In the same way you wouldn’t use a hammer to crack a nut it’s just as important that you choose the right tool for building and updating your website.
The Content Management System (or CMS) was supposed to be the all singing and all dancing solution that made this easy. Unfortunately it made most of us think of every excuse under the sun to not update our websites. If you’ve ever seen a “news” feed containing articles that really belong in last year’s archive then there’s a good chance that a nasty CMS or back-end is to blame.
The good news is that times-are-a-changing. Good design and user-experience is everything and fortunately for everyone who doesn’t like building websites (so everyone) the following products live up to the challenge.
Welcome to the next generation of CMS.
A next generation CMS or website builder is a tool that is designed around the way you work, not the technical requirements of a website. They understand your content, where it lives and how to display it in the best way. They understand that you don’t want to build a website, you want to share your content in your own beautiful space on the internet.
Whether you’re a photographer, filmmaker, designer or writer, these tools understand that publishing and sharing your content is all part of your creative process.
So let’s step away from complicated web forms and awful interfaces and look at the products that will make updating your site something you actually want to do.
The Grid
Founded by some industry heavy-hitters, The Grid is pushing the boundaries of website builders as we know it.
Pitched as “the website that designs itself”, The Grid uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyse your content and build a custom website that is unique to you. With adaptive templates and intelligent image handling The Grid truly believe in doing the hard work for you. They will also be offering a solution for e-commerce too putting them firmly in competition with existing services like SquareSpace and Shopify.
The bad news is that The Grid is not quite ready. Beta access is being rolled out to founding members in waves so you may have to wait a while before you can get your hands on it.
Format
Format is a website builder targeted at creative professionals. Format’s features may not be as futuristic as The Grid but they do understand the need for simplicity and providing a great user experience. The tools are easy to use and they have a number of professionally designed themes for you to choose from.
Particularly well suited for photographers, Format have integrated with Adobe Lightroom making it possible to publish photos direct to your online portfolio.
Format is a great example of how a website builder can fit seamlessly into the workflow of its users and demonstrates the importance of good design and usability,.
Fabrik
Last but by no means least is Fabrik, an online portfolio for creatives that is already used by some of the biggest names in the industry.
Fabrik aims to take away the time and effort required to create an online portfolio. Their tools are incredibly easy-to-use and with first-class integration of creative services like Vimeo you really can get your website up and running in a few minutes.
A unique theme system enables you to customise the layout of each project so you can present your work in the best possible way. Their latest theme Airdura, boasts nearly 30 different layout combinations!
Fabrik was built by creatives, for creatives. Their beautiful themes and tools are mobile friendly so you can update and present your portfolio anywhere on any device.
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Ben Foster is a product developer who has worked in the tech industry for over 10 years. He launched Fabrik earlier this year with co-founders Tim and Phil.
