Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Alex's Final Essay


Alex Sullivan

Website Design


            I chose to build a photography website to gain exposure and display my photography in a professional setting. The website is clean and professional looking website that allows the images to be the main focus for the audience. The visitors of the site will be potential clients, customers looking to buy a print or possible employers looking at the portfolio of photos. I believe they will see that I’m organized and professional and have an eye for photography through the way the website is presented.
            The images that were chose to be used on the website are some of the best photos I have taken from action sports to landscape and travel photos. The images take up most of each page, giving the attention to the primarily to the images. As for the emotional and aesthetic qualities the images show the adventure and action photography that I capture. They create a feeling of wanting to be there and experience the moment that is captured.
            As for fonts used on the website there are three different types that are used throughout the site. The font colors are brown, teal and black on some pages with text. Besides the photos and fonts the website is a simple white to give it a clean professional feel. A website that is similar to mine is www.grantgunderson.com. The website is simple, and allows the photos be the main focus of the website just like mine. The font and text is more simple and just black compared to the more colorful and lively text I used.
One problem I faced was adding a custom font on wordpress. I had to install a cufon plug-in (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cufon/) on wordpress. I then had to convert the font into a JavaScript on this website: www.cufon.com. Then I went to my hosting site and uploaded a font folder with the converted font into the WP-Content folder. I then put in the Cufon replacement code into the Cufon box that is under the appearance tab on the wordpress menu. The Cufon code then finds the header or text you want to replace and changes it for you.
Another problem I ran into was with the shopping cart. I tried many different shopping carts, but there was always one thing or another that each of them lacked. Then I found the plugin called Image Store, which had everything I was looking for. The plugin is fully customizable and allows many options for pricing and features for the product, including dimensions and material.
I will market my website through social media such as Facebook and Tumblr.  I find that other photographers market their websites and prints through Facebook or social media to gain traffic. I also will market my website on my resume and business card to gain a more professional reputation and to gain traffic through that way.

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