Portfoliobox Review: An Easy Portfolio Website Builder Made For Creatives
Portfoliobox Review: An Easy Portfolio Website Builder Made For Creatives
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Portfoliobox is i of the safest and easiest platforms to launch a free portfolio site.
It'due south peculiarly valuable to artists and creatives considering it's designed with features catering towards that audience. Simply just how good is Portfoliobox for showcasing your work online?
I'll encompass the full platform in this review including the differences between costless and pro accounts.
But suffice it to say this platform works very well. If yous're an creative person, photographer, designer or anything similar then Portfoliobox is a keen choice to get your work online in a professional mode.
How Does Information technology Work?
The Portfoliobox platform is basically an online portfolio website manager.
You might know of similar products similar Behance, Squarespace, ArtStation… those are all popular choices. But they're mostly designed like social networks.
Other choices like Wix and Squarespace are OK merely not custom-built for creatives.
With Portfoliobox you get your ain portfolio website running on a organisation designed for creative people to show off their creative work.
This comes consummate with a custom page builder, editable portfolio galleries, and fifty-fifty an optional shop to sell your work online. This ways Portfoliobox can handle your online portfolio/blog/shop and get your main portfolio spider web host by managing the entire website on their servers.
The best part is that anyone can sign upwardly for free and continue that free account for life, no hidden fees.
You get your ain custom folio on the site with a subdomain through their service(ex: yourname.portfoliobox.cyberspace). If you desire a custom domain(ex: yourname.com) that's one of the many features attached to a pro account.
To become started you can just sign up for a free account to play around. New signups will get a 30 mean solar day trial of their "pro" themes just to see how they wait.
Generally I exercise think the free version is plenty to get started, plus it's piece of cake to upgrade in the hereafter.
Here'southward a quick rundown of what you get with a free account:
- xxx images max
- 10 pages max
- 10 products max
With the free business relationship you can edit your site's homepage, your portfolio items, and your online shop(if you desire one). The premium account supports all of this + no restrictions on content.
With xxx-lx minutes of tinkering you tin can setup a fully-functional portfolio website that looks keen and hosts all of your best work.
Let's swoop into the user panel to encounter how this all works.
Setting Upwards Your Website
To get setup first register a free business relationship with the site.
All CAE readers tin can get a 5% discount for life on a pro upgrade by signing upwards through this link. Even if you only get the complimentary account today you tin always upgrade later and notwithstanding go that discount.
Once you sign up you lot'll get an email confirming your new account and a link to the login folio.
Enter your business relationship details and y'all should see a master dashboard like this:
Kinda boring right?
Let's go through a few of the menus to get this setup. First click the "create folio" button near the top. This opens a carte full of custom page options.
I'd say most portfolio sites need a minimum of three pages:
- Main portfolio page(ordinarily the homepage)
- Uncomplicated about/info page
- Contact folio
In the by we've covered some design tips for creating your own layout, but thankfully you lot don't demand to worry virtually much of that.
Portfoliobox comes packaged with dozens of template designs so y'all can focus on uploading your piece of work, organizing your content & customizing the default styles to match.
To kickoff click "gallery" to setup the primary portfolio folio. Immediately you'll see a few choices for the gallery page manner from a general filigree view to a larger slideshow.
Underneath the preview shot you'll run into a listing of templates to pick from.
A few of these will have padlock icons. Those are sectional templates for pro accounts only and you can test those for xxx days fifty-fifty with a gratis signup.
Once you find a template you like click the blue "select" button.
This brings you to an edit page for calculation a page championship, some folio content, and even uploading photos of your work into the gallery. In the small-scale sidebar you lot'll see a listing of features for the page'southward brandish settings(custom URL, background epitome, meta description) along with the slideshow settings.
Once y'all're washed click the "close editor" button and preview your page.
Information technology's gonna look a footling rough but you can always go dorsum to modify things. You can even change the template past clicking the "templates" button and changing your folio structure to something else.
Only once you're happy just click OK and visit your Portfoliobox URL. Y should encounter your page live—hooray!
Only you'll probably detect the site looks a little… meh.
Nosotros can alter all of the boring pattern stuff from the page colors to typography using the Portfoliobox theme editor. Permit's swoop into the more advanced features and see how much room yous actually have for editing your site.
