Building a personal collection of quality portfolios & resources.
Overview
The Arc is a self-started CMS project that houses my favorite resources and work from other designers that I use for personal reference and to share with the design community as a hub of curated content that focuses on quality > quantity.
Problem
Notion, Cosmos.so, and Bookmarks
aren't cut out for mass-sharing inspiration.
Collecting and navigating digital resources remains tedious and inefficient. When trying to locate saved links, you need visual cues - something most platforms fail to provide.
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My old Notion storage method
Even the simple task of sharing multiple resources becomes tedious, forcing you to send links individually rather than as a curated collection.
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Sharing links through Discord
Solution
Introducing the Arc - a way to organize and display my collection but also allow me to easily share them with others.
Exploring the space
I started by looking at popular public resource sharing sites, taking note of their layouts and navigation.
Cofolios
It takes 3 clicks and opens 2 new tabs to view 1 portfolio (very clunky and annoying)
Only way to filter is by past company
3-4 column layout is easy on the eyes
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Cofolios.com
Design Resources
No thumbnails, I need to see where I'm going.
Huge library but not all resources are that useful.
1-click links make it easy to open multiple resources at a time.
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designresourc.es
Lapa.ninja
Pagination makes content harder to browse.
Tags feel pointless if my decision comes down to "does this look nice" from the thumbnail.
Opens content in a new tab so you don't lose your spot and have to backtrack.
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Lapa.ninja
Curating content
Even if the Arc is mostly for myself, I still need to be clear how I curate what I showcase.
Clear stories and visuals.
I'm not picking "artsy fartsy break the mold" websites. I choose work that effectively tell good stories with a clean layout, good spacing and strong visuals.
I have actually used it.
The moment I start to add things I don't use is when I upload solely to fill space and make updates just for the sake of growing the collection.
Quality > Quantity.
I only list a resource if it exceeds value for it's price or performs a task at a higher level than other resources in it's market.
Final design
Video
Arc homepage
Reflection
Editing a CMS is a ton of effort. It's best to plan in detail in the beginning, instead of iterating later on.
Solutions should be built to scale, not just to solve.
I built my navigation to be small, using high-level titles like "tool" or "Library" to describe their purpose. But if I wanted to add contents like PDF's, they don't fit into any of my categories. Luckily I have room to add more tags, but it was unintentional. This project helped me plan for growth, not using all the space available and making items dynamic.
If I could start over, I'd simplify how content gets uploaded.
No more screenshots.
When adding a new resource I have to take a screenshot guesstimating the proper size, then compress the image, upload it and fill out the CMS details then publish.
To solve this I should have used a key binding to a screenshot plugin with exact dimensions that let's me then paste into a custom script to compress it and then automatically save it to a folder to upload at a later date. This let's me collect items as I come across them instead of preparing a batch of them to screenshot one at a time.
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© 2024 Clayton Harding
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