Professional Website using Templates? [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

Ben Chase

28-Aug-2006, 18:22

Hi folks,

I'm getting ready to plan for the rest of the year in terms of equipment purchases and website expenditures.

What I'd like are some honest opinions about the look of my current website as opposed to my "beta" website that I'm currently evaluating to see if it will meet my needs.

Current site: http://www.benchasephoto.com
Beta site: http://chasecen.photium.com/

What I'm really looking for is something that looks very professional, and remains pretty simple without a lot of scripting or other complexity. Photium seems like it may work, has anyone used this service before?

Opinions appreciated,

Ben Chase

Ralph Barker

29-Aug-2006, 07:59

I think one must first define the target audience for a site, and then define the objectives for the site within the context of the primary audience. Different "markets" will have different expectations and different levels of tolerance for variations in site design. In other words, what would appear "professional" to an average consumer will be different than how an Art Director at a magazine or an art collector would define the term. A consumer might accept a canned template approach, while the AD or collector might not.

I do feel that having your own domain name, as you have, is a good first step, however.

paulr

29-Aug-2006, 08:25

I agree completely with Ralph.

In any case, if you use a template, It will benefit from some significant tweaking, preferably with the counsel of a designer. Almost all the templates I've seen are pretty disasterous from a design perspective, although many are salvageable if you're able to simplify them, remove extraneous colors and borders, etc. etc.

One specific comment: black is a poor choice for a background for photographs. There are some images that work against black, but it's very unlikely that all of your work will. The background tends to compete with the shadow areas of your images, making them look washed out.

The only color I've found that works universally is white. You can use black or another color on main pages, but on your photo gallery pages you'll almost definitely find white to work better.

Diane Maher

30-Aug-2006, 10:39

That's an interesting observation regarding black backgrounds. I can't tell you how many photographers whose sites I've seen have a black background. I was looking at some color images and kind of thought that the black worked well with them. But I think it would be better to keep the color schemes/styles the same on all pages in a website.

Kirk Gittings

30-Aug-2006, 11:12

Paul, I completely disagree with you about black backgrounds. After trying many (I think white sucks worst that is why we don't use it as backgound in PS to work on images) I found grey or black to be the best. The only problem with black is when you have a deep black shadows at the edge of the image it merges with the background unless you use boarders.

Doug Dolde

30-Aug-2006, 12:46

This one is pretty cool..customized template stuff.

http://www.foliolink.com/

Michael Rosenberg

30-Aug-2006, 12:50

Kirk Gittings

30-Aug-2006, 12:56

Mike,

I think Versa labs' offering is very good. I use Sitewelder as do many others including Chip Simon. It is a real simple black box approach which I need, but yet is very flexible if you want it to be.

Ben Chase

30-Aug-2006, 13:58

Thank you for the advice, I'll try everything that was suggested to see what fits my needs the best. E-commerce isn't exactly the most important thing to me right now, as about 90% of the people that purchase prints from me do so on a custom basis, meaning that I usually work with each individual person to give them exactly what they want.

At this point, I want to make sure the presentation of the work is what it should be.

Thanks again! Your comments are very helpful!

robc

30-Aug-2006, 15:19

A graphic designer friend of mine tells me that you need to be very careful about using black. It can send out a lot of negatives about the web site. Like other colours which send subconcious signals. i.e. white is for purity. Black is for the dark side. Red is warm but also dangerous and blue is cold and un-inviting etc etc etc. Rather than looking at photographers web sites, look at real galleries web sites to get a better picture if you pardon the pun.

I have rewritten mine several times and depending on my mood it changes from black to grey to white to warm grey to white and on and on. It always seems to come back to white for me.

latest minimal version: black and white photos (http://www.visualperception.net/)

darr

30-Aug-2006, 15:46

Color Meaning: http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html

Kirk Gittings

30-Aug-2006, 16:09

See the thread I started on Witkin and Color Theory.

Ben Chase

30-Aug-2006, 16:38

I agree with Ralph and Kirk. I use a gray background and enlarged images are then framed. I use the template that Verve Labs in Sante Fe designed. I prefer the simple - do not overwhelm the viewer - approach. Too many distracting images and competing information on a page can take away from the images.

Mike
Mike - After looking around at the VerveMatrix templates, I have to say I was pretty impressed.

How much has your site contributed to sales of your photography, specifically prints? Was there a noticable difference?

paulr

30-Aug-2006, 16:55

I'm not surprised that there are dissenting voices on the black issue. There are going to be many images that do work with black, or gray, or a tint of some color. Maybe even whole bodies of work.

But I've found from doing a lot of design for print, web, and multimedia, that white is the only thing that works universally, with one major caveat--the edges of the image need to be resolved. Which means the image needs to be reasonabley well printed by traditional standards. Any image that will work on white matboard will work on a white screen background.

The recommendation for white isn't a rule; just something to keep in mind. It's a drag to design a whole site based on a handful of images that work on a tinted background, only to discover much later that you have images that get killed by it. This has happened to me, designing for both my own work and other people's.

If I have time I'll post some examples of perfectly good images that get killed by black or gray.

Frank Petronio

30-Aug-2006, 16:56

Hmm... I bit my tounge for a day but I gotta tell you that I think all these templates suck. The best you can say for them is that they look like a lot of other photographers galleries, placing your work well within the center of a marketplace where 95% of the websites are either generic rip-offs, hard to use and update, distracting, or some combination of issues.

