News Every month 4ormat grows and improves as you use it.
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Designing with you in mind
Explore all themes in further detail within our newly integrated design interface. Simply click on a theme to view a breakdown of all its features and FAQ. Before making changes to your own site, preview any theme with our pre-loaded sample portfolios. The differences are in the details, so take a closer look.
With our updated content pages, customizing the details of your portfolio has become even simpler. Now instead of creating a new page to try out a different template, change up the look of your content page instantly with just the click of a button - or change it back, just as easily.
As part of the fine tuning of our design process, a brand new font library will soon be available for all 4ormat themes. Featuring a wider variety of fonts for a better overall selection, personalize your portfolio the way you want - down to the last period. In addition to new fonts, new design updates will also become available for all existing themes.
We are pleased to announce that our online publication, Explore Create Repeat, will be ending its brief hiatus with an upcoming relaunch. The goal of ECR is to provide the artistic community with both professional insight as well as creative inspiration. Follow the newly reimagined ECR on Twitter and Facebook for all of the the latest updates on its original content.
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Contact Has Been Made Even Easier
In response to your overwhelming requests, we are excited to introduce live contact forms. Available under the “content pages” interface, adding a contact form allows your visitors to contact you directly without having to ever navigate away from your site. Your photos already say a thousand words, now use them to start a conversation.
Explore new depths of your portfolio with our most recent theme, Frontier. Featuring a subtle drop down menu at the top of each page, Frontier lets you travel anywhere within a gallery while keeping the displayed images as the main focus. From a thumbnail-gallery that scales to browser size, click on a photo to journey further into a full-screen slideshow complete with individual photo captions.
For everything they didn’t teach you about the art business.
After recognizing the lack of education photographers, designers, and artists face with respect to business enhancing resources, Damn You Art School (DYAS) was born. Created as a free initiative to give back to the creative community, DYAS showcases tools to improve productivity, time-management, technical skills and provide you with more time to do what you love to do. damnyouartschool.com
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Give Yourself a Pat on the Back
4ormat users are quick to give us feedback on what they like and what they'd like to see in the future. Now when you log in to 4ormat, your gallery and listing pages can be edited and managed easily in a full-screen interface. All thanks to your requests.
Get to know 4ormat on a whole new level with our new Features page launching this month. Take in all the possible features available with a 4ormat online portfolio, at a single glance.
Why not take a look right now?
Our newest theme, Amazon, allows your gallery experience to be absolutely fluid. Featuring a minimalistic design, Amazon automatically re-adjusts your gallery layout according to the browser-window size. Clicking on a thumbnail will full-screen the photo, allowing you to browse smoothly through a gallery slideshow with side-swipe transitions.
Join 4ormat on April 3, 2013 for our first free webinar. Learn how to set-up a professional portfolio in just ten minutes, then have your questions answered in a live Q&A session with 4ormat co-founder Lukas Dryja. Sign up and register here.
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A Better Look at "The Big Picture"
A picture is worth a thousand words. Now, make your work speak with our new Linked Logo Pages. Listening to the feedback you provided, we have made it possible to create a full screen linked-entry title page featuring your logo, using one of our three available templates. Creating a captivating entry page has never been so easy.
We are pleased to introduce our latest theme: Monocle. Utilizing a minimalistic, grid-based thumbnail design, visitors are able to browse your entire gallery at a glance or hover over and view a zoom-in preview of a single image. Immerse yourself in a photo even before viewing the larger version. Monocle lets you admire from afar or get up close and personal, all within a simple, elegant design.
Managing more than one 4ormat portfolio at once is easier than ever. You told us that multiple e-mails for separate projects was a waste of time - we listened. With the introduction of our multi-site feature, you can easily set-up and switch between all of your sites from the same log-in.
That’s why we’re excited about our upcoming launch of the contact page. This easy-to-create and easy-to-use contact form allows visitors and potential clients alike to get in touch with you directly, without having to navigate away from your site. It's the little touches that make the biggest differences.
WE'RE HIRING | Remote Customer Support Person in Europe
The 4ormat community keeps expanding and we want to provide extended support hours to everyone. We’re looking to add another member to our Customer Support team. You would need to be available from 9 to 5 GMT/CET and able to work from home. If you have a passion for helping others and want to join the 4ormat team, you can find out more here.
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Content Pages Have Arrived
Thanks to the feedback from the 4ormat community, the beta test was a resounding success and Content Pages are now available for all 4ormat sites. Hundreds of Content Pages have already been created, adding visual flair to new and existing portfolios.
Enhance your own 4ormat site and take advantage of over 40 different Content Page templates. Create your first Content Page by accessing “Add New Page” inside your 'Pages' interface.
Industry is the latest theme from 4ormat, featuring vertical scrolling and sliding transitions for Gallery Pages. This unique cascade transition serves to highlight your imagery by providing a captivating visual environment. Intuitive navigation controls and a variety of customizable settings allow you to create the perfect portfolio.
