Your Senior Portfolio Website should present 10 of your best projects in a digital experience that is coherent with the personal branding you have developed. When building your online portfolio, display of work, craft and language should be your main considerations. Project concepts, execution and craft should meet professional standards and work field expectations, proving that you are prepared to pursue design with passion and cultural relevance.

Photographic documentation & mockups of finished pieces are required to be used on your website.

On the bottom of this page you will find a few design portfolios that may serve you as inspiration for formatting, and as reference for how to showcase your work though photography, digital images and properly articulated descriptions.

Conceptual Considerations:
+ Who is your audience/user?
+ What message do you want to convey to your audience?
+ What narrative are your articulating through your user’s experience?
+ How does the selection, quality, presentation, description of your images help convey this message?

Platform Considerations
You can use WordPress.org, Squarespace or Cargo, as the platform to build your Portfolio Website. You are also welcome to design and prototype your site through Figma and export as html, but this class does not fully provide technical support for such process.

For all approaches, securing your own domain name (URL) will be necessary. Additionally, you will be expected to design and build a site that is coherent with your personal branding, and to modify an existing WordPress, Squarespace or Cargo theme to do so. (Please note that WordPress.org is different than WordPress.com. See links below.)

You can look into domain names that you want to consider to see if they are available on a service like google domains now part of Squarespace, GoDaddy, or others. Domains need to be bought (rented for a period of time), and then mapped to your site location.

Brief List of Pros & Cons of WordPress vs. Squarespace vs. Cargo

/ WordPress
Pro: Many themes available, both free and paid.
Paid themes often come with many ways to modify within the theme itself (instead of having to write custom CSS for most modifications)
Wordpress works with Gutenberg Blocks, which makes editing content simple. Making use of other page builders such as Elementor Pro also allows for a simpler and more visual editing experience.
Con: Need to host your site on a separate hosting service (i.e Just Host & Siteground specialize in WordPress). Other recent offers from students worth exploring come from GreenGeeks, Hostinger, and Bluehost.

/ Squarespace
Pro: Low monthly payments, including site hosting, domain purchase & email, offers student discount. Themes are responsive and well conceived for mobile usage.
Con: Less themes/templates available, and can be trickier to modify with Custom CSS

/ CargoCollective (use Cargo 3)
Pro: Low monthly payments, including site hosting & domain purchase. Free account for a year while a student. Ask for code!
Part of a creative community. Themes are responsive and well conceived for mobile usage.
Con: Less themes/templates available, and can be trickier to modify with Custom CSS than WordPress.
Does not offer email hosting. You can sync 3rd party services that offer email hosting like google & fastmail.

Personal Portfolio Examples
Andy Stewart
Mariana Bukvic
Adam Ho
Sonia Castillo
Tala Safie
Zuli Segura
Javier Jaen
Aries Moross
Catalina Estrada
Andrea Trabucco
Alejandro Magallanes
Joshua Leplay
Ben And Martin
Agnieszka Ziemiszewska
Christoph Niemann

Personal Portfolio Examples — ACM-GD Alumni

Gisela Ochoa
Eric Ng
Ayah Elgendy
Brandon Marshall
Nolan Mendoza
Joseph Labib
Ronald Solano
Rochelle Anne Bernal
Sara Barcelos
Liam Gunning
Luis Reyes
Yuli Rojas
Mathilda Galano

Portfolio Websites Galleries

Cargo Collective – In Use
Square Space – Portfolio Tour
awwwards – portfolio submissions
Site Inspire – portfolio submissions

Portfolio Website Process:

+ Consider what kind of experience you would like to create with your portfolio website, and how you want to present yourself.

+ Consider the “entry point” or landing page experience to your site: static page, motion/video opener, selection of work (as grid or slideshow), a statement, etc.

+ Consider the work that you have identified for you senior portfolio. What are potential ways it can be organized? How will the organizational choice affect a viewers experience, and assist you in presenting your work?

+ Decide on the parameters of the content that you want to accompany each project, such as: Title, brief description, production or material details, collaborators, if applicable.

+ Create a list of all portfolio pieces to consider for organizational options.

+ Develop a few possible site maps. This will help you develop your site architecture or narrow down preferred templates.

+ Consider your personal branding and consider the design of your website as an extension of that brand. What are the components of the visual language you have developed? — Font, color & supporting visual/conceptual elements.

+ Research from wordpress.org, Squarespace or Cargo archives to provide you with ideas for the structure and functionality you want for your site, and choose a few possible themes or templates to work with.

WordPress Resources
https://wordpress.org/themes/
http://www.themecircle.net/
https://themeforest.net/category/wordpress

Squarespace Resources
Squarespace Templates

Getting Started with Squarespace (Videos on Different Topics)
https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/categories/200204575

Building a Page
https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206543687-
Building-a-page

Integrating Figma and Squarespace
Figmafy

Templates and Design
https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/206796007

Squarespace Lynda.com Tutorial

CargoCollective Resources

Basic walk-through videos & feature highlights:
https://support.cargo.site

More about working with WordPress:

There are both free and paid WordPress themes. The paid have a lot more functionality and support. Paid themes will generally be easier to work with, provide many more built in portions (less custom CSS required), and will include support from the company you bought if from if you have issues or questions. Very useful! (Paid themes are usually around $50 or sometimes less.)

Read reviews of any theme you consider with the following in mind:
+ When was it created?
+ Last updated?
+ Nature of the reviews?

There are also many free WordPress plugins that can allow you to easily add functionality to the theme you choose such as slideshows, e-commerce, social media feeds, etc. See https://wordpress.org/plugins/

Consider AIGA’s membership offer to use a “.design” domain extension.

Purchase Domain and Wordpress site hosting. Updated hosting service recommendation coming soon!

Procure the theme you want to work with, and have your Host set it up for you on your domain (If you purchase your domain through the same place you purchase hosting, this will make the process much more simple. JustHost and SiteGround normally include the domain name in their costs – but these platforms update their pricing regularly.)

Examine, explore and experiment with your WP theme.

Determine an organizing principle for your curation
(Refer to different structures and navigations in WP themes for inspiration)

Upload and format the content.

~ the end ~