I then moved on to creating the actual site.
I started off by obtaining a domain and email. I wanted to secure these early on incase they later created some unpredictable issues as they are new territory for me. I shopped around looking at different domain providers but ultimately ended up going with dreamhost for my domain and I also got an email with them for fairly cheap. All in all I think it costed around 20GBP for both. I secured both declancoxy.com and [email protected], with a domain and an email secured it was time to move onto the development and design of the site.
I began by creating some low-fi wireframes applying the findings from my research. I always feel sketching is quite a weird process for me when designing for the web so I decided to go straight into figma for this one. I also had some pretty tight time constraints as I gave myself 3 days to have a portfolio done and dusted so that I would be able to apply for placement roles as soon as they became available.
My low-fi wireframes were to be a guideline of how the portfolio might look. I started by planning each page that I wanted to include and how the content of the pages would be presented. Much like my CV when creating these wireframes I decided to adhere to a strict grid structure to keep “professional appearance” consistent across each piece.
For most of my research so far I have placed an emphasis on the content and how it’s actually communicated, through formatting and layout. When it comes to style for this, as I have mentioned before, I feel it would be a good idea to bring the style of my CV over into my portfolio. I think this could be a good way to make my presence consistent and memorable for hiring managers that are looking through various candidates so it could be a good way to stand out.
My CV consists of bold blues and well thought out text, language of course plays a big role her but so does the layout of the text. This is the “style” that I want to carry across into my portfolio.
I decided to create the site using HTML and CSS in VS Code. I chose to create it from scratch as I felt that my work for last years HTML projects turned out really well, so I felt confident in using this as an approach. I thought it would allow me the most freedom in what I could create so I decided to hop straight in and try to bring my wireframes to life.
I used ChatGPT sporadically to help me with unfamiliar areas, one example can be seen within the carousel on the home page. It was still very early days but here is how the site was looking at this point.
