Buying template - What you think about it?

[Dalkarls]

So! After browsing what feels like a million templates to find one that would work the best for my needs. I wanted something clean, easy to navigate, no flashy cheap things that will happen on evey thing I move my mouse over (I'm amazed how many fugly templated who have these function, who buy them?)

I think I mentioned it my last topic regarding plugins that I was going for a that lightbox "pop up" thingy my with some changes to it. Less is more, so no arrows, frames or text. http://andreassjodin.se/

This one does have a few of these thing tough, but I've been told by a friend who thinks these should be able to get rid of. Or atleast change to transparent color so they seam to be gone? Anyone think the same?

This is the mainlayout I want to use with this template. There are other ways setting it up but they are just annoying. One main category for all photos on my portfolio and subcategorys with (fashion, commercial/products, Conceptual etc) to only show those certain images. Might come handy if you get a job offer and the client is only interested to see the products and have no interest in fashion.

http://demo.megathe.me/skylab/masonry-magnific-popup/

Does it sound good or does anyone have any improvements that comes to mind? I happy to hear them if so

Regards, Christoffer

 

[Hoogle]

I like the general style all though I may change the black icons and text to maybe more of a gray if it was me as I am not a big fan of pure black and white. and I am guessing that will be customisable under the themes anyway if not you can probably edit the icon images to suit whatever you want in ps and edit the text using the master style.css page under heading text or whatever they label it as.

 

[Dalkarls]

I totally agree on the icons, I'm only gonna have like one or two at most becuase I'm not a big fan of them but they might come handy to support my FB site and I would also like to link my Linkedin profile. Tumblr and Instagram doesnt realy have that proffesional touch to it and I'm not a big fan of twitter, never liked it but I can see why people use it.

For the background, I'm been browsing some of the portfolios of photographers I like and many of them seem to go with a slight yellow/white/grey tone instead of pure white (#f7f6f5). Mainly I guees so that thumbnails that have pure white wont melt together with the background. And as you say, some color is nice but it has to be the right amount of it. Thinking that maybe the logo should be one of the things that has some color to it, greyish/blue maybe? (#bfd4d6)

I'm watching some tutorials on Firebug right now how to change the CSS since I have no knowledge how to do it.

 

[Hoogle]

If you want my advise displaying images should either be on black or white backgrounds or any shade of gray in between including dark gray or dirty white but not colour tinted. Best results tend to come from somewhere around the 50% Gray area hence programs such as ps background default colours are gray. It makes images look sharper and cleaner and the colour doesnt blend in with the images that have a lot of colour to them. Gray Just makes them pop more if you ask me.

But rules are there to be broken and as long as your happy with it then do it how you like it. At the end of the day it is you that has to be happy with it to navigate potential clients to it.

I also dont like huge portfolios people can decide if they like your style within a few images. hence when I make portfolio sites for people I will host multiple portfolios the main 1 being called a quick portfolio that has upto 30 images of your best work spreading across all the categories you photograph.

then maybe 3 or so side portfolios ie sport, Product, Portrait etc you get the idea. Some photographers also have a dedicated studio portfolio which just shows studio work to let clients know they can shoot in a studio enviroment.

Here is a rather good example of a Portfolio site
http://www.joeyl.com/