Dunked: A Free Portfolio Management System
I was one of the lucky people to be selected for private beta testing, so I was able to get a good look at Dunked before it was released to the public late last week.
As a web designer or developer, finding the time to develop your personal site can be tricky. So when a new site comes along that can save you tens, or even hundreds of hours, I was looking forward to giving it a try! Introducing Dunked, a free portfolio management system.
Dunked has already caused quite a stir in the website design and development world. I was one of the lucky people to be selected for private beta testing, so I was able to get a good look at Dunked before it was released to the public late last week.
What is Dunked?
Dunked is a free to use online portfolio management system. In a nutshell, the site allows you to add projects, each having a selection of images and videos to showcase your work. You can assign tags to each of your projects, which can then be used to filter all projects throughout the site.
The design of your site is completely customisable. While the project is still only young, there is only one template available to use and customise; 'Vanilla'. But I'm sure that as the site goes on, the choice of templates from 3rd party designers and developers will be the icing on the cake for Dunked.
UI and ease of use
Front and back, the site is a delight to use. With a very minimalistic design approach to the administration pages, making changes to your site can be done without hassle. Everything you need is there, and it's right where it needs to be. The GUI is so nice, I find myself on the site just to admire it!
Features
In terms of features, Dunked is almost everything you need from a portfolio management system, but I am afraid that's where the functionality ends. I'm sure this is down to the site only recently being released, and I hope that in the future, your sites can be customised even further without the need to add /change code.
On the plus side, so far Dunked does come with a nice selection of features straight out the box. Image sliders are integrated in for projects with more than one piece of content, and the template 'Vanilla' is also fully responsive for all devices and screen sizes.
A few of the 'coming soon' features we can see from the Admin section include Google Analytics integration, password protection for the entire site, and also the ability to have the site running on your own domain. Which got me thinking, could Dunked be used in a similar fashion to Wordpress; having the site as a download which can then be installed onto your own server? I would much rather use Dunked like this, as I feel I have more control over the site and how I would like it to work.
So, what about the future?
So far, I must say I am very impressed with Dunked, I can see it being a very valuable resource for many designers and developers in the future. Of course, as with all projects, nothing is perfect straight away, and I'm sure the guys behind it will be working tirelessly to bring Dunked up to its' full potential.
