyekl]

After checking out the Wordpress website, reading the instructions and downloading the software I can honestly say I don't understand any of it, lol. The instructions are for someone with more knowledge about computers than I have, so I'm going to seek out classes and on-line sources for the knowledge I need. In the meantime I'll continue expanding my portfolio and if it comes to the point where I need the website before I know how to create it myself I'll hire someone to create it for me.

[tilt]

the wordpress user groups are often very friendly, so you can always seek advice there :)