Electronic Portfolio Resources

The following resources will be helpful to you as you begin to design your electronic portfolio. As always, if you have any questions or need help, please email me or see me during office hours.

Templates

Creating an original layout for your portfolio will be a difficult task. If you are not already familiar with HTML, it may be helpful to use a template for your first website. These sites will help you get a jump start on selecting a template for your site:

  • Open Source Web Design — An excellent place to start. This site offers hundreds of free templates. You can browse the templates by layout, color, etc., and download one that complements your individual brand identity.
  • Open Web Design — Another site with a long list of free templates. This site offers many of the same features as the OSWD site linked above.
  • CSS Creator — This online tool allows you to enter the general dimensions and colors for your site, then it generates HTML and CSS templates for you to work with.
  • Layout-O-Matic — Another layout generator you may find helpful.
  • MaxDesign Sample CSS Page Layouts — Links to templates for several varieties of CSS-based layouts, as well as a few tutorials that guide you through the process step by step.
  • Intensivstation CSS Templates — Twelve standard CSS-based page layouts.
  • The Noodle Incident's Little Boxes — Sixteen different layouts, complete with HTML source code and accompanying CSS.
  • Blue Robot's Layout Reservoir — Only a few layouts here, but this site offers clear explanations about what's going on behind the scenes with each layout

Organization

A website of any size is best organized into subdirectories (folders) that show the basic logic of the site and help you build and update the individual web pages. Follow a standard naming procedure (I recommend lowercase, singular, single-word names). Include some generic directories you can use for any site. Here is a top-level set of directories, for instance, that includes places to put CSS documents, Word documents, images, other media (audio, video, Flash), and PDF documents. The “home” directory would contain further subdirectories based on the topics for the basic subsections of the site. A homepage (homepage.html, index.html, etc.) would exist at the same level as the directories below. By creating such a structure at the beginning of a project, it makes it much easier to get the right path names for hyperlinks.

The following sites have additional information about organizing a website:

Cascading Style Sheets

Here are some online sources that introduce Cascading Style Sheets, provide full references on the CSS language, and give examples:

Color Selectors

These sites will help you develop a color scheme for your eportfolio:

Stock Images

If used well, photographic images can enhance the textual elements in your portfolio. These stock photography sites will provide you with plenty of options. Before you use any images, remember to check the copyright notices listed on these sites to ensure that your use of the images complies with the law.

Backgrounds

In choosing backgrounds, simple solid colors usually work best. Sometimes, though, a patterned background may be appropriate. Here are some sources:

Sample Portfolios

Professional Portfolio Sites

The following sites were created by web design professionals. Although some of the technical aspects of these portfolios go beyond what we will do this semester, these portfolios may provide some inspiration as you work on your portfolio:

Academic Portfolio Sites

Several universities around the country are beginning to implement electronic portfolio programs. Here are student examples from two such programs:

And here is a nice compilation of student-created eportfolios from around the country:

ISU Portfolio Sites

Here at ISU, many students are creating portfolios in a variety of courses and programs. The fist portfolio listed below was created by one of my English 302 students last year. The other portfolios listed below were created by my English 105 students in 2005.

Last modified: Sunday, 25 November 2007, 11:06 PM