Creating an Interactive Portfolio

Creating a photography portfolio that doesn’t blend in with the rest can be challenging to do. I decided to use iBook to create a seamless interactive experience to view a portfolio.

For this version I decided to focus on the portraits that I have done and go with a “faces” theme. The user is able to scroll through these pages and interact with the pictures to see a full size colored version and they are able to watch a video with several other portraits, but this could potentially be used to showcase my photography or videography

Creating a portfolio that it fun to interact with will increase the time that a viewer will stay. And (hopefully) the longer somebody stays on my portfolio the more interested they will be in me and my work.

Sketched out Overall Concepts

Before getting started in iBook Author, I roughly sketched out my ideas and the overall layout of how I wanted the portfolio to look.

Seamless Background

To create the seamless background, I needed an element that I could repeat on multiple pages to create the illusion of one background. Because I wanted to stick to the minimalistic style I decided to go with the simple black lines that you see here. I also liked like idea of the film strip and knew that I could also make that stitch the pages together.

Interactivity

For the interactive part of my portfolio, I added pus icons to the pictures, and right now they just reveal a colored version of the picture, but I am planning on adding multiple pictures from that same shoot the the user could scroll through after hitting the plus button.

I also added the video element for another fun way to view the pictures, but I am also planning on using this to showcase videography in the future.

Emma Lightfoot is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Interaction & Design. The following article relates to the iBook project in the (DGM 2340 Course) and representative of the skills learned.