Create and update your WordPress.com portfolio, using all the tasks you have created so far for this class. Get a wordpress.com FREE plan–using your @maine.edu email address at WordPress.com, also choose the FREE domain name which will be chosen for you (this will become the URL for your portfolio). Students in NMD 340 have just imported all of these posts from all of their NMD classes into their professional portfolio–so if you do this right it will pay off later.
Picking the right theme is a critical first step. If you are new to WordPress, I recommend the Cubic theme, which you can select from your portfolio Dashboard under Appearance–>Theme. This theme will automatically create a grid for your NMD 200 posts with your featured images. You can also change your theme later and all your data (but not formatting) will be saved.
Use the Classic editor to get the same interface as we use in class. First, in the Dashboard look for the “View” tab in the upper right when in the Pages or Posts area, and choose the Classic view. Next with any given post or page, select the “Classic Editor” link (roll over the page title to see the options) to edit the Post or Page. See Sites Without Plugins for more info
Essential Elements:
- Home page
- Photo or logo and tagline for Home page with Your name prominently on front page
- All of your NMD 200 posts: Tasks 1-6. You can just copy/paste the “text” from your class post into the text tab of a new post on your own wordpress.com portfolio site.
- Make sure all posts have featured images, so they give good visual appeal to category/archive pages that list posts in order, and category “nmd200”.
- A photo of you, possibly in about me page or home page.
- All your skills. This could be in the site design/categories or on the about page. This can also be a bullet list in your Home or About Me page.
- Coherent colors, coherent fonts and visual appeal: Use some image or graphic which will help your site stand out.
Extras:
- About Me page is a short narrative of where you come from, what matters to you, what your skills or goals are, and what your vision is for your future–you can interpret this loosely to make sense of your own narrative.
- Navigation Menu for other NMD classes, using categories to organize them
- Genre categories /menu items for work like: video, graphic design, code, etc Note that any post can have multiple categories, so a NMD Task 3 could have “nmd200” and “graphics” as categories.
- Media –like video, photos, etc–visuals make your site stand out
- Contact Information, for people to contact you.
- Any jobs, internships or real work experience. This could be in the form of a resume.
A good source of tips and info–you can search this site: WordPress.com QuickStart Guide
