I think that every professional in our industry deserves a good portfolio. Far too often have I seen well-intentioned students grab a domain name and slap up a basic infrastructure with the text "more to come soon." I tend to check back because I am interested in what friends and colleagues are up to, but I rarely see anything new.
Granted, these people generally do a lot behind the scenes because this is what they are interested in. They like to set up content management systems or write their own code. I went the other route with my portfolio: I just used Dreamweaver to put something together fairly quickly. I don't even know if it is completely valid HTML or CSS. My friends would cringe at the thought! :)
I'm glad I decided to go this way, if for no other reason than the fact that it's been really easy to actually add the content. I have no desire or need to update the back end to the latest and greatest, so I can concentrate on what really counts to me. I love being able to add information about my latest school projects or cool graphics I've made.
Which brings me to the real point of this post: to showcase my portfolio! I am planning to change hosts and my new domain gailcarmichael.com will eventually point to the portfolio instead of redirecting to this blog, but until then, check me out at http://www.scs.carleton.ca/~gbanaszk/. Drop me a comment if you liked anything you saw, or better yet, tell me where to find your portfolio!
You don't always need to have fully XHTML compliant code, that's for people who have way too much time on their hands. As long as you can verify that it works and displays correctly on a majority of the popular browsers you're all set.
ReplyDeleteAs for using Dreamweaver - I used to do that a lot. I would create a website, create a backend in php/mysql, and then get tired for fixing bugs and security problems and eventually give up. That's why I went with a content management system. I can create the custom look and feel I want, and I get the very flexible framework for blogging or portfolio displaying.
I agree with you that the point of a portfolio is to display your work, and as long as you're displaying it, the direct medium doesn't matter - as long as it's presentable.