How to Have a Professional Web Presence when You Don't Have a Website

I was chatting with my niece a couple days ago about her frustration in trying to search for a summer internship in graphic design. She had heard back from one place that requested a link to her online portfolio. So I asked her if she has an online portfolio. Nope. But a couple of her classmates had mentioned a website called Behance. She had not had time to look into it yet. Being the ever curious person that I am, I immediately went to the website and signed up for an account to see how difficult it is to use the site and get a feel for how to use it.

The answer? Not difficult at all. Assuming you have photos ready to upload, (and why wouldn't you if you were looking for an place to host a portfolio?) you can be up and running in five minutes.

It got me thinking about our art jewelry community and how it could benefit us. I know of several extremely talented people who do not have a website. Having an elegant and professional looking portfolio site would be a great method of sharing beautiful photos of your work with those who want to see it. Even if you do have a website, this site could be a supplement to your website and another place for people to find you.

How much does it cost? Nothing.

If you have a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, (which I do not, so cannot talk about it with any kind of personal knowledge) you are able to share directly to Behance from within other programs included in the creative cloud.

While playing around on the site, I discovered they have a Jewelry Design portfolio menu.

The website is clean and beautiful, easy to use, and they provide some extra bells and whistles like traffic stats, appreciations (similar to Facebook likes), job postings, and social media buttons.  

After playing with Behance I had a poke around to see if there are other free online portfolio sites. One that stood out is called Coroflot. Once again, I joined and played a bit with it. Signing up is super easy and making a profile and uploading photos could take as little as a few minutes. 

Unlike Behance, Coroflot does not offer a Jewelry Design option. However, they do offer Awesomeness, and that is probably more accurate, right? 

The closest option to jewelry design falls under fashion/apparel. Honestly, that isn't a deal breaker for me. 

Coroflot is also free while offering nice features like uploading your resume, tagging your profile so people can find your work more easily, creating job alerts, and search job postings. You can see your account statistics, and there's also a social aspect to the site.

 During the small amount of time spent playing with both sites, I cannot see a downside to either one, so it boils down to personal preference.