Personally I'd like to larger 600 pixel wide images, with breadcrumb navigation and tagged with keywords (like Flickr). Using a white background provides a visual clue as to what "white" is, and considering how wacked some people's monitors are I would always opt for maximum contrast of page elements. If white parts of the image bleed off, simply add a 1 pixel wide black border.

The templates I see here have bulky, clumsy code and firmly ground your website in state of the art 2001-era design, technology, and standards. You get what you pay for.

$500 gets you generica. I'd rather just use PBase or Flicker or Photoshop's auto-galleries than throw good time and money after a deadend solution that you'll want to toss after a year.

It's like book design. You can indeed usually judge a book by it's cover (and a website). When I see an ugly, poorly laid out homemade Microsoft Publisher book I instantly am turned off even if the photos inside are superior (Michael Reichman's book for example.) Your design choices reflect the quality and craft of your work, so why would you want to put your work into a template design at all?

Marko

31-Aug-2006, 07:03

Various colors can have very different connotations in different cultures, the most obvious being black and white in the West vs. Far East. What is death for one is wisdom for the other and what is death for the other is innocence for the first one.

Also, let's not forget the fundamental difference in medium - print is reflective, while screen is transmissive. No paper ever reflects all the light, so the whitest print white is less than the full white. Screen (and tranny) on the other hand, transmit light and it is very possible to end up with whiter, more intense white than the original full white of the scene.

Looking at pure unshaded light is also very unpleasant and having an image displayed on white screen is almost like viewing it backlit.

Black on the screen is much closer to real black than print black, for two reasons - print black can come across as really heavy when it's layed out using excess ink, while black on the screen i simply abscense of light. Being lit through, chances are that no correctly exposed image will have such pure black as to compete with pure black of the screen.

All of this IMHO, of course. Personally, I prefer using gray just a touch under 50%. It plays along well with both highlights and shadows of most images and it lends itsel well to many kinds of borders and even drop shadows.

Just my $0.02.

Marko

31-Aug-2006, 07:06

As for templates, Frank's been a bit too generous - only the best of them will place your site in 2001. The rest will hurl you back into the last century.

It's actually very simple - you get what you pay for and templates are the web equivalent of instant cameras.

I know many people do, but would you trust important part of your life to a plastic happy snappy?

Kirk Gittings

31-Aug-2006, 07:51

Marko,

Many top photographers in the country use templates and I think for good reasons. I talked to many designers before I went with a template. They were either too expensive, had cheesy taste, were to fancy or produced a product that would be difficult for me to change and manage down the road. The template had none of those probems and is continually updated to make it even more user friendly and fexible with more and more options.

My son is one of the top web designers in the country. He works on Microsoft, Apple, Jet Blue, MacDonald's, Churches Chicken etc etc. I cannot not use him because he doesn't understand how simplicity is elegant. He wants to always showcase his talents with moving crap and visual gymnastics.

Good templates are simple and transparent so that what jumps out at you is the photographs. Look at Jerry Ulesman's site. It is way to designy. It is a showcase for the web designer not the photographer. It distracts from the images:

http://www.uelsmann.net/

What do you think is a good website?

Frank Petronio

31-Aug-2006, 08:23

There are designers who appreciate simplicity and usability. Just like the differences in photographers, I won't assume all designers and coders will produce equal results.

More power to your son doing Flash sites and whatnot for the Fortune 500, but the trend amongst web-savvy companies is moving in the opposite direction. Not that good Flash work is going to dry up, but if you surf over to Adobe/MacroMedia (Flash) you'll see that even their Flash stuff is very lean and clean.

What (and maybe I can speak for Marko too) I am saying here is not that the templates are unattractive, but if you look at the underlying code and the interface decisions they force you to make, you are not getting clean, lean code or real value for your money. I can make you a very clean, minimalistic website with lousy code and while it might have a nice facade, it will still be a bad website.

I think Marko "gets it" as do these folks:

http://lumino.us/

http://www.zeldman.com/

http://www.stopdesign.com/

(You might not be able to afford Zeldman or Stop (they are two of the busiest in the country) but they can point you in the right direction.)

The bottom line is that I think you'll be much further ahead and more successful if you dig in and do some homework - finding a web designer with a sound philosophy and skills -- than trying to shortcut things with canned WYSIWYG software and templates. Build a relationship with someone who "gets it" and you'll save more money and get a better ROI than dicking around with this other junk.

It's like the difference between using a real photographer like Kirk Gittings or just buying something from iStockPhoto ;)

Kirk Gittings

31-Aug-2006, 09:00

Marko

31-Aug-2006, 10:03

I'm not baiting you here Frank, but what do you think sets your web design apart? For instance I like the Praus site, it is nice and clean, functional and I love the photos. I have watched the redesign and I think you did a great job. But the Allied Builders site seems very generic, much like every other contrators site out there. As a matter of fact it looks an awful lot like a template site. Comment?

I can't speak for Frank, although I think we both do "get it". But I can speak for myself and the project me and my son have done in the past or are doing now. Most web desiners and developers, just like most photographers, work for a Client. If the Client wants dancing pink rhinos on the background of subtly waving blue-green lillies, then that's what the Client will ultimately get, despite all the advice to the contrary that the designer will inevitably put forward. Simply because the designer cannot afford to have the Client bring in another designer to do it for him.

