Foundation Web Design & Development is excited to showcase the latest site project in the artists category! Carol F. Creech is a traditional 2D artist, bookbinder, and jewelry designer who was in need of a new look for her portfolio site, and I was happy to help.
From WordPress.com to WordPress.org
Carol, a botanical and nature illustrator (among other things like jewelry design and bookbinding), had a site built on WordPress.com that served her well for many years that served as her portfolio. Carol wanted to update her portfolio to something a little more contemporary and a bit more clear in terms of user experience. She also wanted to save some money by shifting from WordPress.com’s hosted plans to a self-hosted install. Foundation was excited to get this project going for her!
After Carol expressed her interest in her particular style for her portfolio by sharing some portfolio sites she liked, I was able to emulate some of the biggest elements of those sites: a side navigation, contemporary/minimalist colors, and putting the portfolio front-and-center. The new site also utilizes a custom post type to house her portfolio items for special filtering display and keeps her from being locked into any type of plugin for displaying her works.
Special Considerations & Unique Features
Foundation Web Design & Development was also able to accommodate some special requests for Carol’s portfolio. Carol wanted to link her social media area back to social platforms Bluesky and Threads. Bluesky doesn’t have an official logo (yet) and Threads was not supported by the base theme, but I easily replaced Bluesky domains with a small cloud, and Threads domains with the Threads logo.
Carol also wanted to select some widgets to put on her blog page so people can sort her blog posts easier, and I implemented two-columns worth of widget areas for her to easily swap those items in/out as she likes.
In addition to these select items, I also folded in some unique features to Carol including an accent color consistent to her brand (lime green!) which is backed in Gutenberg for easy selection whenever she’s drafting a new page or post. I also provided her with a link hub page so she doesn’t have to use LinkTree or similar services when posting on Instagram and instead is able to direct people right to her own site.
We also worked together to create a licensing and fair use page (which all artists should have), as well as utilizing my Simple NoAI plugin to block AI crawlers from accessing the page.
Lastly, I sent Carol the best with a simple SEO setup, including schema inline data to attribute all of her images on her site to her, while also quietly delivering medium and art type information to crawlers in the background.
Overall, I’m thrilled with how Carol’s art portfolio site came out and how well it meshes with her beautiful nature illustrations and lightbox photos. If you haven’t looked at it yet, you should definitely check out CCreech Studio!