One of our main assignments for grad crit this quarter was to update our portfolio websites. As this is my last quarter of grad school I felt that this was perfect timing. I knew that I wanted a refresh but I was unsure of how much I wanted to change. Prior to this assignment, I was considering redeveloping the entire site from the ground up and creating something with Ruby on Rails in order to re-familiarize myself with some web development procedures and to see what new things have popped up since the last time I built something from scratch. In the end, I felt that at this time in my life, with an MFA thesis project and all its components looming that was not the best way to spend my time so I kept with the tried and true WordPress CMS and just adapted to a new theme that I felt could better showcase my work my target audience.
Just as a starting point, here is a gallery full of screenshots of what my site used to look like:
Luckily we were assigned with doing some research of other creative portfolios floating around on the internet. I seemed to find a consistent theme of minimalism in the portfolios I chose to include in my bookmark folder of inspiration. The site I took my main inspiration is the portfolio of a graduate student of the ITP program at NYU. I felt this to be relevant due to the programs being very similar in their content and goals.
I found additional inspiration from the sites that my classmates shared and felt that I was able to create a unique amalgamation of all the elements I liked for my own revamped site.
Here is a link for the new iteration of the site as well as some screenshots:
Now that it’s basically finished, pending some changes from critique from my classmates, I can say that I am extremely happy with how it came out. I believe that offers more insight into my creative process, which is a huge reason for why I make projects in the first place. I was also able to take a close look at the work I want to share moving forward. My past portfolio had some work that was really only at an in progress stage. I believe that on this version I’ll really only want to share the finished works. Or at least include the in progress stuff in the experiments/experimentation section.
It is a minimalist platform that I feel comfortable using to house and showcase my work. Now I just have to make more work to fill it out!