
for architects and designers, it’s pretty hard to have a complex web presence without hosting it all yourself. chances are if you’re trying to represent yourself online, you’re right out of school and you’re looking at hosting packages and thinking “I’d rather eat.” there’s lots of great methods for hosting free content out there, but it’s difficult to synthesize them all into one package- so here’s some tricks.
_splash page
for years I was trying to get
wordpress to host my portfolio. didn’t work. wordpress is really fantastic at hosting text posts, but isn’t set up for groups of images that you’d use to put together in a portfolio.
tumblr is fantastic for hosting both images and text, but then you run into an identity problem where projects you blog about might appear to be ones you worked on and vice versa.
what’s been working out very well for me is
myfav.es. I’ve been using myfaves for a few years now, and it’s intended to be used as a home page for your browser (which it’s fantastic for, see my previous post on it
here). but they’ve recently expanded the functionality so that you can share your favorite sites… which completely opens the door for creative interpretations on how to use the site. one way to use it, is to “favorite” your blog, portfolio, and whatever else you have online and use that in your profile page on myfaves. from here, all you need to do is cheaply purchase a domain name, have it point to your myfaves profile page, and you’re on your way. check it out at
alexwebb.com.
_blog
I’m a pretty solid wordpress supporter. once wordpress figured out they were loosing a massive chunk of the market to blogger just because blogger looked better, they started creating tons of great looking themes (*cough cough*
exhibit a…). they have a pretty robust free platform, with lots of reasonably priced add-ons, like domain name hosting and css editing. recommended.
_portfolio
there are so many trashy, inflexible engines for portfolios out there. the one that I feel has a great eye for design, is reliable, and fairly customizable is
cargo collective. you have to request to be accepted (don’t be daunted, everyone I’ve recommended to cargo has been accepted), but one on it’s completely free. like wordpress, there are some add-ons for the premium rate, but it’s reasonably priced as well. highly recommended.
a lot of people will point out that using these services you won’t have the web addresses under your domain name or subdomain without paying extra. for a lot of people starting out, this isn’t a problem, if you stay consistent with the name (IE alexwebb.com, wordpress.com/alexwebb and cargocollective.com/alexwebb). also, using the same background color can go miles to making a group of sites feel cohesive.
what is everyone else using? mention other favorites in the comments.