ECR INTERVIEW | Yan Bleney
With work exhibiting a keen affinity for French Classicism, it’s no surprise to discover that Yan Bleney is based out of Montreal and Paris. In this interview he reveals a personality not unlike other notable French artists - elusive but not aloof - all the while exposing his inner romantic. Read the interview.
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Our Resolution: A Revolution for Your Work
Gorgeous splash pages, an improved interface for organizing your work, and integrated contact forms... we’re starting off 2013 with a bang!
We are excited to launch the public beta of our latest major update: Content Pages. Offering presentation options for your portfolio not found anywhere else, this new feature will provide major enhancements to your 4ormat site.
Also in the works: an advanced interface for organizing your gallery and listing pages — making the arrangement of your images easier than ever — along with exciting new improvements that will reinvent the way you do business.
How can 4ormat get any better, you ask? Stay tuned to find out.
Content Pages Beta - Arriving in January
The start of a new year heralds big changes for your portfolio. We have launched the beta test for our latest feature, Content Pages, which offers professionally designed templates for your resume, biography, and splash pages. Support for full-screen imagery is built-in, providing you with even more ways to make a lasting first impression.
Arriving in early January, beta testers will receive an email confirming access to this new feature. Built on the latest HTML5 technology, Content Pages present a great opportunity for long-time users of 4ormat to update their site with a new theme. Users of our "Original" themes will want to update to a newer theme to take advantage of Content Pages.
We look forward to your feedback throughout the beta. Please keep in mind that this is a sneak preview, so we greatly appreciate hearing about issues you may encounter.
Click here for Early Access: http://4ormat.com/content-pages-beta
Exploring 4ormat themes has never been easier with our new “Themes” section on 4ormat.
Each theme is easily compared through gallery display, accompanied by detailed descriptions and user portfolio samples, allowing you to select which theme is best suitable for your creative vision.Explore 4ormat Themes http://4ormat.com/themes
Allow your visitors to reflect on your work with our latest mosaic-like theme: Glass.
Featuring a horizontally scrolling, thumbnail layout, 'Glass' includes left and right navigational arrows prompting fluid animation of your images. Great for those with a large body of work, the menu can be minimized to let your work shine through. Multiple skins lay the groundwork for further customization.
ECR INTERVIEW | Flavien Prioreau
Flavien Prioreau is a Parisian photographer whose client roster includes Samsung, French fashion magazine "Le Bonbon", and noodle-house Wagamama. His style is classic, drawing influence from such esteemed names as Edward Hopper and Helmut Newton. Read the interview.
ECR ARTICLE | The Dangers of Writing Off Millennials
Aiming to end what he dubs the "internship mentality", ECR contributor Sean Minogue outlines the risks associated with companies abandoning full-time positions for creatives. He argues that the way to combat economic downturn in the creative industries is to develop long-term, sustainable careers to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship amongst the Millennial Generation. Read the article.
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Your Wishlist Delivered. Just in time for the holidays.
4ormat users have long sought options for splash pages, full-screen background images, resume integration, and more. We are happy to deliver: Content Pages are coming to 4ormat.
Launching in 2013 with over forty gorgeous templates that complement each of our modern themes, with a few clicks you will be able to extend your portfolio in ways that you (and we) only ever dreamed of.
You want a full-screen landing page for your site? You got it. A resume page that shows off your accomplishments and fancy awards? Not a problem. All without requiring any HTML knowledge. It really doesn't get any easier than this.
Unify your work seamlessly with Tape. Our latest theme features a horizontal layout with click-to-navigate functionality for your gallery pages. Big, beautiful captions give your audience the full story.
ECR INTERVIEW | Anthony Peters
When asked how a client might describe him, Anthony answered, “Inconsistent. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes frustrating. Enthusiastic and Passionate.” Anthony Peters is the graphic designer and illustrator behind Imeus Design, based in the UK. His past clients include GQ, the 2012 Olympics, Warner Bros., and more. Read the interview.
ECR INTERVIEW | Wenzel Templeton
Wenzel Templeton embodies the spirit of the multimedia artist. A photographer, illustrator, and musician, his work spans the spectrum. ECR contributing writer Erika Jarvis picks his brain on everything from the uniqueness of his name to the impending zombie apocalypse. Read the interview.
ECR INTERVIEW | Kara Baird
Kara Baird is an Australian photographer and filmmaker with a long list of awards under her belt, having won competitions all around the globe. In this interview, she speaks about her propensity towards staged shots, the technique of light-painting, and the challenges of simultaneously being a producer and a creative. Read the interview.
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Brilliant Ideas Are Coming to Life
4ormat puts tremendous value in your feedback. We continually strive to add new functionality based on our users' requests. For the past number of months we have been hard at work on a comprehensive 4ormat update that we can't wait to show you.
With this latest update you will be able to create rich, dynamic pages that add character to your site and provide even more options to realize your personal vision. With a faster, streamlined workflow and fine-tuned control of your content, we are sure you will be just as excited about this update as we are. This update will bring with it an improved management workflow for your Gallery pages, a powerful new page control interface, as well as contact pages that work out of the box.Coming Soon. - Support our team by liking this announcement.
