Your online portfolio
How to display it
Integrating a presentation of your products or projects into your website requires some technical knowledge. Moreover, you should see to it that loading “heavyweight” photos doesn’t slow down your website and that they don’t make your website messy. A possible alternative is to have your own website point to a dedicated Web service where you can compose your online portfolio. This may not be the ideal solution either, but at least it can help you provisionally.
22 Slides
22 Slides (http://www.22slides.com) calls itself “the easy way to get your portfolio online”. During registration you can choose a personal domain name, such as yourcompany.22slides.com. You can subsequently add photos to your start page by clicking on the Add a New Image. In the menu at the top, click on Pages to create separate pages, e.g. for your different projects or products.
You can upload photos to each individual page. Pages can have a title and a description, and it’s also possible to move them using the mouse. The Links section lets you point to, e.g., your Flickr account, your business’s Facebook page or your professional YouTube video channel. It’s even possible to show Flickr photos in your 22 Slides portfolio.
Customisable layout. In the Settings section you can customise the layout of your portfolio. The layout options are a bit limited, we think, but there’s a Design Editor where you can edit your start page.
How much does it cost? You can try out the 22 Slides demo free of charge for two weeks, but to actually post your catalogue online, you will need to pay $10 or £6.20/month. The service also creates a version of your catalogue for smartphones or tablets.
Carbonmade
Carbonmade (http://www.carbonmade.com) is a second service that lets you create an online portfolio of your products or projects. You’re given a personal address (like yourcompany.carbonmade.com) for your catalogue, and the Personalize button lets you customise its layout (again with limited options).
How much does it cost? The free version of Carbonmade lets you integrate 35 photos into five different “projects”. The subscription-based version costs $12/month (£7.55) for up to 500 photos and even 50 videos in 50 different projects.
More dynamic?
Do you prefer a more dynamic portfolio? Try Web services such as Animoto (http://www.animoto.com), Flixtime (http://www.flixtime.com) or PhotoSnack (http://www.photosnack.com): they all turn your photos into impressive dynamic slideshows. Alternatively, you could launch a professional YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com), which you create by clicking at the top right on your YouTube account name and choosing Channel. It lets you present your company and products or services via video clips, but you can also post videos showing customer testimonials for example.
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