It's unfortunate, but not very many designers, and even fewer photographers I suspect, can afford to say that "they don't do that". But it is what lies underneath that makes a true difference, and sadly, very few people are aware of it.

Not to bait you either, but let me turn the tables a little. To the untrained eye, a photograph of the building is a photograph of the building. How would you explain the need to hire top notch (and expensive) photographer to produce something they could do themselves with the help of a single-use camera they can buy at the local drugstor and have it processed within an hour? Maybe not quite as fancy, but still recognizable...

Marko

31-Aug-2006, 10:07

Marko,

Many top photographers in the country use templates and I think for good reasons.

Just to illustrate my previous post, many web designers also use those nifty little happy snappys, and mostly digital at that. For good reason as well, I should think, although I don't quite follow suit.

:)

George Losse

31-Aug-2006, 10:23

One thing not mentioned here yet and not that important to photographers is that black backgrounds with white text doesn't print very well. Most printers drop out the background. Even light gray text can have some trouble.

Again not as important for photographers as it would be for other industries. Our sites should not be word heavy anyway.

Kirk Gittings

31-Aug-2006, 10:31

darr

31-Aug-2006, 11:24

If you market yourself as a creative professional, why would one choose to have a generic look?

robc

31-Aug-2006, 11:47

This argument of templates is not valid. What is a template? Well its a design whether you like it or not. The question is, is it a good, bad or indifferent design? To generalise and imply that all off the shelf designs are not good is simply not true. That doesn't mean they are all good either. It means that some are bad, some indifferent and some good. You just need to find the good ones if that is the route you choose.

Franks web sites use movabletype which is an off the shelf product. You have to design your own "template" to give it the look you want and since it was designed as blogging software it comes with a content management system designed for writing articles which I guess is why he used it. And also the inbuilt features for promotion within the blogging community. The http://www.alliedbuilders.com/ site uses movabletype, at least it says it does. So lets drop this template product stuff and just talk about design.

My criteria have been for very easy navigation so that images can be flicked through without mouse movement and different galleries are only a single click away. Also images are centered on screen and finally, it works for all screen resolutions including 800x600. After that its just the look of the site for which I have chosen white(ish).

Of all the sites I have seen of members here, the one I like the design of best is:

http://www.srosenberg.com/

it just looks professionally put together. Whether it is or not is neither here or there. It just looks good. It is heavy on graphics and there some navigation issues but I like the look of it. Nice images too. Whether it's sucessful or not I don't know and I haven't looked to see how well it is constructed and besides, from a users point of view, that is irrelevant providing it works.

Kirk Gittings

31-Aug-2006, 12:28

I agree about Scotts site. I wouldn't want it for my work, but I think it works extremely well for his. It has a sophisticated warmth (even though the colors are cool!) about it that fits his imagery.

Kirk Gittings

31-Aug-2006, 12:38

I also like Frank's personal site because it is so totally him, no pretence, no BS, totally unique for a photographer.

Frank Petronio

31-Aug-2006, 14:49

The funniest thing is that the old Praus site is ancient and uses code and techniques that I now cringe by. Wheras the Allied Builders website is set up pretty much perfectly in my mind.

I know my sites are so stark as to be cruelly minimalistic -- but that is totally intentional.

Maybe they look like canned templates but peek under the hood -- there is more too it that the surface.

JW Dewdney

31-Aug-2006, 15:59

I'm wondering if anybody here has used Adobe GoLive for their site... I got an older 6.0 version from someone along with LiveMotion (to do flash) - I've only done some preliminary snooping around in the program - and I'm thinking GoLive might not QUITE be what I'm looking for in terms of site building. The last one I did I hand-coded, and though it seemed like a total PITA to do, it probably was pretty simple compared to most. But using GoLive looks like it'd be even more complex than hand-coding java stuff. I'm not super keen on the idea of using a 'from-the-box' solution since it usually makes for really sloppy, slow code compared to 'by hand'... but if it's going to make it way easier - well, I'd consider it.

Any thoughts?

Michael Rosenberg

31-Aug-2006, 16:44

Mike - After looking around at the VerveMatrix templates, I have to say I was pretty impressed.

How much has your site contributed to sales of your photography, specifically prints? Was there a noticable difference?

Ben,

Sorry to take so long to reply. I only log on a few times during the day :)

As soon as I was prematurely retired from my first career I contacted Verve and had them do my site. It is very easy to maintain and update. And the hosting fees I think are reasonable. I have no direct sales from my web site; I do not think that it has generated anything but interest. I would be surprised if anyone at the same stage of their career (without major shows, books, or more than one gallery showing work) gets any sales from their web sites. But it does show galleries that I am trying to get to represent me and people who know about fine art photography that I am serious and professional. I think people who have visited the site have been interested enough from the images there to visit the gallery that displays my work and see what the real prints look like. Then they purchase them from the gallery and get to take it home.

So like much of photography you do a web site because you do it for your own pleasure - and to get some advertising. I am of the school to keep it visually simple and clean. I want the emphasis on the image. Having a neutral background keeps the whites looking whiter and the blacks, well - very dark. When you click on the image and it becomes larger it appears with a 'mat' and a 'frame'. Again, it keeps it isolated. The way Verve has done the site it keeps the images of a high enough resolution that on enlargement the image is still sharp. I think Frank said something about that issue.

