Core77

Over at Coroflot's Creative Seeds blog Carl Alviani has written the antithesis to his previous article--what not to do. His new list features six things to always do within a portfolio website. When you are done making sure you haven't made any mistakes, see what you've done right. Here's a few:

2. Get your own domain.
It's true that there are plenty of places to get your site hosted for free, and they'll give you a domain name too. But the fact is, if you're trying to look professional, yourname.blogspot.com feels kind of like a business card printed at home on bond paper: fine for students and newbies, but lame otherwise. Getting your own domain is so cheap and so easy these days (ten bucks and 15 minutes, typically) that there's really no excuse not to. Not sure where to start? Here's a list of registrars.

4. Make sure at least some of your images are professional quality.
This one's mostly for the ID folks. No, not every single photo you upload needs to have been shot in a studio under $12,000 worth of strobe lighting, but the difference between a crappy snapshot and a carefully lit and post-processed photograph from a decent SLR is tremendous. If you've got the inclination to learn, a little product photography skill can reap some great rewards. Get a reasonable camera and a tripod, build yourself a lightbox, and spend a few days experimenting. If that doesn't appeal, get some pics from marketing if they've had some done, or pay someone better than you to take care of it.

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