As we expand our roster of themes each month we aim not only to give you new ways to present your content to the world, but also to make each theme a unique experience for you and your visitors.
Deck is a clean, full-browser theme allowing for an interactive, card-like, gallery display. Seamless animations reveal the side menu and gallery captions. It is a bold, innovative theme that presents your work in a novel and engaging context.
ECR INTERVIEW | Jessica Bogart
Jessica Bogart is a Strategic Designer whose client roster spans a wide range of products and brands. Her latest labor of love, a children's iPad app that re-imagines the Hansel and Gretel fairy-tale, exemplifies her alternative and whimsical approach to brand and product development. Read the interview.
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Drag, Drop, and Done: New Image Controls Come to 4ormat
After receiving thousands of requests for the ability to copy images between pages, we are happy to introduce new image controls to 4ormat. With this month's update, we've completely overhauled the way you add images to your 4ormat galleries, allowing you to upload and organize your image content quickly and easily. With drag-and-drop functionality and the ability to quickly copy images between your pages, you will now be able to spend even more time on your actual creative work instead of managing your portfolio.
Along with this significant improvement to your 4ormat workflow, we have also released our latest monthly theme, Concrete. Concrete is a cleanly styled, landscape-oriented theme with clickable previous/next buttons for gallery navigation.
You can now drag and drop images from your computer into the new Uploader. While uploading, progress bars measure the total progress of your uploads. You can cancel the upload process at any time without affecting files already uploaded.
Using the Image Importer, you can quickly select images from one or multiple pages and add them to your import queue. Once you have approved the images to import, you can quickly insert them into your new or existing pages.
Concrete is a cleanly styled, slideshow-navigation theme in a landscape format. Clickable previous/next links navigate between images, as well as left/right keyboard shortcuts. The menu can be laid out in a flat style with menu links centered or a wide style with menu links stacked. Dynamic, customizable header and footer elements give your site a bold and unique appearance.
ECR INTERVIEW | Nick Aitken
Nick Aitken has spent the past 16 years working as a stylist. Recently taking up photography, he is already turning out amazing work. In this ECR Interview we ask Nick about how he came to start taking photos, the benefits of living in San Francisco, and what makes a good model. Read the interview.
ECR INTERVIEW | Adam Garelick
Adam Garelick is an architectural, portrait, and street photographer based in New York City. In this interview, ECR contributor Erika Jarvis asks him about his choice to shoot film, his experiences at Occupy Wall Street, and his favorite photo of all time. Read the interview.
ECR INTERVIEW | Mike Raven
ECR Contributor Erika Jarvis interviews 4ormat user Mike Raven. Mike talks about the UK fashion industry, discusses his love for studio shoots, and reveals which celebrity, alive or dead, he'd love the chance to snap. Read the interview.
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4ormat Gets a Lift and Auto-Updates Come to Select Themes
Lift is the latest theme from 4ormat, offering a radically different viewing experience for your visitors. We're also happy to announce that select themes will now update automatically, ensuring that your site always has the latest available features.
Lift is a unique, full-browser theme allowing you to present your work in an interactive, tiled interface. It offers an engaging and interactive way for visitors to pan through images, videos, and text assets on your artboard.
Creative Mornings is a growing, international phenomenon that bills itself as "a global, monthly breakfast lecture series for creative types". Its lectures and presentations have proven to be a great source of learning and inspiration for many, including us here at 4ormat.
Discovering that Creative Mornings had launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to create an online video archive of its talks, a quick poll around the office had us unanimously agreeing to support this undertaking at the highest possible donation tier. We are incredibly excited with the prospect of this fantastic resource coming to life (and hope you are too).
View the Kickstarter campaign here.
At 4ormat we are dedicated not only to releasing new themes on a monthly basis, but also to ensuring that old themes receive updates to improve both functionality and performance. Select themes will now automatically update themselves to the latest version, ensuring any performance boosts will be applied without you needing to lift a finger. Users with customized CSS or HTML will still need to apply updates manually.
ECR ARTICLE | Rethinking Your Career Arc
"Rethinking Your Career Arc" is an exploration of the work/life balancing act, reminding us all to give our priorities a once-over. ECR contributor Sean Minogue uses The Atlantic writer Anne-Marie Slaughter's article "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" as a springboard to investigate the subject in detail. Read the article.
ECR ARTICLE | The New Black: Why Having Your Work Ripped Is Great For Business
ECR Contributor Erika Jarvis investigates the phenomenon of extensive copying within the fashion industry, where garments and designs are not protected by copyright laws. Surprisingly, this atmosphere of open-faced imitation has helped to foster the careers of various designers rather than hinder them. Read the article.
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New Themes, Updates, and a Faster 4ormat
A new theme as well as updates to two of our most popular themes await 4ormat users this August. Order is the latest in our ever-expanding range of themes for your portfolio, complete with its own unique set of features. Horizon and Horizon Left both receive an update to support full-browser functionality. We have also improved our back-end infrastructure to better serve your images - just one in a long list of forthcoming improvements to 4ormat.