Mike

paulr

31-Aug-2006, 16:49

i don't think anyone needs to worry about their site looking 'so 2001' unless they're specifically in the web design or web development business. the larger issue is if the design works for you work ... esthetically and functionally.

i explored templates when i needed a site, and found them all completely ghastly. but they were clearly built to satisfy mass market demands and esthetic sensibilities that had little to do with my own. this doesn't mean that the magic template for you isn't out there. i just wouldn't hold my breath looking for it.

Marko

31-Aug-2006, 23:47

I understand the limitations of working for clients, but if my images don't look significantly better than the other twelve architectural photographers who work my local market, why would they pay my higher prices?

Part of Frank argument against templates was their generic look. I am very familiar with contractor sites as many of my clients are contractors. The Allied site looks much like most contractor sites. Hence my question.

Yes, that's a valid question regarding the look. Most contractor sites are aimed at the mass market, which, as someone noticed here, has a very limited sense of taste. It is, well, average. And to apeal to the average market, one needs to fit in, ie look average.

That's the visual part.

But web is not just about how a site looks - it's also very much about how it works.

That is the other half of "being so 2001". Or earlier. Sure, you may not care what is under the hood of your site, but you will start caring once it starts breaking in some new browser or the other. Proper and up to date coding has very little to do with looks but everything to do with function.

Sites built up to standards frequently take 50% less bandwidth, sometimes even less, than the same site built using WYSIWYG tools and/or templates. Those same sites will more often than not work in more browsers and display fewer behavioural problems, while being more accessible to people with dissabilities and search engines. You may not care about things like that, but your audience will.

Keith Laban

1-Sep-2006, 02:35

Whilst I admire the clean simplicity of Frank's website and other similar sites my own experience has been the opposite. The fact is I managed to double the hits to my site almost overnight by changing from a very basic navigation system to a system that rewarded punters with a visual bonus on mouse over. The resulting navigation is anything but simple and clean but it does entice folk to click on far more of the links. There are probably issues with various browsers/user preference settings and the code is probably sod awful, but it works, more clicks = more sales.

Kirk Gittings

1-Sep-2006, 08:40

Marko can we see some of your work so we can know what you are talking about?

Nice site Keith.

Eric Biggerstaff

1-Sep-2006, 09:36

I have been using a Verve Matrix site similar to the one Michael uses and have been very happy with it. Yes it is "generic" but I think it is attractive and the site designer (Wilson Scanlon) is great to work with. I have sold several prints from the site, so it is what it is. I don't make my full time living from my photography and this site works great for my needs.

Keith Laban

1-Sep-2006, 09:38

Nice site Keith.

Thank you Sir.

Marko

1-Sep-2006, 09:41

Marko can we see some of your work so we can know what you are talking about?

Sure, just a few public sites, chronologically, oldest on the top:

http://studiothreesixty.com/
http://mikiandsonja.com/
http://itcinstitute.com/
http://cellardining.com/

Kirk Gittings

1-Sep-2006, 10:02

Jack Brauer

1-Sep-2006, 10:43

If you want a website that looks pro, hire a pro graphic designer. (Anybody seen Jesse Speer's site (http://www.jessespeer.com/)?)

The key is to hire people who will work with you to develop the design.

I think the best solution if you want a high-end website is to hire a graphic designer to make the photoshop designs, then have a developer build/code it all out, preferably with admin controls.

I think the only way to have a "template" site that looks somewhat professional is if you go minimal on the design.

Frank Petronio

1-Sep-2006, 10:49

You're judging the site on your gut visual criteria, which is important of course. But there are other measures to consider, such as the accessibility to people with disabilities {who you might not care about, you mean bastard ;)} and more importantly, people with older/newer/different browsers. Then there is the architecture - no, not like a building, but the way people use the site and go from page to page. And the code, which besides being leaner means a faster load, but also makes the site more availiable to search engines... Another important thing is the ease of updating... is it something that lends itself to updates? Most Flash sites don't, or sites that use Java or whatever Keith did with his.

Then there is the actual content, not just your pictures but the copy -- a lot of sites I see here are just plain hard to read - long wide running low contrast text which looks pretty but hurts to read.

Just like photography, there is no absolute right or wrong. I am surprised that Kieth's mouse overs seem to increase sales, so there is always something new to learn. And it also comes back to knowing your audience. In some ways, I think people that are willing to search out an obscure (sorry) photographer's site are indeed going to be more tolerant and patient.

If you dig around the Cleanpage site you'll read where I think webdesign is something that needs to take a backseat - it is important to do well - but it also needs to get the hell out of the way of the user's experience. For example, very few book readers comment on the quality of the typesetting on their new hardcover book. But the quality of the typesetting plays an important role in the reading experience.

Daniel Piar

1-Sep-2006, 11:54

I'm late to the dance, but out of curiosity, what does it cost to have a medium-sized photographic website professionally designed and maintained? I'm sure there's quite a range, but are we talking many thousands over templates, or can good results be had for a more modest difference?

Daniel

paulr

1-Sep-2006, 12:07

you'll read where I think webdesign is something that needs to take a backseat - it is important to do well - but it also needs to get the hell out of the way of the user's experience

I's say that the ability of a design to get out of the way is specifically a quality of good design ... not its antithesis.

You don't choose between having a good design and having a transparent one that gets out of the way. Because that transparency that you strive for needs to be designed, and it requires a strong design sense to do it well.

