A few weeks back Scott Belsky visited Studiomates and gave me a sneak peak at his soon to be launched portfolio service called ProSite. I must admit, I was completely (!) blown away by what he has built. ProSite is going to make it supereasy for anyone to have a personal portfolio site that syncs with your Behance Network. You won’t need to know any coding whatsoever but will be able to customize it as much as you like. I saw the user interface that Scott, Matias and his team have created and it made me jump off my seat! These guys are brilliant!
The potential of ProSite becomes clear when you consider how everything is connected… The magic of ProSite is the ability to seamlessly add multi-media projects in one central place (the Behance Network) and then have them show up with different styles on your own personal and fully customized website. Your projects can be automatically pushed to other portfolios you maintain online like LinkedIn, AIGA, MTV, etc… Which means that your “following” of peers, fans, recruiters, and press can easily follow and stay updated whenever you complete a project.
When published, your projects are eligible to be featured on Behance’s 10+ Curated Gallery sites like TypographyServed.com, industrialdesignserved.com, toydesignserved.com as well as other galleries around the web.
Your projects can also be searched and sorted by journalists, recruiters, fans using the Behance Network’s search capabilities (The Network now gets over 7 million visitors every month). For example:
Work done for Nike by people/teams based in Australia http://bit.ly/hH50W6
“Most Appreciated” Typography Projects in Romania
“Most Viewed” Graphic Designers in San Francisco
Scott put it right when he said: “We’re entering a new era where a “static, outdated, isolated portfolio site of images” no longer cuts it.”
ProSite hasn’t publicly launched yet but people can sign up for beta now: prosite.com
Believe me, you will be blown away by the customization capabilities that ProSite will offer to its users. Not to mention how easy it will be to push the new work to all the different channels.
I am seriously excited for the entire Behance team. These guys are going to rock the portfolio site world. Here are a few examples of first ProSite portfolios:
Marius Roosendaal (Amersfoort, Netherlands)
And this one takes the cake:
Felix NG (Singapore)
Looks promising, and I’m excited to see it when it fully launches because Behance’s current portfolio tools are way too bloated for me, and that’s coming from someone who loves options! Because I have own my custom-designed portfolio, maybe I sold myself short and got annoyed too easily (no sense in finishing a Behance portfolio when I already have my own custom one), but I found it incredibly difficult to simply add a piece of work.
Again, I’m not Behance’s target, even with ProSite, as I use my custom WordPress portfolio to not only show off my work, but also my development skills. No matter how beautifully-designed these new portfolio services become, I enjoy the challenges that come with figuring out the development needed to achieve what I want, and I can tout those skills when I’m looking for additional freelance work.
Apr 1st, 2011 / 3:57 pm
Interesting. I must say I was very skeptical of ProSite when I initially looked into it, but this doesn’t look too bad.
Is that last link the same Felix Ng of SILNT? http://silnt.com/ Must be, both sites use the same #181818 background. Strange that he doesn’t mention the studio on his personal site…
Apr 1st, 2011 / 4:02 pm
It doesn’t seem like its anything you can’t currently do with 4ormat. http://4ormat.com
4ormat already has a no-code creation and editing interface.
Apr 1st, 2011 / 5:09 pm
Thanks for the review. I’ve been chomp’n at the bit to dig into ProSite. Scott and his team are truly doing incredible things.
Apr 1st, 2011 / 11:06 pm
I think the point is that personal portfolio sites don’t help much unless people you DON’T already know are discovering your work. The fact that ProSite allows your projects to also display in so many other places is probably more valuable than the fact that its completely customizable (aka – no annoying templates).
When you spend tons of time adding a new piece to your site, would you rather it be viewed by your existing friends/clients or spread to generate new clients.
Apr 2nd, 2011 / 10:17 am
interesting to see how it comes along, i am signed up to be a beta tester, so we’ll see if that happens.
The main thing for me is going to be cost. I like behance, it is free. It’s not that hard to add projects etc, and I can keep it updated.
I actually have my domain name forwarding to my behance page right now because i have been slacking to develop my new wordpress portfolio. Well slacking and I am exploring the ipad as use of a portfolio and seeing what I can really do with it.
But like I said, it is going to come down to cost. There are probably a LOT of people out there like me where they can get hosting for basically free or super cheap. Throw in the fact wordpress is free and so are many great templates. Plus for me to pay to use a service like this, it is going to have to be pretty amazing since there are countless other free ways to do this. Even if you don’t know how to code etc. A 12 pack of beer and someone you know who does code can get you up and running with wordpress in no time.
Apr 3rd, 2011 / 12:19 pm
sounds A LOT like Cargo Collective but will help cross promote your work even more. Sounds very promising in theory. Pricing will be a big factor.
Apr 4th, 2011 / 11:40 am
Hi! This is kind of off topic but I need some guidance
from an established blog. Is it very difficult to set up your own blog?
I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty fast. I’m thinking about making my own but I’m not sure where to start. Do you have any points or suggestions? Appreciate it
Sep 22nd, 2013 / 10:15 pm