Customization Features
From your dashboard click the "colors & fonts" link in the right menu. This opens a few settings pages you tin quickly modify to suit your needs.
I'll click "colour scheme" since I really don't like the tan blueprint. Scrolling through the list yous'll find dozens of pre-built color schemes to pick from.
The coolest part of these preset styles is that you're never boxed in with but those presets. You can pick a darker color scheme and then go change your background color/epitome or your typography.
Aforementioned goes with every single piece of text on the folio from smaller paragraphs to larger headers.
If you click the "text" link underneath "background" this opens upward a earth of options for restyling your fonts.
Not only tin y'all pick from dozens of typefaces hosted through Portfoliobox, but you lot can also change their size, color, and letter spacing individually. Talk nearly customization!
At present let's say you lot want to radically modify major parts of the layout after making all these edits.
You can always go dorsum to the original page and delete all your images, upload new ones with new captions, and so alter that page'south design without damaging your live website.
It really is that simple to completely revamp your entire page.
To demonstrate I'll click "edit folio" from the sidebar to bring up my portfolio page contents. Then I'll CTRL/CMD+click to select all images and click the trash icon to delete.
Now I can re-upload new images and change around my portfolio with literally 2-3 minutes of attempt(if that!).
I besides don't similar the boring page text so I'll click "logo" in the right sidebar and choose "epitome" to upload a custom logo for my portfolio. If you know your mode effectually Photoshop it should be no trouble to whip up a quick logo.
Later that I'll change the BG color to be a petty darker and swap the page template for thumbnails in a higher place the primary epitome.
With those minor changes the site's coming along quite well:
All of those edits took perhaps five-10 minutes of my time.
And that'south with me existence very unfamiliar with the entire Portfoliobox editor. Then really, even a complete newbie can choice this upwards with relative ease.
Only I'thou still not happy because I need a contact page & a personal folio to share info about myself. So clicking the "create page" push I'm greeted by the same listing of templates.
Luckily there are two here that should be perfect. The "text" page seems nice for a uncomplicated "almost me" section and naturally the "contact" template works well since it supports a pre-made email contact form.
When you create a new folio you go to give it a championship and add some content. This content tin include embedded videos, lists, portfolio galleries or even images. Or merely plainly text.
Here's a sample "about me" page with the lovable Seth MacFarlane taking the place where your personal headshot could be:
If you lot upload an paradigm directly to Portfoliobox it does count towards your limit. But if you upload the image to another host similar Imgur you can link straight and save your upload slots(call up the free accounts simply support 30 images).
But I think Imgur bans hotlinking and then find another image host!
However, costless accounts get 30 image uploads which should be enough for a elementary portfolio.
The contact folio is as well pretty easy to build. Information technology works just like a regular text page where you give it a title and a small paragraph intro.
Underneath you tin can add together custom form fields with options that you customize based on what you desire to know from potential clients.
Do you desire a form just asking for the person's name & email? Sometimes that's enough.
But you can add fields asking for the person'south phone number, project budget, Skype ID or anything else.
1 thing I don't love is the contact form's default design style. It definitely blends nicely with the folio but it's non easy to restyle at all. I can't find any simple way to change the grade field widths, fonts, or paddings.
If you're comfortable with CSS or willing to larn bones CSS then you tin can edit the stylesheets yourself in the Portfoliobox "customize" menu.
To come across that just click the gear icon in the acme-correct corner and expect for customize. That'll give you direct access to edit three crucial areas:
- Site footer
- CSS lawmaking
- JavaScript code
If you lot're familiar with basic spider web development coding you'll be able to restyle your contact course, or pretty much anything else on the page, all with CSS & JS.
Trouble is those features are limited to pro accounts but.
Fifty-fifty new signups who get the xxx-solar day trial of "pro" templates do not get access to the CSS/JS features without a paid upgrade.
But as yous can tell from just this small overview, Portfoliobox offers a lot in the fashion of customization fifty-fifty for free users.
Coding is totally optional and never required at any point.
Not to mention you tin also setup a basic web log running on Portfoliobox and fifty-fifty an ecommerce store template.
The ecommerce system runs through Portfoliobox then you know it'southward only as secure. Non to mention the system frequently gets new updates with meliorate features.
