How Griffith College Photography Students Use Squarespace Portfolio Websites
Griffith College’s Photographic Media degree program provides students with hands-on preparation for careers in photography and related visual fields. The students use Squarespace websites to showcase their stunning final-year coursework, which can encompass any genre of photography including commercial, fine art, or documentary best practices.
Lecturer Johnny Savage teaches professional practice in the final stage of the three-year program, where students are required to build a portfolio website to display their final selected work. After spending their final year researching, shooting, and compiling a collection of professional quality photos on a chosen topic, students select a Squarespace template that reflects their focus area and use it to market their work. Savage encourages them to upload exemplary projects to the website and create a personal brand story that declares their identity as a photographer to potential employers.
“It’s important for students to have a plan when building portfolios. They need to consider their end goal and target audience,” he says. “It’s not just family and friends viewing their work anymore—it could be a photo editor or a gallery looking to hire, so they have to elevate their presentation.”
Browse Squarespace portfolio templates.
The need for speed in website portfolio creation
While students emerge from the program well-versed in composition and exposure, there is no requirement to demonstrate knowledge of website building, which is why a plug-and-play solution for launching beautiful sites was needed. With Squarespace’s wide selection of design-forward templates in various artistic themes, Savage felt it was the clear choice for supporting the students' online photography presentation.
“We’re not web designers, we are photographers. And we need to be able to implement our ideas quickly in the span of one semester,” he says. “Squarespace makes it very accessible for students to experiment with website styles and refine their designs, which helps them discover who they are as photographers.”
The ingredients for website portfolio success
According to Savage, students should be selective in deciding which work to highlight in their portfolio websites, ensuring choices fit an overarching theme or career goal. He says being mindful of the website visitor experience is key to building a successful online portfolio, along with keeping interactions simple and avoiding too many distracting tabs, windows, and buttons.
“Having the right homepage layout is really important to invite people into your website,” Savage says. “It should be easy to navigate with a clear path to viewing work. You want to plan out which galleries and sections should be viewed in your preferred order.”
Squarespace’s user-friendly editing interface helps students effectively “tinker with design” and quickly make any changes necessary to optimize their portfolios, according to Savage.
Putting it into practice
While Savage’s long-time career as a freelance photographer prepared him well for advising students on presenting their work, he appreciates having the additional support of a Squarespace expert to acquaint the students with navigating the platform. Live scheduled demo sessions with an expert provide the students with a personalized introduction to the platform and an opportunity for them to ask questions and learn best practices.
“Learning tips and tricks from someone experienced at Squarespace helps to drive [concepts] home for students and give them a bit more focus,” he says. “We always end up learning something we didn’t know after doing a demo session.”
Savage looks forward to evaluating each class’s finished portfolio websites every year and observing how they can jumpstart the students’ photography careers. He feels there’s no substitute for those who aspire to break into a visual arts field.
“Being able to direct employers to an online portfolio is crucial,” he said. “You need an accessible portfolio site that’s well-presented.” Squarespace supports Griffith College students to create sites that are worthy of their work.
