Portfolio Platform Review – Part IX: Tumblr

This is a guest post by Tara Hornor, if you want to guest post on this blog, please contact us.

To finish with our series on portfolio platform reviews, we take a look at the surprisingly robust Tumblr site. Tumblr is more than just a photo archival site, as most people understand it to be. Over the years, it has slowly evolved into a powerful blogging platfrom that is fully customizable and ideal for designers and photographers who want a place to build a portfolio. You can display anything from designs for postcard printing to websites to just simply photographs on this portfolio platform.

You will be hard pressed to find an easier platform. Tumblr has a lot of features, too. Overall, it’s a powerful approach to putting your portfolio online and allows for a great deal of flexibility.

Ease of Use

The Tumblr Dashboard display – various post formats for quick publishing.

If you have zero web development experience, you can still easily manage a Tumblr blog. The site allows you to post various kinds of content with ease. Choose from a full-featured text post, picture only, audio only, video only, a quote, link, or even a chat post.

If you want to get into serious customization, Tumblr allows you to edit the HTML directly, right from the dashboard area. I found this to be an incredible feature that allows for serious creativity.

Image Protection

None. You’d better watermark your images or upload low-resolution versions.

However, one option is for you to create a blog that is password protected. This would allow you to post high-resolution graphics into your protected blog and only give the password to clients interested in seeing your full-resolution portfolio.

Professionalism/Quality of Presentation

I found the quality of the presentation on Tumblr to be right up there with a self-managed site. There are no ads other than the Tumblr logo at the top of the page. You have control over just about every other aspect and can manage the overall look-and-feel with either templates or by directly editing the HTML.

Community/Environmental Considerations

Registered Tumblr users can leave "notes" on any post you put on the site. These notes are hidden by default and can be viewed by manually clicking a link. This is an excellent feature that allows you to prevent negative commentary from being automatically viewed by visitors to your Tumblr page. This also gives the added benefit of a community who likes to discuss posts and graphics without the distraction such commentary can cause.

Based upon the theme that you use for your Tumblr blog, you can have comments show up automatically if this is something you want. The default version of a Tumblr blog does not allow comments for anyone. The themes allow for Disqus-based comments.

Customization Options

Tumblr is fully customizable using either themes or directly editing the HTML. This allows you to make your Tumblr blog look like anything you want, so you can match your website or have a completely different look. The themes are easy to use and editing the HTML for those with the experience is straightforward as well.

Contact Options

You can list contact information anywhere you want using either themes or by adding the HTML on your own. The default version of Tumblr gives you the ability to add a description of your blog which can have any contact information you want – clickable email addresses, websites, your phone, and even a physical address.

Summary

The Tumblr site has made leaps and bounds over previous versions and is now a full-featured blogging platform than can be an ideal, clean, easy-to-use portfolio website. When you add the mobile features, the site becomes a powerful tool allowing you to share information from day-to-day activities or to limit posts to only those you want viewed by potential clients.

Overall, Tumblr is a powerful portfolio site second only to a WordPress or other self-hosted site.

About the Author!

Tara Hornor has a degree in English and has found her niche writing about marketing, advertising, branding, graphic design, and desktop publishing. She writes for PrintPlace.com, a company that offers online printing services for business cards, catalog printing services, posters, brochures, postcard printing services, and more printed marketing media. In addition to her writing career, Tara also enjoys spending time with her husband and two children.