Slick and Glossy and Modern

I just debuted my new site design! Yay!

About six weeks ago I decided to redesign a couple of pages on my main photography site – just a little minor housekeeping! Then I got swept up in it, and before I knew it I had a plan for a full-blown redesign of the entire site. Where my old design was an homage to fine art, I wanted the redesign to be slick and glossy and modern. I still wanted spareness in the design – I like the images to stand out, not the design. And I still wanted bright white and lots of negative space. Some things don’t change!

 // Photo: Cheryl Spelts

My old design was html with some Flash galleries – I used to do SEO (Search Engine Optimization) professionally, so for me an all-Flash site was never something I ever seriously considered – at least some html was the way to go! And for SEO purposes the old design worked just fine. It also worked just fine on the vast majority of computers – almost everyone has Flash installed. But then I got an iPhone in 2007, and not being able to see parts of my site on it was a little bit of an irritation. And as more and more people get smart phones with web access, I wanted to consider alternatives to my Flash galleries. So the new site has javascript galleries – which the search engines can and do read, and which works just fine on an iPhone, and hopefully other smart phones.

 // Photo: Cheryl Spelts

It’s not a perfect experience to look at my new site on an iPhone – the navigation, particularly the arrows are too small to be really useful – but that’s okay, because bottom line, you can see my work! You can get to the galleries, you can see my images, and they look beautiful! So while it may not be perfect, it’s a huge improvement over my previous site where you could navigate the site just fine on a smart phone, but you never saw any images – not good for a photographer!

 // Photo: Cheryl Spelts

Something else new is a Live Concerts Portfolio – all the images in it were previously published elsewhere, but never on my own site – so that has now been remedied!

I have a lot more content to add in the coming weeks – there are only 150 images on the site right now – I plan to add more and more and more. I want lush full portfolios, where the viewer can get lost looking. Most photographers believe in only showing their most current work, but I have a portfolio of images dating back over 14 years – work I’m proud of and want to showcase. If you think about Annie Leibovitz or Georgia O’Keeffe or Frank Lloyd Wright would you expect to only see work from one period of their lives, or would you expect to find a full body of work? In my opinion, a full body of work shows off an artist in a way that a selection of images never will – and I want to show work from every phase of my artistic life. It may take a while to get it done, but that’s the goal!

And I have one other surprise, that I can’t reveal yet – but it’s going to be great fun!

22 Replies to “Slick and Glossy and Modern”

  1. Thanks Elisa! A lot of thought went into every element, and I'm truly in love with this new design, so it's gratifying to share it and get positive feedback right away! You rock!

  2. Oh Dear Cheryl,
    You are the most generous! Thanks so very much for the eye candy, it is Scrumptious!!!
    (((Muah!)))
    Love, Rachael
    😉

  3. Cheryl your new website really looks great. Very professional. I hope it brings you a lot of business.

  4. Ok, I just checked it out…love it! It's totally slick glossy and tres cool! Now of course, I want to hire you to design my site;) Though I hover between being spare, and having whatever is needed on the page you land on…6 of one half a dozen of the other… I have read that the largest percentage of hits for a site, never get beyond the landing/home page…thus my dilema! but seriously, if you decide you want to hire out your graphical skills……. 🙂 really really nice!

  5. oh, oh, I adore your first musician pic! 🙂 Love the new site too! 🙂 Now if I ever have someday, something huge and fantastic in my life happen, I would love you to photograph it. I’d certainly come to you! Hee! You really grab the beauty out of all your subjects. Congrats on your new site!

  6. Whenever you want Rachael! Did you look on the travel page? There’s something new there…
    Thanks Nicole, Denise, Carla, and Heather! I’m really really happy with the way it turned out and looking forward to adding more content over the next few weeks!

  7. Cheryl, absolutely fabulous site! The concert shots are incredible, about died with the first shot, lol! Thanks for sharing your gift, wow!

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