Author Topic: Websites part deux  (Read 19737 times)

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PSMKay

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Websites part deux
« on: Feb 20, 2014, 03:03 pm »
Our old websites thread has reached 10 pages, and has therefore been locked. Here is the sequel.

As a reminder, this thread is for critiquing sites, not for promoting yourself. If you have made a personal website for your stage management career and would like feedback please post here.

MandalynM

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #1 on: Feb 24, 2014, 10:50 am »
Thanks Kay!

Hello all, here is my newly (and still under construction) webpage. Any edits would be awesome. I appreciate your time!

Mandi

www.mandalynstevens.com

Dart

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #2 on: Feb 28, 2014, 08:00 pm »
Since we've gotten to Part II (The Webbening?), and Part I was started almost seven years ago, I'd like to ask anew: What website hosts and/or builders, do y'all like? Has this changed over time, as hosts have died and been born?

I am more than ready to pay for my website, but I'm more inclined toward builders than hosts-with-no-editor because I can't create a professional website on my own and don't really have the money to invest on a graphic designer right now. In the other hand, though, I'm seeing some sites charge an outrageous $16/mo just because they have a pretty editor or no ads.

I've been looking at Wix and Wordpress.com this morning - Wix looks nice, though they have some awful reviews re tech support, and Wordpress is all blog-based (I know .org isn't) and won't let me really play with the editor unless I pay for it (I'd love it if they let me play but not save...) Does anyone have experience with either?

MandalynM

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #3 on: Mar 03, 2014, 05:08 pm »
I just built my site. I registered my domain and hosting through namecheap.com. Under there c-panel (which namecheap will give you the log-in and such when you register) I used Wordpress that I installed from the panel. It was surprisingly easy, as I am not a web developer at all. I paid 57 dollars for the year and wordpress was free. There was some coding I did to add PDFs of my resume and paperwork samples. If you need that code, feel free to message me and I can talk you through it a bit. If you use a wordpress template, I suggest disabling the comments. Don't upload any pictures until you disable them, or people can comment on your pictures.

If you want to see what I did on wordpress, my website is mandalynstevens.com (the picture of myself is being changed as soon as I get my head shots)

It wasn't too bad, and I am very happy with my site.

Mandi

PSMKay

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #4 on: Mar 03, 2014, 05:32 pm »
I have not worked with Wix. I do use the open-source Wordpress for a couple of sites and am pretty happy with it. SMF is easier to work with but that may be due to a 5+ year discrepancy in my own familiarity with the code.

I've written guest content for Wordpress.com blogs and found that the content creation interfaces were great but the design back-end was pretty opaque. However, if you're fine using a boilerplate theme (which I sometimes am and sometimes am not...ahem...) it should be great. There's plenty of themes out there. It's also remarkably easy to convert Wordpress from a "blog" format to a portfolio format.

The nice thing about Wordpress is the heavy focus on SEO. Now, you still need to keep your keywords in mind when you're creating your content, but for the most part the search engines will pick up something posted to my WP sites long before they pick up something published in most other formats.

SMNetwork and all my other sites use Linode for hosting, which is a mid-to-high range VPS host. I am over-the-moon happy with them so far. Prior to Linode we were using InMotion Hosting, which was fine for a basic site with modest traffic. I still refer a lot of my design clients to them. Once we got to a certain traffic level they gave us the boot, though, which will be the case with many of the "cheap" hosts.

MatthewShiner

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #5 on: Apr 30, 2015, 03:27 am »
Working on a new website . . . trying to rebrand myself to work more in nyc

thus

stagemanager.nyc

still futzing . . . .
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Anything posted here as in my own personal opinion, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of my employer - whomever they be at a given moment in time.

KMC

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #6 on: Apr 30, 2015, 08:01 am »
Working on a new website . . . trying to rebrand myself to work more in nyc

thus

stagemanager.nyc

still futzing . . . .

Depending how you want to do it, you could also just add a subdomain to your current domain.  ex: nyc.stagemanger.net.  The potential downside with that would be that you'd either have to have your main www. direct there to keep eyes where you want them, or live with the fact that people may see both the NYC branding and general branding.  The upside is it would add simplicity and keep you to a single domain.

Also, don't underestimate the brand power of your existing domain. 

Get action. Do things; be sane; don’t fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action. -T. Roosevelt

MatthewShiner

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #7 on: Apr 30, 2015, 09:37 am »
Yeah, but my husband wanted to make sure stagemanager.nyc didn't get snapped up by anyone else.
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Anything posted here as in my own personal opinion, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of my employer - whomever they be at a given moment in time.

BeccaTheSM

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #8 on: Aug 10, 2017, 04:34 pm »
The thread is old, but the website is new! I've just done a sizeable overhaul to my website. Notes appreciated!

www.beccapickett.com
Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. - Stephen Sondheim

PSMKay

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #9 on: Aug 11, 2017, 07:28 am »
Looks good, Becca. Like the color palette. On my screen the cursive font in the header is a bit hard to read with the drop shadow and the body text could be a bit bigger. Just for professionalism I'd suggest putting in your own favicon, but I'm not sure if that's possible with the free version of wix.

I'll drop a copyedit of your body text in your PM box in a few minutes.

BrandiShook

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #10 on: Feb 01, 2018, 01:34 am »
I know this thread hasn't been used in awhile but I would really love some feedback on my website! It is www.brandishook.weebly.com

I would love any help anyone has to offer!

Thanks in advance!

KMC

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #11 on: Feb 01, 2018, 09:22 am »
I would suggest removing personal contact information from the "contact" section and the PDF version of your resume that's available on the site.  Your email and phone number are available to the world, which is not always a good thing.  You have a contact form, and I'd also suggest pointing to your LinkedIn profile.  Between those two it will not be difficult to contact you.
Get action. Do things; be sane; don’t fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action. -T. Roosevelt

smejs

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Re: Websites part deux
« Reply #12 on: Feb 09, 2018, 07:02 pm »
Hi Brandi,

While photos are nice, I find they don't mean much to me without some heading or caption telling me what I'm looking at, and what connection you had to the project(s). This is in reference to your home page. It's a bit better on the individual show pages once I found those. On the Selected SM Portfolio main page, I also might add a bit of instruction at the top like "click on the image to see additional photos and production information." It's great that you have a lot of photos to choose from, but you might whittle it down to a smaller selection for us to focus on, with highlights of varied looks. It's almost too much to look at with 29 photos of Junie B, for example, when 3 are of the same character (a mouse, I think) in nearly the same pose.

You also might check the formatting of some of your paperwork samples. Your sign-in sheet has two extraneous columns on the 2nd page, for instance, and it's the first document I end up seeing. Another (entrance/exit tracking) is very tiny and hard to read - looks like perhaps it got shrunk? Also, FYI, it took me a bit to load them (yesterday, the Costume Plot never loaded and had "image not found" though today it works).

I agree with what KMC said about contact information, and add that it's also on your samples, which perhaps you could black out.

Please take this as constructive criticism, just trying to help you present your best you!

Best of luck,
Erin