A versatile, grid-based theme, perfect for creatives and photographers.
Bring structure to your galleries and let your images shine with this easily mouldable, grid-based theme. Fine tune your site with a large selection of options including anchoring your navigation menu on the left or the right and the ability to choose between three different thumbnail sizes.
We are proud to introduce an update to our Horizon and Horizon Left themes that allows you to scale your images to the height of your browser window. Now your audience can use up all that glorious screen real estate and view your images on the big screen. Preview the updated full screen image option of Horizon and Horizon Left, here and here.
Your portfolio is now even faster! All of your site's images are now automatically loaded on our content delivery network (CDN), which has improved load times by up to a factor of ten. With network edge locations located all around the world, your visitors will see your site in a snap whether they are in New York, New Zealand, or New Delhi.
ECR Interview: Chris Judge
Irish illustrator Chris Judge took time out of his busy schedule to be interviewed by ECR. He shared his thoughts on the emergence of children's content on platforms like the iPad, his experience as an illustration educator, and the importance of finding one's work / life balance amidst a hectic schedule. Read the interview.
ECR Article: The Pros and Cons of Drinking the Kool-Aid
As a creative in an office environment, it is often easier to bite one's tongue rather than voice a critical opinion and rock the boat. ECR contributing writer Sean Minogue reminds us that always following the leader can lead one down a grisly path. Read the article.
ECR Article: Sole Trader: The Social Pitfalls of Working Alone
ECR contributor Erika Jarvis delves into the social morass of freelance work, providing insightful tips to avoid the atrophy that can come from working in isolation. Read the article.
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Exciting Changes + New Dynamic Themes
July is upon us and with it comes exciting announcements. Many of you have asked for yearly discounted pricing, and we're happy to roll those plans out today. Also new this month are two beautiful themes we've designed with a minimalist aesthetic that will allow your visitors to focus on the work you've created rather than the interface of your site.
The 4ormat team is hard at work on even more exciting new features that we can't wait to show you. Stay tuned!
4ormat has a new look! We're really happy it and hope you'll especially enjoy the new Tour and improved Spotlight sections. Plus, we've just introduced Annual Subscription Plans. Sign up for a yearly plan to take advantage of discounted pricing. See the new look.
Glide seamlessly through your gallery with the new Grace theme. This minimalist theme features clean, vertical thumbnail navigation to float effortlessly from one photo to the next. Customize further with a multitude of options including menu layout and the ability to fix your logo to the screen while scrolling. Like this theme here.
View: Grace
Display your images unobstructed in Swift, a horizontal theme featuring: intuitive controls; simple, clean frames; and a four-column listing page. Menus sit flush with the top of your page (hidden from view) and slide down for a flawless viewing experience. Like this theme here.
View: Swift
ECR Article: Free to Fail: The Pitfalls of Working Pro-Bono
This ECR article explores the idea that, in an ever-more competitive job market, doing work for free has become more palatable for many. While there are cases where pro-bono work can serve you, it is important to remember that putting a price on your work helps maintain a professional relationship, not to mention your quality of life. Read the article.
ECR Interview: Colin Lenton
ECR had the opportunity to interview Philadelphia photographer Colin Lenton, whose portrait and photojournalism work has yielded a steady stream of clientele and critical praise. Colin gave us great answers to questions ranging from the nature of finding one's life/work balance to the techniques involved in creating fantastic portraits. Read the interview.
ECR Interview: Nicole S. Young
Nicole S. Young is a photographer, photography writer and blogger, as well as an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop. Her blog is a source of inspiration for many, including us. ECR caught up with her to discuss the current state of Photoshop, the value of Google+ for photographers, and more. Read the interview.
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And on your left... easier design customization
We have been hard at work to bring you new and exciting features each and every month. This month we are happy to announce new features that will further improve your 4ormat experience as we strive to provide you with the best possible online portfolio platform.
If you are using a larger monitor, you will notice that the website customization tools will automatically appear as a sidebar rather than a floating toolbar. This provides you with more screen real estate to preview your site while making changes. For those using smaller monitors, you can simply click the "+" button on the floating toolbar to snap it to the left side of the screen. With a quick scroll, you can now see all of the options available for customizing your site's design. Like this feature here.
The Forest theme presents imagery in a landscape view with mouse click progression and listing pages that feature large thumbnails and elegant animated captions. Customize the speed, transition type, and image heights in your gallery for a custom look and feel. The menu includes drop-down functionality for categories and allows for full customization of its color scheme. Captions can be expanded when clicked and are displayed in a large overlay suitable for lots of text. Forest comes with both dark and light themes out-of-the-box. Like this theme here.
View: Forest
Highrise is a sophisticated vertical theme that commands attention with its large feature image frame. Move gracefully through your gallery with your thumbnails arranged cleanly below. Visitors to your site can either use the click-to-advance arrows or select the thumbnail for the image they wish to see. While advancing through the gallery, the current image is highlighted in the thumbnail display. Like this theme here.