I don't think anybody will demand or fifty-fifty desire a shop on their website. But it's awesome to know this feature is apart of the unabridged package.
If you want to learn more almost editing you lot can cheque out this video explaining how to edit and customize your portfolio with their arrangement.
Portfoliobox Pricing
Yous get plenty with a free Portfoliobox account. I can't imagine anyone beingness unhappy after testing the costless version.
Anyone can sign up at no charge and your account will stay that manner for life. This is a really easy mode to get your work online if you're a student or a struggling freelancer merely getting your footing in the creative world.
Not to mention the complimentary features are more than than plenty to aid you launch a website.
Look at what I created with perhaps 15-xxx minutes of tinkering.
With all of that said, Portfoliobox does have some great features in their pro business relationship.
Non many creatives will want to pay for admission to all the pro features. I go that.
But if yous do any professional creative work the pro upgrade is well worth information technology.
Let'south have a closer expect at the price of a Portfoliobox "pro" account.
There are two pro subscription options: monthly & annually. You salvage money paying annually just you'll be charged upfront. Here'south the breakdown:
- Monthly: $8.90/mo($107/year)
- Annually: $6.xc/mo($83/year)
The biggest benefit of a pro account is the access to your own domain name. That way you lot can utilize yourname.com and run Portfoliobox through that domain.
Virtually .com domains are $10/year through a registrar, but with a pro account you'll get your domain totally free courtesy of Portfoliobox.
That's what I call a sweet service.
If you've never really launched a website earlier then let me tell you that these prices are extremely reasonable because what you get.
Portfoliobox manages the entire server setup and manages the platform on their end. Pro users likewise get complimentary back up, dozens of extra themes, CSS/JS customization and easy integration with marketing tools like Google Analytics.
You lot can read more than on their pricing folio to see all the benefits of a pro business relationship.
I should too mention that students tin can find discounts if they attend sure partner schools. Check out that folio for more info if you're a student looking into Portfoliobox.
But remember earlier when I mentioned that readers of Concept Fine art Empire get a 5% discount? That means your pro account will be even cheaper.
Factor in all the actress templates, unlimited pages/weblog posts, unlimited shop products, free technical support and your free .com domain name all with one business relationship.
Now you can meet why Portfoliobox is such a swell deal for creatives and manner more powerful than the competition.
The Last Verdict
If you don't want the hassle of learning WordPress or working with your own web server then give Portfoliobox a endeavour.
Seriously, it has everything yous could possibly need:
- Crisp portfolio galleries
- Personal web log
- Online webshop
- Custom page templates
- Free domain name
- Visual editing tools
- Google Analytics integration
- 24/seven free back up for whatever & all issues
The toll is super competitive for a pro account and it'll crush many of the high-quality spider web hosts out there just on the hosting & costless domain pricing lone.
There's no denying that $7/mo is a lot cheaper than you'll ever observe with whatsoever professional spider web host.
I think the biggest question is whether you lot'd want to run your website through Portfoliobox, or work with a total CMS platform similar WordPress. We covered WordPress in our portfolio setup guide so you lot can see how it differs and how much work is involved there.
With a WP site you get far more room for customization, more themes, a larger community, and the WordPress software is complimentary for life so yous can change spider web hosts without problems.
Portfoliobox locks y'all into their system but it's likewise fully managed so you're never worrying near server reanimation, maintenance, security… that's all in-firm managed by their team.
And y'all get a complimentary domain with a pro account and so they're eating that fee as well.
To summarize all of this I highly recommend Portfoliobox for artists, photographers, designers, writers, animators, 3D modelers, or anyone who does freelance artistic work.
If you're even remotely curious to attempt Portfoliobox simply get a complimentary business relationship and tinker around. You'll never need to upgrade and you can continue that free account for life or delete it if you lot just don't want it.
Now if y'all practice want to upgrade to pro you'll get a v% disbelieve just by signing up through Concept Fine art Empire. It's a terrific deal that we're proud to sponsor.
At the very to the lowest degree Portfoliobox is worth a trial run merely to see what you retrieve.
Nothing to lose only a little time, yet the upside is finding your new favorite portfolio site manager tailor-made for creatives.
Check Out Portfoliobox
Source: https://conceptartempire.com/portfoliobox-review/
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