SVA Library Research Guides: Building an Online Portfolio & Learning to Code: Home

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Why learn to code?

Most working artists today have their portfolios online. From drag and drop tools that require no coding knowledge to building a website from scratch, a number of options exist for artists to showcase their work. Whichever method you use, having some basic coding skills will help you the understand the backend structure of your site and allow you to customize it.

Website Builders

These are just a few of the free and paid website builders available. Many more exist!

Wordpress
Not just for blogs, Wordpress is an easy, free way to create a customized personal website or portfolio. Includes some paid features like custom domains and additional themes.
Google Sites
If you're familiar with Google Docs, Sites will be a snap to pick up. Quickly gather a variety of information in one place—including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and text—and easily share it.
Wix
A free, online web development platform that lets you build your site with drag and drop tools. Users can add various functionalities like social media integration, ecommerce, and email marketing, and may pay for custom domains, Wix ad removal, and additional bandwidth.
Squarespace
A website builder, blogging platform, and hosting service. Add galleries, pages, ecommerce, and mobile capability to your site. Trial for free; plans begin at $8/mo.
Crevado
Customize your design to suit your preferences for a unique online portfolio, and preview changes instantly without writing any code. The platform is fully responsive and adapts gracefully to mobile devices. It features drag and drop capabilities and clever privacy controls to protect sensitive work. Free.
Dunked
A simple-to-use solution that requires no coding knowledge. You can create a site, upload your images, embed your video or audio, choose a beautiful retina-enabled responsive template, and customize it to suit your own style and taste. Dunked looks after the servers, security, software and updates. Trial for free; plans start at $6/mo.
Portfolio Box
Portfoliobox is a web tool you can use to create your own online portfolio website. Customizable designs, hosting included, free and paid accounts.

Coding Resources on the Web

W3Schools
Comprehensive tutorials and guides on HTML, CSS, Javascript, jQuery, AJAX, JSON, SQL, PHP, XML and more. Tutorials include try-it-yourself text editing boxes.
Codecademy
Codecademy is an online interactive platform that offers free and paid coding classes in programming languages like Python, PHP, jQuery, JavaScript, and Ruby, as well as markup languages including HTML and CSS.
Udacity
Free online courses from Stanford University.
Pluralsight
Online courses in a wide range of programming languages, design and web tools.
Dash
Learn HTML, CSS and Javascript through fun projects on a simple web interface.

In-Person Coding Classes

Thinking about taking your coding knowledge a step further? There are a variety of free and paid coding classes in NYC:

General Assembly
Coding courses at campuses around the globe.
Girl Develop It
GDI’s mission is to create welcoming, supportive opportunities for women and non-binary adults to learn software development skills. We believe in a world where all people are included and empowered in developing the future of technology. Through classes, projects, and events, GDI students develop code, confidence, and community.
Project_< code > at NYPL
The New York Public Library offers a ten-week coding class at a few locations. Project Code is free and perfect for beginners who want to take an introductory course.