Apparently not so secret, but anyway I'm doing a quick write-up on the upcoming modifications to the Soule Deigns "My Work" pages.  These pages are basically my online portfolio of work though I haven't really kept them up to date as I've been churning out more and more 3D models.  That is all about to change, let's get started...

The first order of business was to create a better method of showcasing each project.   Typically I'll write up the various phases of 3D models across 2-3 blog posts and then link to one of those posts from my portfolio - essentially telling users go find out more since I'm too busy (read lazy?) to put it all together - yeah, not too user friendly.

I just wanted to say good luck, we're all counting on you... clicking on this link and sifting through my blog?

My goal is to transform the "My Work" section into an area that tells the story behind each piece in my portfolio.  This includes showcasing concepts, ambient occlusion renders, color renders (when available) and finally turntables.   Obviously some of those phases will only work for models, but other works such as illustrations and websites have their own bit of back-story that can be told.

So retaining the concept of an "Overview", which is my current short write-up, and adding the concept of project phases, which I'm calling "media groups", I came up with this layout:

The new design shows each project in its own page rather than the current all in on layout.  It also expands to take up more horizontal real estate which I find more appealing.

The menu bar will scroll down the page with you, and each media group is an anchor to that section on the project page.  If that makes no sense, a live example can be seen here, however as of this writing I only have one project up in the new structure.

With a design in place that suits my current needs, the second step was making the portfolio easily maintainable.   Blogger is super easy because Google programmers have spent many hours creating an awesome tool that enables me to scrawl out random thoughts - why can't my portfolio be that easy?

An admin is born!

From that login page one gains entry into the clandestine shadow pages operating within the Soule Designs site, welcome to the ADMIN!  This was born out of the long 4th of July weekend and my desire for maintainability.   Unfortunately this required me to do some programming in my off time from... programming, but thems the breaks.   Believe me, I so wanted to get a platform that already existed, but as I had a database already setup and much of the site working I didn't want to reinvent the whole thing.   So now I have a basic page to sort and remove portfolio pieces:

Not much to sort with one project, but more will be on the way soon...

And a basic page to setup portfolio pieces:

Pretty basic controls, opted against rich text editors because they tend to be more of a pain in the ass then helpful when you're comfortable writing html.

And that's the "My Work" update in a nutshell.  Now, hopefully I'll spend the time and update my portfolio a bit more often! :-P