View: Highrise
Originally from Amsterdam and now located in New Zealand, Dutch designers Klaasz and Floor offered ECR their input on a host of topics ranging from design challenges to motion graphics.
Read: ECR Interview with This is Them
ECR had the opportunity to catch up with Toronto-based fashion designer Nordem Hirst in his Kensington Market studio for a sit-down interview. Focusing on the nature of entrepreneurship as it relates to the fashion industry, Hirst reinforced that business savvy goes hand-in-hand with runway flair for any contemporary designer.
Read: ECR Interview with Nordem Hirst -
New Themes: Power and Feather
The beginning of each month marks the introduction of new themes on 4ormat. For May, we're happy to introduce two new themes: Power and Feather. As always, we're also hard at work on upcoming features to make your 4ormat workflow faster and easier than ever.
Power provides a host of features to give you fine control over your 4ormat site. This new theme offers support for fullscreen images and includes the option to choose either fading or sliding transitions between your Gallery assets.
Your menu is fully customizable with this theme and will automatically generate a scroll-bar for smaller screens when applicable. Listing pages also come with new customization options, allowing you to further tailor the look of your site.
View: Power
Light as a Feather, this minimal theme presents your work via clean, vertically scrolling Gallery pages and tiled Listing pages. With both light and dark skins available, Feather gives your imagery room to breathe.
View: Feather
ECR interviewed documentary photographer Edward Linsmier, whose responses offer not only insight into his creative process, but also on the nature of photojournalism and its importance in the media landscape.
Read: ECR Interview with Edward Linsmier
Contributing writer Mike Drach's article Social Promotion for Your Photography Business clears a path through the social media jungle. This guide debunks common misconceptions and explains the best practices for each of the major networks.
Read: Social Promotion for Your Photography Business4ormat, meet Werkpress
Do you have a specific design tweak in mind, but don't know CSS or HTML? For all of your advanced customization needs, we're happy to announce that design firm Werkpress is now offering their services to 4ormat users. Get in touch with them today. -
Let your work Shine with the new Sun Theme
April is here and spring has sprung. 4ormat has sprouted a few new features including two new themes, the ability to open links in new browser tabs, and support for the new iPad.
Introducing Sun, the newest theme from 4ormat. Sun provides full-screen gallery pages that scale based on browser size, ensuring an immersive experience for your clients. With your images front and center, Sun features a scrolling thumbnail preview of your images that collapses when not in use. Social buttons let visitors to your site connect with your existing networks. Clean overlays for image captions can be disabled by default, allowing you to add details that do not distract from your work. With both light and dark skins, Sun comes ready to illuminate your portfolio.
Learn more at http://www.sunportfoliotheme.com
Horizon Left offers a new take on one of our most popular themes, featuring a left-aligned menu and collapsible categories. Integrated social icons and sharing functions let visitors to your site spread the love. Menu transparency allows you to control the prominence of your site’s navigation. Horizon Left fulfills many popular feature requests from 4ormat users like you.
View: Horizon Left
All themes have a new update: the ability to open links in a new window or browser tab. This feature is available for menu links, Listing Page images, and Simple Page images. Keep visitors on your site while they explore external links in a separate tab. You will need to update your theme to the latest version to see these controls.
Your 4ormat portfolio looks better than ever on the new iPad, ready to feature your work 3.1 million pixels at a time. Make sure you upload the highest quality images you have available, as we render the largest possible to ensure crisp detail.
4ormat, meet Werkpress
Do you have a specific design tweak in mind, but don't know CSS or HTML? For all of your advanced customization needs, we're happy to announce that design firm Werkpress is now offering their services to 4ormat users. Get in touch with them today.
This month, Matthew Terry — a contributing writer to ECR — shared his Wedding Tips for Photographers, lending insights from both industry professionals and personal experience.
We also had the opportunity to interview Toronto photographer Sara Collaton, who shared her experiences with concert photography, capturing urban environments, and offered her opinion on the retro-filter phenomenon.
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Simple Sharing has arrived
Each month brings great news from 4ormat. Today, we are happy to announce a collection of exciting features, additional themes, and compelling ECR articles.
Introducing: Share Buttons
We are happy to announce the addition of a “Share” button. This button allows visitors to share pages from your 4ormat site on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and StumbleUpon. Depending on your theme, you can choose different background and text color styling options for your Share button.
In order to use this feature you will need to upgrade to the latest version of your theme, which can be done with a single click from the 4ormat dashboard. The share button is not available on the legacy themes: original left, original right, and original top.
Happy sharing!
Pierrot offers a novel, dynamic thumbnail layout that hides your site’s menu while the page is being viewed. This design places your thumbnails front-and-center and presents their images full-screen when clicked. This makes it even easier for your site’s visitors to see your work without distraction. Listing Pages in Pierrot have a new vertical scrolling design that compliments the thumbnail-oriented nature of this theme.
View: Pierrot Theme
Ideal for users with many pages who want a vertically-scrolling site, Ora offers a collapsible menu that is left- or right-aligned. This simplifies the overall look of the menu and makes it easier for visitors to navigate your site. This theme also includes some novel, fine-grained control, including the ability to set drop-shadows or the option to use different thumbnail settings for Listing Pages.
