As a photographer, you probably have a different view of your subjects and the things around you. This is how you can capture moments in various angles and give your viewers a different way of looking at what may seem like an ordinary situation. Similarly, when you create a portfolio website through free website templates, you need to think about how a potential client or customer might see your website. You need to present a fresh perspective and highlight the best of your talents and services to be able to engage a user. This is why creatives put so much work into selecting portfolio website templates and transforming them into standout websites. How a client sees your website is critical to the success of your brand on the web.
What makes great web design?
The reality is that you can spend so much time and money on a website but you can’t guarantee success if you don’t design it with your target audience in mind. Some website owners mistakenly focus on what looks good and fancy thinking that this might grab the attention of their customers. The truth is people are more likely to stick around your website if they know they can get a lot of information from it and they are able to get around your site with ease.
Having said that, fancy doesn’t always mean good when it comes to choosing photography website templates for your site. Here at Strikingly, our team of website designers strive to keep things simple and modern when it comes to developing new personal website templates. This is to provide users with as much freedom to transform and play around with the design elements of their websites. We provide an ideal starting point for design projects with an intuitive website editor and a simple framework that keeps up with the latest modern website design templates trends.
Using Free Website Templates
The beauty of building a website with Strikingly is you get access to a wide variety of website templates so you don’t have to worry about creating a site from scratch. All you need to do is choose a template based on your content needs and implement design details that are suited to your preference and brand image. With the technical aspect of building a website out of the way, you can focus on creating great content that your potential clients will want to see.
Choosing from a diverse library of website templates can be overwhelming, however. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when deciding on which template to use and how to transform it into a website that fulfills your objectives.
1. Navigation should be a priority
Menu and navigation is probably one of the most important yet oddly underrated design elements in web development. Individuals tend to rely on the default menu placement and format but here at Strikingly, we try to give you as many options as possible to help you make an informed choice. Explore different menu placements based on your audience and the general look and feel of your site. Some site owners opt to keep their pages clean by putting their main menu on the upper side of the page while others opt for a side panel to somehow align with how a user skims a web page.
Regardless of which you choose, you want to streamline your menu and keep navigation as simple as possible. Don’t leave users wondering where to find information they are looking for. Your main menu items should contain the most important parts of your website.
2. Color scheme and font combinations
Each template on Strikingly contains a few different color schemes that we believe will work best on each template. However, we do recommend that you implement your own choice of colors based on your brand image. If you don’t have a color scheme in mind, do your research and find out which design elements elicit the most positive feedback from visitors. Some photographers tend to choose color schemes that work well with their shots. For instance, if you’re into nature and landscape photography, you might want to choose earthy colors on your site. Others opt to use black and white to keep their portfolio gallery in focus.
3. Portfolio gallery support
A photography website template is different from other website templates in that it is meant to contain more visuals than text content. It has to have galleries and tools that allow you to display your best work in the most engaging way. Explore different layout options and, if you need to display a huge number of images, we suggest dividing the collection into categories and adding several gallery sections to your website for easier viewing and navigation.
