How to make a photography portfolio in 15 minutes with Carbonmade

by Zoe
Published Mar 20, 2020

Like choosing the right picture frame, your photography portfolio affects the feel of the work itself. Whether you have design experience or not, it's easy to create a beautiful, personalized portfolio that puts your photos in the best light. And with Carbonmade, you can do it over your lunch break.

Follow these five steps to create a personalized photography portfolio with Carbonmade in 15 minutes.

Requirements

The only thing you need for this tutorial is Carbonmade, which is free to use until you launch.

Before we get started, sign up for Carbonmade and pick a starting point for your layout based on your work and style. Don't overthink it, this can be customized or changed later.

Step 1: Add an intro to your homepage

Now, drag the "Title & Teaser" block onto your page. Select the ⚙️gear icon to edit the text and add your intro. Just one or two sentences about your interest and background is enough – we've only got 15 minutes here, Hemingway.

Step 2: Add images to your gallery

Next, drag the "Gallery Grid" block onto your page. From here, it's as simple as dragging & dropping photos from your desktop right onto the block. Everything will resize properly and fall into place within the grid.

Want to adjust the grid? Simply click the ⚙️gear icon in that section to switch up the order, change the padding, image size and more.

Optional alternative to the Gallery Grid: Creating projects

If you want to organize your photos into categories (ie. Outdoor, Wedding, Portraits, etc.), you can create Projects instead of using the Gallery Grid. This way, you will have separate pages for each category, which will appear as a thumbnail link on your homepage.

If you're happy using the Gallery Grid to show individual images for now, meaning your photos won't click through to a case study page, delete the Projects block and skip to Step 3.

Step 3: Upload your logo

Under the Design tab, drag & drop your logo under "Logo & Title" to upload.

Next, we'll link up social accounts. Go to the design tab in the left-hand sidebar and under "Footer," turn on project nav and show social media links. Select your social media and type in your handles.

Step 5: Update your About page

Now for the fun part. Go to your default About page and paste in your work history and headshot. Add some personality here too! Tell us about your teacup poodle, your passion for dinner parties, your hip hop DJ skills. What makes you unique?

To add your Contact information, simply drag in a Contact blog and swap out the text with your name and email.

PRO TIP: Only link to active social accounts you want potential employers or clients to see. If you don't use Twitter regularly or haven't updated your Behance site recently, don't link them up.

Step 6: LAUNCH IT!

That's it! Now it's time to launch. Simply click the GO LIVE button, add your payment info and choose a domain name, and you're live. In less time than it takes to eat a soggy tuna sandwich and scroll through Twitter at your desk, you created a beautiful, personalized portfolio to showcase your photography work. You should be proud.

Now share it with everyone!

The best part about Carbonmade: You can easily update it at any time to add new projects or change the style.

Want to refresh your homepage? Simply change the Gallery Grid layout and it's instantly a new site.

Want to change the colors of your site? Under "Global Styles," in the design tab, change your global font or background.

Want to change your navigation color? Under Design, click "Site Navigation" and change the link colors and more to your liking.
Want purple hair like mine? Sorry, trade secret.

To see examples of other portfolios built with Carbonmade, visit this page. If you create your portfolio with this tutorial, let me know on Twitter. We'd love to see it.