Transparency is also not the same thing as lack of character or lack of identity. You mention the typography of books as an example of transparency. This is a great example. If the designer did a good job, you won't consciously notice the type, but the type will absolutely influence your reading experience. When the type and the design don't work with the content, you'll get a sense of things being out of whack ... like the lyrics not going with the music. But when they're skillfully matched, they support and strengthen each other ... even if they fly under the radar of the reader's consciousness.

This isn't to say that there's no place for design that draws attention to itself. But it usually works best when design (or visual sensibility in general) is part of your topic. Certainly the case if it's a website for a designer or architect. Possibly the case for other artists, too.

Marko

1-Sep-2006, 12:10

Marko, These are all very nice looking, well designed sites, that seem to function well, but......looking at the photo site http://mikiandsonja.com/ for comparison sake with what we are talking about here........ I just don't see much of a difference. How is this 2004 site so different from all the so called "so 2001" sites?

Compare that to Eric's Verve site.

Eric, that looks like great, a Verve site, but I happen to think that Verve sites can and do look very professional. What is that the Premier version?

I agree that Eric's site is very nice looking indeed.

But I am not talking about graphic design here. That's the role of the graphic designer. The role of WEB designer is to transform and optimize that into functioning site that does not take forever to load.

If you really want to know what is different with Miki and Sonja site as an example, but also all of the others I design, look at the source. That's called separation of style, content and behaviour. Compare the size and simplicity of the code, as in byte size. Do the same with graphics and then with stylesheet. Even that is not the whole story. Every single image is optimized/compressed to the bone and sized so that it can display on any resolution display larger than a cellphone. Every element that repeats more than once is cached so it loads only once. Etc, etc.

The sheer byte size of that same site is less than 40% of what it used to be before I redesigned it for them. It also fully validates and is fully transparent for search engines. They did it themselves in Dreamweaver before and did a darn good job, being photographers and not web designers. But they are not web designers and that's the best they could do. Suffice it to say that I feel equally inadequate in my photography compared to them, although I have more than just an instamatic camera. :)

Kirk Gittings

1-Sep-2006, 12:49

Marko so when you look behind the Verve site what do you see? It does me no good to compare behind the scenes code because I don't know what i am looking at.

robc

1-Sep-2006, 13:46

LOL

of the four sites the one that doesn't validate as standards compliant is the one using a heavily templated off the shelf content management system. That one, the itcinstitute one, is the one using the oldest standards and surprise surprise its the one with the highest google page rank. Not that page rank really means much but google seems to like it more than the others.

Marko

2-Sep-2006, 00:55

Marko

2-Sep-2006, 01:10

Marko so when you look behind the Verve site what do you see? It does me no good to compare behind the scenes code because I don't know what i am looking at.

The simplest and the easiest indicator is the size o the code. Byte size, that is. The more of it, the longer it takes to load. Also, contemporary sites have two main characteristics:

1. All the styles, such as typography, borders, colors, even graphical elements other than content images are kept mostly separate, in the global stylesheets that load only once but are used on all the pages of the site. A page like that has no FONT tags, no backgrond color tags and such, but it always has a document type declaration at the top and at least one link to an external stylesheet.

2. Pages like that do not use tables for anything else other than the tabular data and definitely not for layout. The only thing you should see looking at the page source should be content wrapped in plain html tags - headings, paragraphs, divs, lists and such. These two items are called "spearation of content and style". This make pages light to load, easy to maintain and easily searchable.

If done right, this should also make the site degrade gracefully - the only thing that will fail if loaded in unsupporting browser are styles, in which case the content will be displayed raw and ugly but still accessible.

3. Usage of any type of client-side scripting such as JavaScript is used only if absolutely necessary and never for key elements of the site whose failure would render the site useless. Ideally, scripting is tied to standard html tags and their classes externally, instead of a million "on click" or "onmouseover" event triggers littering the code.

That's called separation of content.

These are, of course, ideals and not always possible to implement 100% in the real world, but the closer the better. And this is of course only very cursory description.

If you are really interested in learning more about it, I highly recommend Jeffrey Zeldman's site, A List Apart, that Frank cited earlier in this thread. He is quite an educator and one of the people I learned my trade from.

Frank Petronio

2-Sep-2006, 07:35

Ahh, but Marko nobody wants to invest time or brain power into figuring this stuff out, they just want to buy something off the shelf. Except -- just like quality photography -- you just don't buy it off the shelf and use it in "idiot mode."

Of course I think the best way to go is to hire a good web designer. However, as I know from long and tortured experiences, photographers are challenging clients because they rarely make up their mind or they get hung up on some peculiar gimmick.

Your best bet is to find a true web designer who hand codes and works towards building modern, standards based websites. You want someone who will push back and challenge your assumptions. The colleges are starting to train young designers to work this way, and if you are a decent photographer then your site will be a welcome addition to their portfolio. And they won't be too expensive -- $30 per hour and 30-40 hours for a basic site is not out of line. Work with someone you can sit down with and surf a few dozen sites that you can critique together.

I'm going to drop out of these web related threads now. For every solid common sense thing Marko and I share somebody pops up with an exception. It is rather like the old folks who argue against the harm of smoking with the "Earl was still smoking a pack a day at 85 years old..." examples. Everything has an exception, but you might pay attention to a few of the people who actually do this stuff for a living.

