Smug School

Flash Frozen Photography – Smugization

Posted on 07. Sep, 2009 by David Wolf.

Recently I had the pleasure of redoing a site on SmugMug that had previously been done by some “other” customizer. In this post, I intend to go over a bit about the methodology we employ when we create a unique and custom SmugMug website. But, first.. This is the site before we touched it.

There was a lot wrong with the site. The color scheme was jarring, the nav bar was almost unusable, and overall, the site was confusing to most visitors. In fact, you can actually see in this detail photo, just how completely useless the nav bar was. The word “Home” is actually there… Hard to see.

However, even more challenging was that we had to keep the logo essentially unchanged because Kathy Rappaport, the owner of the site, had invested a lot of money into letterhead, business cards, flyers, pamphlets, etc.. all of which had the logo printed on it. Kathy wasn’t willing to reprint everything she had!

Anyways.. After working on the site for a while, we came up with a design that worked with her logo, while allowing us to have a much more modern look. This is what we came up with:

Of course, a SmugMug site is more than a homepage. So, in this case, we added a ton more functionality to the site too. From a gorgeous contact form, auto-reply functionality, services, a blog, etc. All the individual components tie together nicely, and have the same visual look.

I invite you to explore Flash Frozen Photography yourself. Are YOU interested in getting YOUR SmugMug site customized? Contact us today!

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Categories, Sub-Categories, Galleries and Photos

Posted on 07. Sep, 2009 by David Wolf.

One of the most commonly asked questions I receive pertains to the three-tiered hierarchy of SmugMug. Namely, Categories, Sub-Categories and Galleries. It’s almost universally mis-understood, and mis-used. So, I’m going to try to explain the relationship of all three levels of the hierarchy.

Let’s start with Galleries. A gallery contains photos or video. That’s it. Nothing else other than photos or video can live in a Gallery. You can not nest a gallery inside another gallery.

Galleries may be placed inside a category and/or a sub-category. What does that mean? Well, if you imagine that I have a gallery called “Paris” (which contains photos from a recent trip to Paris, France), that gallery might live inside the “Travel” category.

So, my hierarchy will look something like this:

• Travel (Category)
  • Paris (Gallery)

So, when a visitor arrives at my SmugMug site, they will see the category called “Travel”. By clicking on Travel, they will be shown a list of all the galleries (but, not the photos) inside the Travel category. Our gallery, “Paris” is one of those galleries. Clicking on Paris, will open the gallery, and the photos can be viewed.

But, if I want to further sub-divide my Paris trip, I would also use sub-categories.

A sub-category subdivides the category. So, in this case, I could have “Paris” as my sub-category and have Galleries named “Art work”, “Architecture”, and “Food”. So, my hierarchy will now look like:

• Travel (Category – No photos here)
  • Paris (Sub-Category – No photos here)
    • Art Work (Gallery – photos here)
    • Architecture (Gallery – photos here)
    • Food (Gallery – photos here)

I can also have galleries directly under the Category; so it would look like this:

• Travel (Category – No photos here)
  • Flags of the World (Gallery – photos here)
  • Paris (Sub-Category – No photos here)
    • Art Work (Gallery – photos here)
    • Architecture (Gallery – photos here)
    • Food (Gallery – photos here)

Ok, confused yet? Here are the rules.

Categories can have Galleries, Sub-Categories, but NO photos

Sub-Categories can have Galleries, but NO Categories or photos

Galleries can have photos but NO other galleries, Sub-Categories or Categories inside them

Think of it like this. Imagine a book shelf in your home. It has 3 shelfs. Those are “Categories”. Next, on each shelf you can have either photo albums (galleries) or boxes (sub-categories). Inside the boxes can be photo albums (galleries). The photos only go in a photo album. So, on the first shelf, you have two photo albums and a box which has three photo albums inside it. The second shelf, you have two boxes (each with two photo albums), and the third shelf has 3 photo albums. All these configurations are perfectly valid. But, I can NOT have a box inside a box, or a box inside a photo album, or a shelf inside a box or photo album.

So, as a hierarchy, this would look like:

• Shelf #1
  • Photo album #1.1
  • Photo album #1.2
  • Box #1.1
    • Photo album #1.1.1
    • Photo album #1.1.2
    • Photo album #1.1.3
• Shelf #2
  • Box #2.1
    • Photo album #2.1.1
    • Photo album #2.1.2
  • Box #2.2
    • Photo album #2.2.1
    • Photo album #2.2.2
• Shelf #3
  • Photo album #3.1
  • Photo album #3.2
  • Photo album #3.3

And that, above, is as complicated as you can *ever* get. Three levels. Shelf, box, album.

Was this helpful? Did it suck? Let me know below

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Showing off SmugMug

Posted on 03. Sep, 2009 by David Wolf.

How cool is this? One of the newer features of SmugMug…

Super easy to do too. But, looks so nice!

We’re going to cover how to do this, and some ideas of how to use it, in our upcoming Advanced SmugMug webinar. It’s only $20!

BTW.. The reason I charge for some Webinars is because the software I use to host each Webinar is actually fairly pricey; so, in order to cover my costs, I ask for a few dollars to take certain courses.

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What is Smug School?

Posted on 30. Aug, 2009 by David Wolf.

SmugSchool was created with a few ideals in mind.

First, SmugSchool is about building community on a daily basis. A way to bring together enthusiast users who want to learn more about SmugMug, new users who feel intimidated, and expert users who have worked with SmugMug for years.

Secondly, SmugSchool is a way for me to reach a lot of people at once, to show them just how great SmugMug is!

So, the obvious question is, why do I care? Well, for the past 2 years, I’ve made my living by customizing other photographer’s SmugMug sites. I have a keen interest in helping to grow SmugMug from that viewpoint alone. Also, while speaking to hundreds of clients, and potential clients, a few things became obvious to me. SmugMug’s basic functionality was easy to understand, but many things eluded understanding by a LOT of people.

For example, I get asked to explain Categories, Sub-Categories and Galleries to people on an almost daily basis. Something about the hierarchy, and the rules regarding the hierarchy just doesn’t make sense to people. So, rather than teach the same things over and over again individually, I decided to teach it to hundreds at a time. It’s much more efficient that way.

Of course, it does lose some of the personal touch of one-on-one instruction, but, I think you’ll see that these interactive Webinars will surprise you with just how intimate and educational they can be.

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