Comments on: A series of tubes for my arts.

Question: A series of tubes for my arts.

overeducated_alligator — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:41:32 -0800

How do I keep all my artwork organized on my web site?

I make a lot of different types of art. For example:

- traditional media sketches & paintings
- commissioned graphics/logo/illustration work
- panel comics
- silly doodles & cartoons
- figure drawings
- animation (video & GIFs)
- also, I make art tutorials (video and static)

I have a static web portfolio which has a "gallery" section, I put a sampling of work on there which essentially doesn't change. I also have a blog section, which is a Tumblr, where I post day-to-day sketches, etc.

I'd kind of like to get something which is more organized than the Tumblr, but simpler than FTPing new files to my web space and then updating the php/html of each static page. I like the Tumblr interface (I used to use Movable Type), but it doesn't seem that robust.

Ideally, I want there to be a central stream of new stuff, but every time I upload something new, I want it to go live permanently in a gallery section I assign it to. That way each section maintains its own chronology.

I'm OK with PHP/HTML/CSS/MySQL so I'm not afraid of writing a custom CMS if that's the best idea. If I go with an out-of-the-box system like Wordpress, how simple will it be for me to customize it?

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:49:59 -0800

If I go with an out-of-the-box system like Wordpress, how simple will it be for me to customize it?

There are a lot of gallery plug-ins for Wordpress, which should be installable via the admin page. Wordpress is fairly customizable, beyond gallery extensions. That would be my recommendation, instead of writing your own solution.

By: Foci for Analysis

Foci for Analysis — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:54:29 -0800

I'm going to recommend Wordpress because:
* you can get a theme that's custom made for showcasing creative work. Take a look at the official theme repository or commercial alternatives such as ThemeForest.

* if you want total control over the design, you can create your own theme relatively easily. What people have trouble with when they start out theming Wordpress, is all the built-in PHP functions and the automagical stuff, but the documentation covers these things nicely.

As for posting content, it's all very straightforward and GUI oriented. The built-in media manager for uploading images and videos is pretty good. Depending on the theme or plugins you use, you can augment and streamline Wordpress even further so it really fits with your workflows.

By: adamrice

adamrice — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:17:23 -0800

I like WP in a lot of ways, but I am not a fan of the way it deals with images and galleries. There are a host of plugins that let it work with flickr, or menalto gallery (which would be another option), and there are plugins that let you use metadata more intelligently. I recommend checking out media tags and tag gallery. The latter can be adapted to work with other plugins or scripts that manipulate the presentation of galleries as carousels or what have you.

By: The River Ivel

The River Ivel — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:09:46 -0800

Have you seen http://www.indexhibit.org/

By: The River Ivel

The River Ivel — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:12:29 -0800

Sorry - sudden distraction caused me to hit the wrong button.

Anyways, Indexhibit is an out-of-the-box artists portfolio site that has a relatively good amount of flexibility (or so I'm told). It hasn't been updated in a while, but it might be worth looking at.