If you want to argue in circles we could talk politics, it is more productive ;)

Marko

2-Sep-2006, 08:06

Ahh, but Marko nobody wants to invest time or brain power into figuring this stuff out, they just want to buy something off the shelf. Except -- just like quality photography -- you just don't buy it off the shelf and use it in "idiot mode."

I keep saying the two fields have lots in common, including instant templates and instant cameras. I don't mind educating people who want to be educated, just like I want to learn about photography. As for those who don't care... well, neither do I. I participate on this forum for fun, and that's why I don't use my full name nor do I advertise my business here.

Of course I think the best way to go is to hire a good web designer. However, as I know from long and tortured experiences, photographers are challenging clients because they rarely make up their mind or they get hung up on some peculiar gimmick.

Photographers are certainly not unique in this respect - although some of them tend to be ferociously provincial when someone dares extend similar courtesy to their craft.

Frank Petronio

2-Sep-2006, 08:29

I'm certainly not soliciting for work either (LOL, I alienate them!). But if anyone wants the contact info for a couple of good RIT webdesign students just contact me off list.

robc

2-Sep-2006, 11:57

Its seems that there is a concencus amongst the professional web designers here that other web designers who actually have the ability to put together a marketable product to build websites, don't know what they are doing and it is only web designers who do. Of course that means you have to find a web designer and someone who knows how to put a web site together as a one off. Well maybe the person who built the marketable package is that person. Oh no I forgot, they don't know what they are doing cos its only the web designer who does. Catch 22 no? Common sense tells you this argument doesn't stand up.

I'll say it again. Template products are designed exactly like Marko says. They use CSS to define the look of page. That is why/how you simply change the template and the content gets reformatted. So we are being told that is no good but that is how it should be done and only a web designer can do it for you. Crap. The template products do exactly that. You just need to find the right product.

To cap it all, those saying you shouldn't use templates are using them in their own sites. Yes Frank movable type uses templates but then you know that. Yes Marko, how the hell do think CMS systems work. They use templates which are definable with CSS. At least if they are any good. So you want it both ways. No template products but were gonna use them if it suits us.

Kirk Gittings

2-Sep-2006, 12:21

For every solid common sense thing Marko and I share somebody pops up with an exception. It is rather like the old folks who argue against the harm of smoking with the "Earl was still smoking a pack a day at 85 years old..." examples. Everything has an exception, but you might pay attention to a few of the people who actually do this stuff for a living.

I find it ironic that you guys (Frank and Marko) dragged this thread in this direction and now get pissy after answering a few honest questions by people trying to understand your vague insider "common sense" statements.

Frank Petronio

2-Sep-2006, 12:35

No harm, no foul Kirk. We weren't purposefully trying to be obtuse and were only trying to help. I really don't care how you build your website.

Marko

2-Sep-2006, 13:07

I find it ironic that you guys (Frank and Marko) dragged this thread in this direction and now get pissy after answering a few honest questions by people trying to understand your vague insider "common sense" statements.

The opening question of this thread was "Professional Website using Templates?"

Both of us have simply stated our frank opinion about templates and WYSIWYG tools, as professionals in the given field.

The dragging started when some of the participants did not like what we had to say. What I really find ironic is that you were the one with the most questions to which I tried to give my best possible answers using an overseas connection that I pay for by the MB.

Pissy? Heavens, no. Just a little irritated at being called names because someone could not understand the simplest answers about my profession I could come up with.

Like I said before, I am not trying to further my commercial interests here, the sole purpose of my participating on this board is giving back to the community from which I learn every day. If the purpose of the board turns to be self-congratulating, I have better ways to spend my time.

Ben Chase

2-Sep-2006, 15:57

I appreciate the advice and experience communicated here.

Thanks again

darr

3-Sep-2006, 13:58

If the purpose of the board turns to be self-congratulating, I have better ways to spend my time.

Marko your contributions to this board are always an asset as far as I am concerned. Self-congratulatory attitudes are naive to the truth that "to rule is truly to serve." Do not let overinflated egos keep you away, you'll be missed. :)

Marko

3-Sep-2006, 21:30

Marko your contributions to this board are always an asset as far as I am concerned. Self-congratulatory attitudes are naive to the truth that "to rule is truly to serve." Do not let overinflated egos keep you away, you'll be missed. :)

Darr, you're kind as always. :)

I'm too old to be that thin-skinned, I've had far worse exchanges on this board. It is all to easy to assume that what is obvious to you should be equally obvious to others, but it is rarely so, and not understanding something can easily lead to frustration.

In this case, one side didn't understand what the other was saying and the other failed to comprehend that. Makes you wonder whose failure was worse...

:)

paulr

3-Sep-2006, 21:49

Olaf_A

4-Sep-2006, 03:15

This is a very interesting discussion. Especially Marko's and Frank Petronio's comments have been very enlightening for me. Being a full time shooter with an appropriate marketing budget I would probably hire a designer and a programmer and start from there.

But what would be your recommendation for a part timer with a budget around 500$ who is nonetheless looking for a tasteful and functional website ? Should one simply forget it? Or learn to DIY?

Olaf

BTW the weirdest website I found during my research is the following http://www.sonjamueller.org/

Frank Petronio

4-Sep-2006, 06:25

I like that Sonja Mueller website. If you're going to use a Flash interface it should at least be fun. Of course it is unsearchable and sacrifices a lot of usuability qualities but Sonja's market is art directors responding to mailings, representatives, and ads. I doubt that selling prints is the goal. If Sonja needed to be "found" online it would be a terrible website but obviously this is not the case.