View: Ora Theme
New Advanced Feature: Unique Page Classes
For users seeking to enhance their 4ormat site through custom CSS, we added a unique page class to the body tag for every theme. This allows for complete, per-page CSS customization, including the ability to define background images and create pages with hidden menus (useful for an intro or splash page).
Hooray!
Caitlin Cronenberg talks with ECR about her latest project The Endings, a book of short stories told through still photographs documenting the ends of romantic relationships. She discusses what brought her to photography and the importance of context in the presentation of one's work.
Read: ECR Interview with Caitlin Cronenberg
We are working on exciting and dynamic new themes which we can't wait to show you.
Thank you for using 4ormat! -
Facebook Like Gate
We are happy to announce 4ormat Promote Tools. Whether it is growing your audience, helping you track your influence, or growing your overall business, we hope that you use these 4ormat Promote tools to their full advantage.
Tab & Like Gate
Increase your Facebook Page Like count and showcase your work by integrating an attractive and easy-to-install, branded splash page. This Welcome Facebook Like Gate will be shown only to your new Facebook visitors. Facebook visitors that already like your page will be shown your default Facebook tab. View Like Gate Feature
ECR Articles:
It has been said that there will never be another Da Vinci; we've pushed the limits of human knowledge to such an extent that most new discoveries are made in highly specific areas of highly specific fields. True as this may be, we have also learned to limit ourselves by thinking it is better to be a master of one profession than a tinkerer in many.
Read: Multidisciplinary You
Terry Ratzlaff is a photographer whose ethos dictates he be a part of the moment to best capture it. In his words: "a good image is a good image no matter the camera. Don't get caught up in the technological hype, instead get caught up in the moment."
ECR Interviews: Terry Ratzlaff
Matt Terry investigates the nature of constructive criticism in this piece for ECR. Within, he provides insight on both giving and taking criticism as well as detailing the importance of critique in the creative process.
Read: Deconstructing Constructive Criticism
Themes & Social Integration: We are working on some new and interesting themes that we'll be releasing very soon. We are also planning to add sharing tools to your 4ormat website.
Thank you for using 4ormat!
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Happy Holidays
We've released our latest theme - Scandinavia.
With a clean, minimal design, our latest theme holds true to its namesake. Scandinavia is a vertically-scrolling theme which introduces the ability to define border widths around elements of your 4ormat website.
Login to 4ormat to view Scandinavia
In our latest ECR Interview, we spoke with Pierre Dal Corso. This widely renowned Parisian fashion photographer shares his thoughts on post-production; including his disdain for over-processed images, the increasingly commercial nature of photography, and portraying models as powerful figures.
Read: ECR Interview with Pierre Dal Corso
We had a chance to catch up with with 4ormat user Cristina Viscu. Born in the U.S.S.R. and having moved to the U.S. in 2006 at the age of 15, Cristina is a fashion photographer with a distinctive style which showcases her love for overexposed lighting. She gives ECR her insights on the nature of working in the fashion industry, the challenges of imparting a portrait with emotion, and quotes Richard Bach for inspiration.
Read: ECR Interview with Cristina Viscu
We also published an article on the Correct Use of Social Media for Freelancers, by Matthew Terry. This article provides a fresh perspective on the different approaches creative freelancers need to take when thinking about social media, though many of the tips are useful for any discipline.
Read: Correct Use of Social Media for Freelancers
We are proud to have introduced a range of new features to 4ormat in 2011, including our new Themes system. We look forward to bringing you even more exciting updates in 2012.
From everyone here at 4ormat, we hope you have a great holiday season, and wish you all the best in the new year!
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Private Pages And More
As part of our commitment to improving 4ormat based on community feedback, we have implemented one of our most popularly requested features: Private Pages. Any page on 4ormat can now be password-protected. Using this in combination with a Page's visibility setting, you can now create completely hidden, password-protected pages for your clients.
To apply privacy settings, just click on the Page Permissions button for the Page you wish to be password protected and set a password in the provided field. Private Pages are compatible with mobile devices and the iPad, meaning that your clients can view your galleries on the go.
We've released our latest theme - Horizon.
This theme displays your work in a horizontal layout centered vertically across all monitor sizes. This new theme provides options for spacing between images as well as social icon support. We have also included the option to select between three different image sizes, with smooth loading incorporated for the best possible experience for your visitors. If you are using the "Original Top" theme with a horizontal layout, we recommend you convert your site to this new theme.
In an effort to assist our users with any issues they might have with their 4ormat site, we have launched our Knowledge Base, which contains articles on specific topics aimed to answer your questions and guide you through the process of creating and managing your site. We will continue to add articles to this collection as our aim is to make 4ormat as easy to use as possible.
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Some articles we've included:
- Getting Started with 4ormat
- Adding Google Analytics to 4ormat
- Search Engines and your 4ormat Site
- The Design Interface
Many of these articles also have corresponding video tutorials, offering you a comprehensive resource for getting the most out of 4ormat.
