livebooks blog

Norway-based freelance photographer Trond Teigen specializes in news, sports, and adventure – with a passion for the outdoors and the extreme. His website clearly showcases this passion and the imagery is absolutely stunning.

We think you’ll love our featured website this week – and don’t forget to head on over to www.trondteigen.com to see even more amazing photos!

Q: How would you describe the aesthetic of your website in three words?

TT: Simplistic, Stylish, Clean.

Q: How do you choose the photos that you display on your homepage?

TT: The hardest thing about having a portfolio is choosing what to put in it! But I tend to go for photos that have a lot of contrast and a lot of things happening in them. But still, it’s always hard to pick which ones go up and which ones don’t.

Q: How often do you update your website?

TT: Not often enough! But every other month or so.

Q: What is your favorite feature that liveBooks offers?

TT: I love the fact that nothing is local, it’s all cloud-based. And I can access and edit my liveBooks site from anywhere in the world. The editSuite is nice and simple and easy to understand and the pre-designs are great!

Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to someone designing their website?

TT: If I were to give any advice to future liveBooks users, it would be to consider the fact that most people who will be viewing your site, that are potential clients, will be viewing it on nice, big monitors, so I would opt for a Scaler site. I would aim for the simplistic and easy-on-the-eye designs (less is more). You have to capture people’s attention, and the more stuff you have on your page, and the more cluttered it is, the less likely people are to spend a lot of time on it.

Have a website you’d like us to feature? Email us at social@livebooks.com!

Photographer Stephen Guenther has been all around the world taking stunning photos and videos. We absolutely love how his images command the screen on his website and his video integration – which is why we wanted to feature his site this week.

Enjoy his commentary on his site’s creation and then head on over to www.stephenguenther.com to see more amazing work!

Q: How would you describe the aesthetic of your website in three words?

SG: Contemporary, Clean, Inviting.

Q: How do you choose the photos that you display on your homepage?

SG: It can be challenging. Of course every photographer has a “new” image that they are in love with, but keeping the client’s eye in mind is important. Finding the balance between a personal aesthetic and one that is marketable is also important. Using creative friends to double check your selections can be enlightening.

Q: How often do you update your website?

SG: The landing page and color palette is adjusted quarterly so that regular visitors will easily notice the change, which will invite them to explore and look for other new images.

Q: What is your favorite feature that liveBooks offers?

SG: Actually a couple features. Low learning curve was key, and recently the ability to link a Vimeo collection of videos is amazing, as many photographers move into motion work.

Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to someone designing their website?

SG: Look at a lot of other photographer’s websites. Have a strategy before you begin, remember do not just “populate” your website with images. And be willing to showcase your personal vision and to take some calculated risks in the process to help differentiate your work from others.

Have a website you’d like us to feature? Email us at social@livebooks.com.

Kyle Froman started off as a dancer for America’s premier ballet company and has transitioned into one of the country’s best-known dance photographers. His entire website design exudes grace and elegance, clearly depicting the style in which he photographs. We couldn’t wait to feature his website this week!

Don’t forget to head on over to www.kylefromanphotography.com to see more!

Q: How would you describe the aesthetic of your website in three words?

KF: Clean, Elegant, Dramatic

Q: How do you choose the photos that you display on your homepage?

KF: Since the homepage of my website is a grid display, I chose an overhead photo of New York City Ballet dancers laying on the marble floor of their Lincoln Center Theater. The floor has a grid pattern too, and I thought it worked well together. There was also a good amount of negative space in the image to show off the portfolio key images in the grid.

Q: How often do you update your website?

KF: I update my website usually once a month. Sometimes when I haven’t looked at it for awhile I’ll go through the entire site and see what could be improved, what could look better, but also what stands out as good!

Q: What is your favorite feature that liveBooks offers?

KF: My favorite feature in my liveBooks website is the editSuite. I like how easy it is to change content whenever I want. It’s simple to keep everything up to date.

Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to someone designing their website?

KF: My advice to someone designing their website is to keep their design simple. Whittle down your shots to the best, and leave the viewer wanting more.

Have a website you’d like us to feature? Email us at social@livebooks.com.

Boston-based photographer Winslow Townson has over 25 years of experience photographing news, sports, features, and stories. His journalism background shines through in each of his images and this week we wanted to feature the fantastic job he’s done designing his website.

Check out what he had to say about what went into his site’s design and then head on over to www.winslowtownson.com to view the full thing!

Q: How would you describe the aesthetic of your website in three words?

WT: Clean, Vibrant, Easy

Q: How do you choose the photos that you display on your homepage?

WT: Since most of my work is sports related, I do a slideshow of sports pictures based mainly on the sports of the current season and the sports on the seasons that are coming up soon.

Q: How often do you update your website?

WT: I do my best to update my website’s “Recent Work” page after every assignment so that I keep it fresh and clients can see what I’ve done lately. I do a very tight edit of the images with usually just one or two selections from each job.

Q: What is your favorite feature that liveBooks offers?

WT: Definitely the editSuite. It is so easy to change images quickly, rearrange categories and change the homepage slideshow. That is one of the things that attracted me to liveBooks – it’s so user-friendly!

Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to someone designing their website?

WT: Make it user-friendly. That can mean many things from simple navigation, readily available contact information, and quick loading images to tightly editing your images so that there are not too many in any one category. It’s frustrating when you can’t easily figure out how to navigate through pictures and through the site. I heard one editor of a national magazine say that if a site takes too long to load or he can’t figure out how to look at specific images quickly he will just close out the site. When he would stay with a website he would spend a few minutes maximum to get a feel for the photographer. So the user needs to get to where they want to be quickly and easily and not have an overwhelming amount of content. Having contact information readily available is obviously an aspect of being user-friendly. I put all my contact information at the bottom of every page.

Have a website you’d like us to feature? Email us at social@livebooks.com.