I think you can find a good web design student to work for you for under $500. Why not talk to your closest technology college -- find a professor to suggest a few students who need the freelance work? It helps everyone.

Be prepared to make your own Photoshop mock-ups and develop a site map yourself.

Frank Petronio

4-Sep-2006, 07:40

Just to follow up, people who study usability have found that people will tolerate awful, crappy websites when the content -- the key information -- on these websites is important to them.

The "take away" I gather from that is that your content -- your photos, your writing -- are always going to be the most important thing.

And if you are in a competitive commodity market -- say your pretty pictures of the Maroon Bells are competing against the other 99,999 large format stock photographers with decent photos of the Maroon Bells -- then the tog with the most user friendly, search engine friendly website will sell the most, everything else being equal -- as photos of the Maroon Bells usually are ;)

Oh, and for RobC commenting that most websites use templates, including those running CMS systems like blogger, MT, etc. -- this is true - but if you read the original question, it was about using commercial design templates, and my comments (and Marko's) were that these commercial templates weren't worth the money, that they weren't using good coding techniques, etc. THAT IS ALL.

Everyone happy?

Kirk Gittings

4-Sep-2006, 09:24

If you're going to use a Flash interface it should at least be fun. Of course it is unsearchable.....

Frank could you elaborate on that statement?

Jonathan Brewer

4-Sep-2006, 09:52

'I'm wondering if anybody here has used Adobe GoLive for their site'................I was inspired by Paul Schiliger's website, so impressed that I contacted him, and he was gracious enough to explain to me just how elegantly and simply he executed the site.

I was going to be helped by different folks, and when all that fell through, I determined to do the site myself, come what may. My feeling was that if I could use Photoshop, I could teach myself to design my own site, grow with the site, and help it evolve, without having to go to somebody else every time I wanted to tweak/add/change something.

Until I communicated w/Paul Schiliger, I was completely lost in terms of just how to get my site going, Paul's idea of using photoshop to create the graphics was something I could handle, using Photoshop to create the look, and the site software to link it up, worked for me.

I'm not a professional site designer and never claimed to be, but I think what I lost in not being a professional, I gained in being closer to my ideas than anyone else could be, so I took years to help my ideas change/evolve into something fairly polished. Frank Petronio said some kind words to me about my site, and I appreciated that, coming from somebody who's seriously into the game.

I disagree about a black background against white text, my site is exactly that, and as simple as I can make, to the folks asking about sites, I say consider the possibility of doing it yourself, you'll crawl around like a baby, you'll try standing up and fall, you'll walk a litte bit, walk a lot, and then run. It will take a long time, but NOBODY will stay true to your site/put the amount of time and love into it like you will.

I took a long time putting my site together, probably too long, but I'm glad it worked out this way, I got a favorable write up the site, which I simply take as a 'pat on the back' for sticking w/it, I'll learn Macromedia's 'Studio 8' stuff which I've purchased, sometime in the future, but I'm in no hurry because I believe in the fortunes of a simple/elegant/minimal non-flash site which draws attention to the work and not the site, my sites only function is to present my photographs and then get out of the way.

I look at some other sites, and it always strikes a weird cord w/me when entertainment value of the site competes w/the images.

darr

4-Sep-2006, 09:59

I am a graphic designer and have designed a few sites over the years. Designing from my side usually starts with a comp that includes logos, color schemes, and a design layout for the usability Frank and Marko are talking about.

If you are looking to park your name and include a small portfolio of images I think you may find a cookie cutter template package that will work for you. But, if you are looking to *market* yourself through the web, you should consider more options. Some of the options I have been involved with are shopping carts, search engines that work with particular database formats, sites that will migrate the store's secure log-in system with a bulletin board system, and customized navigations that many code people do not even know buyers are looking for until a designer makes a request. And these are just a few examples. Websites evolve so your packaged template system will need to evolve with your ideas and needs for it to be successful. Template packages work as long as there are support for them. I know there were many security holes over the past few years and some of the web's well known template packages needed immediate attention. Some software companies took so long to fix these issues (if at all), we had clients move on to new software coders out of necessity and what a mess it was!

A website can be a personal display of work or it can be a marketing tool. If you are just looking to put up a small portfolio by all means do it in the most cost effective way you can. The bottom line is to "get started" and then evolve. But if you are a professional and you see the web as another possible marketing tool, you might consider having an information index page for current clients to find you while a future well designed site is being built behind the scenes from advertising dollars ear marked just for that. After all, in business it is just another advertising/operating expense. The old saying that you cannot make a second "first impression" holds true in web marketing as well.

If I was looking for an inexpensive gallery type template package that I might be able to do a little tweaking on the visual design for my personal work, I might start here and take my time and look at all of the packages that I find appealing:

http://hotscripts.com/search/11808702.html

Every photographer should have an on-line portfolio IMO. :)

Frank Petronio

4-Sep-2006, 11:17

Kirk -- I am not a Flash expert by any means, and I know that the core technology has improved to make it possible to search a Flash website. So it is possible to add keywords and alt text to Flash images... but in general, and this goes for the vast majority of the Flash websites I see, they are constructed so that the text is rendered into the SWF format and hidden from the eyes of Google, etc. Notice how most Flash sites "lock" you into their navigation - your browser no longer controls the site's nav, etc.