Explore Create Repeat, 4ormat's online magazine, has started publishing a new series of interviews with photographers. These interviews provide insight into the creative process as well as details like equipment and studio techniques.
ECR Interviews: Greta Rybus
ECR Interviews: Benjamin Kwan -
Announcing Dynamic Themes
We are incredibly excited to announce that Dynamic Themes is now available to every 4ormat user. This update comes packed with new and exciting features!
We are happy to announce the introduction of Dynamic Themes to 4ormat. The Dynamic Themes update features a completely remodelled Design Interface which allows you to preview and customize all themes in real time. Each theme comes with its own set of customizations and pre-packaged skins. For our Pro Users, we've also provided full access to your 4ormat site's HTML and CSS; now you can fine-tune every last pixel.
All users will now be able to use Dynamic Themes. To access the new features all you have to do is login to your 4ormat dashboard.
Dynamic Themes introduces a new page type: Simple Pages. We have designed Simple Pages to let you quickly build text-based, informational pages like resumes or "About Me" sections. Simple pages include a one or two-column layout which can be resized and its elements re-ordered. All of the standard image, video and text elements are supported. Best of all, Simple Pages look great in every theme.
We have completely redesigned the mobile experience of your website. The new mobile design has the look and feel of an App and presents your photos in a full screen format allowing the viewer to fully immerse themselves in your work. It also works great on all modern devices such as the iPhone, iPad, and both Blackberry & Android phones and tablets. Make sure to check out the Design Panel to configure the look of your new mobile website.
We have also added an Advanced Design section to our Support Forum for all your CSS and HTML questions. Here you will be able to post questions for other users to answer as well as find help on customizing your website. Advanced Design Forum
We want to thank all of your users who signed up for the Themes Beta and took the time to send us their feedback. There was lots of thoughtful feedback and we are very thankful to have such amazing users. We have decided to award a FREE YEAR of our Pro Plan to Raphael Gunther who sent us tons of great feedback. Congratulations Raphael!
The release of Dynamic Themes represents a total overhaul of the underlying framework of 4ormat. For us, that means the power to introduce even more new features requested by our users like private pages, a comprehensive knowledge base, and many more to come. We also plan to release new Dynamic Themes on an ongoing basis giving you an ever-widening range of options for your portfolio.
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New Themes System Coming Soon
It has been an exciting few months. We are very happy to share the latest 4ormat news with you.
Dynamic Themes - Arriving 2011
For the past few months we have been working on a new design system. We believe this new system will revolutionize 4ormat and the way you design your portfolio website.
The new themes system will allow you to customize and preview the design of your entire website using a brand new easy to use design interface. 4ormat themes will also allow the advanced user to modify the HTML and CSS of a website, providing complete freedom to modify every detail of its design.
The themes system will be ready in about a month. To receive early access to the themes system please join our themes beta program.
Explore Create Repeat - Online Magazine
As many of you know, we are very passionate about creating the best possible portfolio platform. We are also exploring other ways we can help and give back to the creative community.
We are happy to announce the launch of "Explore Create Repeat", an online magazine published by 4ormat providing insight and inspiration to the creative community. ECR will be updated on a weekly basis and we hope you'll visit often.
Explore Create Repeat: http://4ormat.com/ecr
PayPal Support is here
Now you can pay for your 4ormat website subscription with PayPal. We added this option after a few of our users from the UK experienced problems with using their credit cards on 4ormat.
New Website Spotlight
We've updated the 4ormat Spotlight page. Curating hundreds of websites proved a lot more difficult than we originally anticipated. We are very excited to showcase some amazing work from 4ormat users. Our list for the next Spotlight update is already growing into the hundreds. Visit our Spotlight page: http://4ormat.com/spotlight
Featuring: Pierre Dal Corso
We are very proud to host Pierre's work on our 4ormat platform. We have featured the website of Pierre Dal Corso on our 4ormat homepage and we think its a great representation of what 4ormat can do.
Pierre Dal Corso photography: http://www.pierredalcorso.com/
New Features by Popular Demand
Several highly requested features have been added to make 4ormat even easier to use.
We've added two new options to the Settings panel. First, you now have the option to add image protection to your website which prevents visitors from right-clicking to save your images. Second, for users who regularly update pages with large sets of assets, you can now choose if you want to add the elements to the end of your page or to the beginning.
We also just added support for adding pages outside of categories. For those using the top menu layout you will now find it easier add menu links alongside your dropdown navigation.
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A Great Start To A Great Year
We are happy to start the year off with some fantastic new features. Keep an eye on 4ormat in 2011, we plan on sharing some exciting news this year.
Custom Paths
Now when you create a page your web address (URL) will be kept as clean as possible. If you create a page titled "About" the page path will be "http://example.com/about". These new custom paths are not only clean looking but they will improve your SEO or Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
We suggest all users login to their 4ormat website and modify their old numbered paths to a new clean name. You can do this inside each page under the "Page Options" control.
Asset Manager
We added an asset manager to the 4ormat Advanced CSS section. This new feature will allow you to upload extra images and PDF files which you can link to from your pages or website CSS.
