Portfolio website Design
Dorothy De Long Digital Portfolio Design
OVERVIEW
Dorothy DeLong, an aspiring commercial and fine art photographer asked me to create a web site design for her portfolio that highlighted the strength of her work. Dorothy wanted to attract the attention of magazines and museums to spark attention and generate opportunities.
ROLE
For this project, I worked as Dorothy’s web designer, communicating with her to understand the goals she had for the website and how the look and feel of the completed project would best represent her photography.
GOAL
Dorothy was looking for a design created specifically for her new portfolio and took her to the next level of professionalism since she was currently using a Facebook page as her main site.
She specifically wanted the design to focus on four of her strongest pieces with the ability to add a gallery of additional photos as her portfolio grew. Dorothy also wanted to feature a section about herself, work process, a photo of her, and a way for people to contact her about future opportunities.
Process
RESEARCH
I began by listening to Dorothy’s vision about the site, what she wanted to her work grow into for future projects, and to create a space that would convey her personality. From there, she submitted her logo, featured images to be included, the artist statement, a quote about her work and contact information.
WIREFRAME
When all of Dorothy’s details and information were collected, I laid out a wireframe for the site specific to her needs.
I decided to include two of Dorothy’s strongest images at the top banner to draw the visitor in and keep them wanting more. For ease of use, the navigation was located at the top along with her logo and name for branding. A brief Artist Statement follows to ground the visitor in who Dorothy is so they could understand her work on a deeper level. From there, the site exhibits her four strongest images that would capture the attention of both magazine editors and gallerists alike.
Right beneath the main images, I included a personalized quote from Dorothy about her work. The footer section included her contact information, an email sign up form, and links to her socials.
Working in Adobe XD, I created a digital layout of the design. I decided that the images should flow in a grid similar to the banner images to create cohesion of style.
TYPOGRAPHY + COLOR
I chose a color scheme based on the palate of Dorothy’s photos to enhance the flow of the sections. Deep purple, rich wine red, and cool blacks create visual space that ties the main imagery together, and create a soothing effect.
Wanting to convey clarity and strength that resonated in Dorothy’s work, I chose Haettenschweiler, a bold san-serif font to capture attention in focus areas of the site. The main text used Arimo for a clean, relatable look and feel that both of Dorothy’s audiences would relate to.
“Deep purple, rich wine red, and cool blacks create visual space that ties the main imagery together, and create a soothing effect.”
Portfolio website Design
TAKEAWAY
Through creating Dorothy’s portfolio design, I researched current design trends relevant to her industries and found new ways to enhance the design process with fresh use of visual space enhancing the most important forms of content.
During the process, I learned new ways to streamline workflow while leaving space for flexibility in order to tailor the design to the client’s specific updates and needs.
RESULTS
For the final layout, I enlarge Dorothy’s name by the top navigation above the banner images to connect her identity and work, removed the photo borders for a flush look that created a flowing feeling, and moved the social links to the email subscription section for balance.
To the right is the layout that Dorothy was excited about and decided to move forward with for development. Dorothy was provided with the final design comp, a style tile for her to use when creating additional resources, and the completed design assets fully ready for use by her web developer.