Indie Maker Portfolio Builder reboot
I’m excited to announce that Project Pages 2.0 is now available at ProjectPages.io, and on WordPress.org!
7 years ago I made the first version of Project Pages. While my main gig is software entrepreneurship I have always ‘made things on the side’. Since I was a kid I’ve been hacking stuff together, from DIY projectors to furniture to buildings.
But whatever online ‘portfolio maker’ tools I tried I never found a good fit. Portfolio WordPress plugins, or sites were always:
- Too focused on ‘career’ or ‘consulting’ wins.
- Arty, but without the scope to tell maker stories.
- Clunky aesthetically.
- Closed sourced.
- Unsystematic – e.g. just using WordPress pages.
So back then I built my own, as I’ve tended to do throughout my years, (e.g. Zero Bullshit CRM was to scratch my own itch).
In todays light that old version is pretty basic & ugly, but it was still better than the other’s.
Then ZBS CRM took off and I got lost in the entrepreneurship & exit whirlwinds. I still made stuff, but I didn’t upload a single project into my ‘portfolio’.
When I got back from my year off building a cabin I decided it was time to fix that. I spent a few months rewriting Project Pages and bringing it up to modern WordPress standard, (blocks & patterns). I went through the 16k photos in my iCloud and weeded out the maker projects for upload.
There are now 51 projects in my Project Pages Portfolio.
I’m really happy with Project Pages 2.0, because it means I can show my eclectic maker habits and business projects on my website, but more than that, through the process it’s allowed me great reflection on how I choose what to make and why.
More on that in a future post.
… it’s also helped me a handful of times already, in that when somebody asks me ‘how did you do that thing’ I can literally send them a link.
The way I’ve built Project Pages 2.0 nudges you towards writing your project descriptions as a ‘make story’, which ends up being more entertaining, and informative for others who want to make similar stuff.
So today I launch the reboot of my project-logging plugin for WordPress. I’m still working out how to get it in the hands of other cool makers of all kinds, but you can grab a copy of the free plugin at ProjectPages.io, and optionally upgrade it for any amount to show your support.
Here’s the 2.0 tour:
Here’s my top 3 favourite improvements in 2.0:
- Blocks – I’ve converted all the aspects of Project Pages (e.g. the Hero section, the project cards etc.) into blocks. This means you can rearrange the page layouts yourself in the WordPress template editor. Better yet I made some cool blocks in the PRO version like ‘Related Projects’.
- Timeline View – I use this to create an ‘Entrepreneurship’ Timeline of all the businesses I’ve made.
- Improved aesthetics – 2.0 fits much better within my blog theme, matching the style of the rest of my site cleanly. I love the way the new Hero header sections came out, and I’m glad to have moved the design forwards. If there’s demand, I look forward to taking this even further with more formal design help.
Who is Project Pages for?
This started out as a plugin purely to solve my desire to share the stories around the eclectic things I’ve made. Along the way it’s become clear that other makers also like the idea. For now I’m pushing Project Pages 2.0 out into the ether and tentatively watching who uses it, and asking for feedback.
In my grandest vision for this, I think it could become the Maker OS. I’ve learned a lot in my years of making software and IRL stuff, and I think that indie makers (of all types) are often overlooked by big software as ‘unprofessional’. This is not the case.
As the world gets more complex and work changes again (let’s face it, it probably needed to), we’re more likely to have side-hustles and multiple gigs. Even separate to that, for some of us it just lights us up to make stuff.
Project Pages is going to help people who make things:
- Tell the story of their work
- Reflect on their work and processes
- Reach larger interested audiences (1,000 true fans!)
- Get better at their craft
I want to make this a slick system for:
- Indie Makers
- Artists
- Creators
- Designers
- Illustrators
- Film Makers
- Craftspeople
- Entrepreneurs
- Photographers
- Software Engineers
… or maybe in the end it’ll only be for Indie Makers, or just me. Let’s see who uses it 🙂
If you’re a creator and you’re interested, please do try the plugin at ProjectPages.io, or the WordPress.org page. Feedback is helpful on the forum or by email. For now the Pro version is ‘pay what you want’, because I am keen to get feedback from other makers.
Here’s to many more years of making projects!
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