For those users looking to use background images on their websites, now you can host the extra files directly on your 4ormat site. You can also upload your PDF resume and link to it from your pages.
Better Support
We enjoy providing help to our users, and for this reason we decided to build a better and faster support system. Now we can answer questions with clarity as well as archive solved questions that may help future 4ormat users. If you need support, please post a message on our New Support System
New Team Members and About section
We are excited to welcome Dave Carney and Mike Ferrier to the 4ormat team. Not only are they close friends but we think they're some of the best developers in town. If you think 4ormat is great now, wait until you see what we can do with the help of Mike and Dave.
Take a peek behind the scenes of 4ormat in our new About section.Coming soon - Full PayPal support
Over the past couple of months our European users have experienced issues with the credit card payment method. For this reason we have built a monthly PayPal subscription feature that we will be launching very soon.
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More Features For Everyone
You can now upload a custom favicon in the Settings section.
Favicons are square in nature, if you would like your Favicon to have a unique shape please upload a transparent PNG. Our uploader will create a transparent favicon based on your PNG transparencies.
Taller Horizontal Images
By popular demand we are happy to announce the support for 550px images on horizontal layouts.
Nicholas Creevy - using new taller horizontal images
You can switch to using taller images with a few clicks by going into your Page and clicking Page Layout and selecting 550px from the pulldown in your Horizontal Layout.
New Advanced CSS Editor
We have updated our Advanced CSS editor. For those of you that use this advanced feature, you will appreciate the automated color coding as well as smart indentation provided with this editor.
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New 4ormat Website, iPad Support, Top Menu grids and Menu styles
Accounts:
We've decided to eliminate the Free 4ormat account for new users. Instead, we now offer a 30-day free trial Basic account. This allows everyone to test 4ormat for 30 days at its full potential. If you are currently on a Free plan your account stays untouched.
iPad support is here! Similar to mobile, your website is automatically formatted for the iPad interface. Visit your 4ormat website on the iPad and view your work using swipe gestures.
Top Menu Grids
After many weeks of hard work we have released the top menu grid options. Now you can place all your navigation options along the top of your website.
Menu Styles
We added new customization options to the "Menu Design" interface. This allows you to customize the look and behaviour of your website navigation.
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Introducing "Promo Codes"
We decided to create a new rewards system. Now everyone can earn Unlimited Free Months.
Each 4ormat user has a unique promo code. We keep track of every user that signs up to 4ormat with your Promo Code. For every user that continues to use 4ormat past their 30 day trial you will receive 1 Free month.
We made sharing your promo code easy :
Click here to for your Promo Code & Share Links
Payment History
We improved the Payment Information. Now you can see your entire Payment History. We also simplified all our payment language, you should now clearly see how many free months you have.
Menu Links
All menu links now open in a new window/tab. Meaning if you linked to your Blog from within your menu your blog will now open in a new window.
Forums Improved
We improved the design of the forums as well as brought back the search feature. This will allow you to find posts much faster.
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Listing Pages & Menu Links
We are happy to announce two new features which have been requested by a majority of our users. After weeks of development, Listing Pages and Menu Links have arrived.
When you add a new page to your 4ormat site you will notice a pulldown allowing you to create a "Page" an "Listing Page" or a "Link".
Listing Pages contain image thumbnails that are linked to other 4ormat pages or external links. Only one layout is available for this type of page with more layout options coming soon. The current listing page layout uses thumbnails sized 200px x 135px. You can upload any size image and 4ormat will resize and crop the image to size automatically.
The Links feature allows the placement of links within your menu. Now you can link to your email, blog or twitter account directly form your website navigation.
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Website Keywords (Meta Tags)
One of our users noticed that their 4ormat site was turning up in search engine results without a useful description. We agreed, and within 12 hours of posting on the Forums , we rolled out some modified HTML to improve search results and added a new feature to your Settings Panel. Now you can can define a description and keywords for your site. This will greatly improve search results of your website in search engines such as Google.
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Mobile Layouts Improved
We fixed minor issues we were experiencing with Android Mobile phone layouts. Now your website should work on most modern mobile phones. We're also working to create more advanced templates for mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad.
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New Video - 4ormat Website in 3 Minutes
We created a video showcasing the power of 4ormat. It's a quick look at how fast and easy it is to setup a site on 4ormat.com. We hope you can share it with your friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlUl6P96wmI
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Multi-Image Uploader
Now you can upload multiple images at once to your pages with a just a few clicks of the mouse. While running tests we were able to upload 60 high resolution image per minute to our own 4ormat sites. This means any 4ormat user can now upload images to their website at blazing fast speeds.
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Spotlight Section
We launched our Spotlight section featuring websites that have been created within the first week of 4ormat being live.
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Quick Website Setup
We created a simple site setup wizard which allows new users to quickly create their website with just a few clicks. This new feature helps all new users start their 4ormat website even faster.
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4ormat is Live!
The date that changed everything. After a full year of development we finally go live with our 4ormat Beta release.