livebooks blog

Eric Smith, an award-winning director, designer, and photographer, has not only gorgeous images but an incredibly clean and focused website that we are honored to feature this week.

Q: What type of work do you specialize in?

ES: I am a professional photographer working for EcoMedia, a division of CBS, but I have a passion for fine art photography and wanted a place to showcase that aspect of my work. Image making is my life and liveBooks helped me to bring a beautiful website to life without enormous expense or weeks of work.

Q: Did you use a pre-designed template or was it custom-built?

ES: I used a pre-designed template with some customization.

Q: How long did it take you to create your site?

ES: 1-2 weeks to generate all the content. The actual launch of the site took about a week.

Q: What’s your favorite aspect of your site thus far?

ES: I love that the site is clean and not overly designed. The images are the stars. I have also gotten feedback that the site is really easy to navigate. The rotating images on the homepage keep the site fresh. I’m also a fan of how easily the CMS allows me to add content. Uploading a new photo set is a breeze, so the name liveBooks is very appropriate. www.esmithimages.com is truly a living catalog of my craft.

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

We have one word for photographer Blair Bunting’s website: stunning. Not only because of the stellar visuals and imagery, but we love the fluid, easy-to-navigate design that simply pulls the user in.

Read on to get the inside scoop in his site’s creation, and don’t forget to go to www.blairbunting.com to see more!

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

BB: Simple, Symmetric, Solid.

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

BB: The images on the landing page were chosen over a period of months. We would go through tons of images and specific crops of those images to see if the angles and colors were catching. When it was all said and done, we were lucky that the selection that was made also had a broad representation of my portfolio.

Q: How often do you update your website?

BB: I update some aspects of my site, like the blog, quite regularly. During the busier times of the year, I will add one to two posts a week. As for the main site, I update it when new work is allowed to be shown (usually after an embargo).

Q: What is your favorite feature that liveBooks offers?

BB: By far my favorite aspect of liveBooks is their customer support. I spent many hours on the phone and corresponding through emails with them to make the site perfect. Not only did they make changes quickly, but they helped to give ideas to creative and stylistic ways to implement the changes.

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

BB: Make sure it represents you. All too often sites for photographers seem to be showing off the website designer’s strengths at the cost of showing the photographer’s portfolio in a way that is not distracting. When we designed my site, we asked ourselves, “what does it need to show?” Anything that wasn’t a necessity was left out, and what resulted was truly a clean representation of my work.

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

Designing the perfect website to show off your work and style can be overwhelming, daunting, and extremely time consuming. Here at liveBooks we strive to make it as easy (and fun!) as possible to create your website. While there are many things you can do within your editSuite, in this blog post we have narrowed down the top five things to do to get your website ready to go-live in one hour.

Portfolios and Libraries

As photographers and creative professionals, one of the most important aspects of your website will be showing off your beautiful work. The first thing you will want to do within your editSuite is name your portfolios and libraries so you know where to put your content once it is uploaded. One thing to note: libraries are for organizing and storing your images within your editSuite and do not appear on the user-facing side of your website. There is no limit to the number of libraries you can have on your site, and you can always add more than the default amount given. Portfolios, once you have added at least one image to them, will show on your website.

Check out these Support articles to learn more:

What Is The Difference Between Libraries and Portfolios?

How Do I Use The Name Portfolios and Libraries Module?

Upload Content

Once you have your portfolios and libraries named, you will want to upload your photos. Your first step will be to prepare your images according to the Image Prep Instructions. Once you have uploaded the images to your site, they will appear in the acquire area of your “Upload Image” page and you will see thumbnails as the images appear. Note that these images will remain in the acquire area until they are moved into a library for permanent storage (which is why naming your libraries ahead of time is a good idea.) Once images are moved to a library, you will then have the ability to place them into a portfolio for viewing on the front end of your site.

Some additional helpful articles:

How Do I Use The Upload Images Module?

How Do I Use The Upload Images Module For Scaler?

Name Your Pages

After your photos are uploaded, you will want to make sure that the rest of the pages on your website are correctly named and filled with some content. Typical names include: Home, About, Contact, Video, Blog, etc. Once you have renamed your pages accordingly, add some basic content and links so that they are not blank when you go-live.

Additional Resources:

How Do I Rename One Of My Pages?

How Do I Use The Pages Module?

Choose Homepage Photo(s)

One of the final steps to get your website go-live ready will be choosing your homepage photo (or photos, depending on the type of template you choose.) These will be displayed when a user first lands on your page and is really the first impression that people will have of your work and style.

How Do I Change The Images In My Homepage Slideshow?

How Do I Create And Control My Homepage Gallery?

Go-Live!

Once the above steps are done, you have previewed your website, added some brief content, and activated your account, you will want to submit a Go-Live request so that your beautiful website can be seen by the world!

Have any other to-do’s before going live with your website? Sound off in the comments or shoot us an email at social@livebooks.com!

Commercial photographer Rush Varela specializes in advertising, fashion, and entertainment portraiture. His website design is so crisp and his images so captivating that we just had to feature his website this week.

Check out more on his site below and see the full masterpiece here: www.rushvarela.com.

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

RV: Dramatic, Colorful, Bold

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

RV: For displaying on my website, I choose photos that are a good representation of my style and can captivate the attention of the viewer.

Q: How often do you update your website?

RV: On average, my website is updated every two months and before I send out a marketing campaign.

Q: What is your favorite feature that liveBooks offers?

RV: Scaler – I love the ability to have my images fill the screen.

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

RV: Before going live, experiment with the vast customization tools to find out what works best at showcasing your work to your viewers.

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