Web developer in Los Angeles: portfolios that show the first frame fast
The work goes on screen whole in the portfolio sites I build for studios and photographers in Los Angeles. As a web developer in Los Angeles working on portfolios, I test that reels, stills and type hold up on any screen, small or large.
Overview
Two things that fight each other
Full-bleed video, stills at print resolution and a font family in six weights make a portfolio look expensive. They also make it heavy.
Picture a producer opening your reel on a phone between meetings. They wait. Nothing moves, and the tab closes.
So most of the effort goes into getting the work on screen sooner. Speed never shows in a mockup, so as a website designer in Los Angeles I test the first frame on a phone before any layout is signed off.
Send one real file first
Before we speak, send one reel or gallery exactly as you'd want it on the site. We'll open it together when we talk, and the build gets planned around what that file needs.
Four points the home page is built around
A producer meets them in this order, whether on a phone or a studio monitor.
- 01
Your strongest work leads
chosen by you, not by date. - 02
Each piece names your part in it
so a producer can see what you'd bring to their job. - 03
The grid holds on a small screen
no cropped edges, and text readable without zooming. - 04
A way to reply sits beside the work
an email address or a booking link, visible without scrolling back up.
What a scope from me looks like
What a creative studio website includes first
Included
- A written scope: every page and feature as its own line, agreed before work starts
- Design to build, reviewed on a staging URL that stays open the whole project
- Mobile first — checked on a real phone
- Domain, hosting and every account created in your name from day one
- Every image and video compressed and checked by eye at the size it's shown
- Basic on-page SEO: titles, descriptions, headings, sitemap, Search Console connected
- A guide at handover for swapping a piece in the portfolio yourself
Phase two
- A password-protected area for unreleased or client-restricted work
- A downloadable reel or press kit
- Ongoing SEO once the site has traffic to read
- A maintenance plan once the site is live
- Logo and brand design, quoted separately from the build
Not doing
- Guaranteed rankings
- Publishing work a client hasn't cleared for release
What moves the number
How big is a portfolio build?
A portfolio build is sized piece by piece. Six things change it, and you'll know where you stand on each one before the scope is agreed.
- 01Pieces in the portfolioand the share of video to stills
- 02Raw filesready to send now, or still being gathered
- 03A password-protected sectionin the first version, or added in phase two
- 04Existing search trafficworth protecting if the current site already ranks
- 05A service side of the businesssimpler pages, kept apart from the portfolio
- 06A downloadable reel or press kitnow or later
Where this comes from
Who makes it
600+ projects for US clients make up a large part of my team's record, which stands at 900+ projects completed since 2017. Reviews from clients happy to be named are on the projects page.
I take every question about your files myself, at my desk in Kolkata, India, and lead the work remotely. The team works on your schedule, in your time zone.
Nearby
Up the West Coast
Telling one firm's site apart from the next is San Francisco's topic. In Seattle, it's how a site behaves for customers who write software.
FAQ
Studio questions, answered
Most of these come down to your files.
Will compressing the work make it look worse?
- Compression done carefully leaves the work looking the same on screen. I look at each file by eye at its display size, and you sign it off on staging first. A file gets lighter only until a difference shows, and then it stops.
How many projects should a portfolio website show?
- A portfolio website should show the work closest to the jobs you want next. I'd start with a short selection, and you can add more through the editor whenever a new job is cleared to show.
Should a showreel play on the home page?
- A showreel belongs on the home page when it can start without a wait, so I test it on a phone connection first. If it can't start promptly, a still frame with a play button does the job.
What does a studio need to send to start?
- A studio needs to send the real files, and unsorted is fine. That means the raw stills, the reel and any footage you'd show. A written brief helps, but the files matter more, because they show me what the site has to carry.
Can unreleased work be shown to some clients only?
- Unreleased or client-restricted work can sit in a password-protected area, added in phase two once the main portfolio is live. You decide who gets the password. Nothing goes into that area until the client behind the work has cleared it for showing.
Next step
Your five strongest pieces
Pick the five pieces you'd most want to be hired for again. On the call, you and I decide which one opens the site, and that choice sets the order of everything after it.
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