In general, IMHO, Flash works best when it is used inside a html website to add animation or whatever special effect is needed. If special effects are really ever needed at all ;)

I think a lot of high-end commercial photographers go for these elaborate Flash sites because their peers do, and their audience is vapid superficial art directors, and they can afford to hire a new hot Flash designer every season. Notice that very few of these sites are updated -- they just get tossed. I think I read that the average price for a hot young Flash designer to do a hot young ad photographer's site is around $10K, which jives with what I see/hear.

http://www.sachawaldman.com/

Sacha is one of the hottest photographers right now. I love/hate his site - it is slow, hard to navigate, it takes over your screen and controls, etc... but he is "hot" so I want to see his pictures (for good or bad) and if cred in the marketplace is worth anything, international ad agencies are lining up to hire the lucky, hard-working young bastard...

Same for movie trailer websites -- most of those are Flash -- but they only have a couple of month lifespan. And when you search for a movie, they come up when you type in the title. But they might not come up for harder, less direct searches.

paulr

4-Sep-2006, 11:46

I love flash for websites that i go to specifically to waste time ... movies, cartoons, gags, etc..

But flash-based photo sites make me want to scream. Even the best ones seem clunkier and more intrusive than equivalent non-flash sites.

darr

4-Sep-2006, 14:10

A note about the black background discussion that has been talked about in this thread: I learned from my school days that if you place a black outline around your artwork or photo, it will pop out at the viewer thus aiding in getting their attention. This was taught to me in an advertising comp class where all we did was design, sketch and present ideas for ad campaigns. Some may find it interesting enough to use frames around their website portfolios. Here is an example:

http://cameraartist.com/images/10186.jpg

http://cameraartist.com/images/10186c.jpg

I cannot comment on using black as a background since I believe it is probably a personal preference or taste issue. I personally do find it more difficult on my eyes to read white text against a black background, at least a whole page worth. Using a black underscore space below a photo with a white/light colored caption does not bother my eyes. The various forums I visit that have a dark background (RFF (http://rangefinderforum.com/) for example) do offer a template selection to change to the default vBulletin blue which I am thankful for; a good designing option IMO.

robc

4-Sep-2006, 14:49

If cost is a major issue then one of the free photo galleries is a quick and very cheap option.

I just loaded Coppermine (http://coppermine-gallery.net). It took about 1 1/2 hours to install, configure and upload a few images. It takes somewhat longer to get your head around all the options available most of which I have disabled.

you can flip between "Themes" which you can also switch off.

demo photo gallery (http://www.visualperception.net/cpg/)

The beauty of a system like this for the novice is that you get a fully functioning web site up and running instantly. You can then make a copy of a template which approximates what you really want, and then spend time working out how to modify that template without any danger of screwing the main site. When you've figured that out in a month or two then you just switch to that template. Its really quite a powerful and polished tool with commenting and slideshow view and there's also an ecommerce plugin available. Personally I think its one of the better freebies but some of the out of the box templates are a bit gaudy.

Many of the free gallery software products have been posted here previously. Search the archives for more.

Photomax

4-Oct-2006, 11:08

This has been a very interesting thread. I have made a living with photography for years but am slowly drifting into doing web stuff as well.

How best to create a simple, but elegant site for displaying a photographer's skill and services? - There are so many ways to skin this cat as the saying goes. I started to learn html using frames, then with tables & cells with javascript for neat image rollovers for the navigation etc. I spent hours with Dreamweaver learning how to do this. Not any more...

Fast forward to what I think is the best way: building sites with lean, lean xml and CSS. No fancy tools like Dreamweaver or GoLive are needed. No tables, no cells, no scripts and most importantly no Flash. More and more I have grown to dislike the use of Flash for displaying web content. All html code flows downwards and will display content in the same manner. Having tons of content tables, layout structure, font tags etc just adds to page bloat. All of this stuff goes at the top of the code. Search engines then have to wade through all of this to get to the actual content: very inefficient. Putting all the type/font tags and layout structure in one CSS file that all pages will refer to is so much better. Having the pages built with code that validates with the W3C means that it will render well across all browsers and devices. The hard part is getting this method to render well with Internet Explorer 6 which is the most popular browser. It is also the worst browser in the world and does a poor job of complying with web standards.

A lot of photographers find that it is rewarding to combine photography, Photoshop skills, typography and web gallery creation. Its worth looking into and is a superior alternative to relying on templates that get "over exposed..."

A sample site that I built using strict xml and CSS: http://seattlecruiserheads.com/

Some good reading:
http://www.stylegala.com/
http://www.cssbeauty.com/gallery/
http://alistapart.com/
http://www.westciv.com/index.html
http://csszengarden.com/

Cheers,

Max

Marko

4-Oct-2006, 13:34

Nice stuff, Max.

This aproach is for web design what Zone System is for photography. Some people "get it", and there's always DreamWeaver and templates for the rest.

Personally, I prefer Transitional over Strict because of some rendering issues, not surprisingly with IE, but that's OK. You're obviously at the level at which you can easily compensate or adjust for it, especially if you also do the follow-up and maintenance of the sites you design.

On the other note, the latest trend is to also pull the behavior layer out of the markup into the external library and attach it to regular classes or ids, so that there are no script tags other than the library link in the head. But since you read ALA you're probably already aware of it.