Wordpress Mockup Portfolio Help!

Web Design
#1

Hi I’m new to this forum and web design in general so I apologize if these are amatuer questions.

I have a wordpress site I designed for my employer that I am looking to mockup for my portfolio.

They are looking to make changes to my initial design (which I do not like) and was hoping for some help.

The site is not live yet. Can I download the Wordpress files and mockup the site for my portfolio if it has interactive elements? Looking to show a future client MY version of the website with animation etc in a way I could also put on my personal portfolio. I don’t want to just show them a static mockup.

Really appreciate any help. My email is kaylacolby2 at gmail
if anyone wants to reach out directly!

#2

Are you asking how to do it or whether it’s legal and ethical?

If you’re asking how to do it, given that you designed the site, I’m a little puzzled. Are you, perhaps, saying that you designed mockups of the site, but someone else coded and built it?

Copying website files and the associated databases are common procedures. Still, doing so involves technical expertise and direct access to the server through FTP or a site and database management tools like cPanel and phpMyAdmin. It also requires setting up a new site and database, then moving all the files and database information to the new location.

Given the nature of your question, I’m assuming you don’t have the kind of access to your employer’s web server that you’ll need, even if you possessed the technical know-how.

As for legal and ethical considerations, whether you designed it or not, the site belongs to your employer. You shouldn’t just copy, change and redeploy it somewhere else. First, that’s quite possibly grounds for losing your job, and second, it’s arguably illegal given that it’s their site, not yours.

If you’re grabbing a few pages for your portfolio, you still might need permission from your employer if the portfolio is publicly displayed. Assuming you get permission, demonstrating the site’s interactive elements would require a full-blown WordPress installation with your employer’s theme, which brings us back to whether you have the technical know-how to do it.

My suggestion is to use a few modified screen captures in your portfolio. Even if you can do everything I’ve just mentioned, I don’t think recreating a functioning website for a portfolio example is warranted or practical.

For what it’s worth, you’ve run into a common problem web designers complain about — watching as their initial designs slowly morph and degrade into a chaotic cacophony of bad design once the site is turned over to the client or employer to manage.

#3

Oh no my employer said I can save all the files and use for my portfolio. They have no issue with it.
So yes I designed it, wireframe, mockup of every page, sitemap, and did some technical aspects including animations and some coding but yes someone else did most of the backend with my direction.
Sorry I was unclear about this and understand your concerns- I have my employers permission to take the entire site and use it for my portfolio OR elements for another client. Given that, I have no intention of using the website for any other purpose than for my portfolio (In which I plan to be transparent about my involvement and limitations). I just don’t want to show a static page when I thoughtfully designed the flow of the page.

Yes, It is a bit frustrating to watch someone else change my work but clearly there’s not much we can do about that!

Really do appreciate the time you took to answer my questions and bringing up good points I will follow in the future.

#4

Is your portfolio built in WordPress (or will be built in WordPress)? If so, what you’re suggesting is doable, but it would require installing the theme used on your employer’s website and whatever add-on software might be relevant to the pages you want to duplicate and modify.

Are the things you dislike about what’s been done to your design hard-coded into the WordPress theme? If that’s the case, you’ll need to do some recoding, of course.

I’ve never done it myself, but there are plugins that enable WordPress to run multiple themes on the same site, out of the same database — in this case, both your portfolio theme and your employer’s — either that or use two separate installations of WordPress on the same site, with each running a different theme.

Moving the relevant database information from your employer’s site to yours is another matter. That’s doable too, but it might be easier just to rebuild the sample pages on your own site since you plan on changing them anyway.

#5

Going to migrate to Wordpress soon. Thinking a subdomain might work?
I’m going to checkout some plugins that would allow me to run multiple themes.
I think it will likely be easier to rebuild a few pages instead of moving the entire site.

Thanks again

#6

You wouldn’t need a subdomain. If you use two separate installations of WordPress on the same site, you could just place the second one in a subdirectory.

#7

Just my 2 cents, but this seems like a lot of work and a lot of potential for things to go wrong. I’m not sure why you can’t go with static screenshots, or if you want to include a handful of animations, I’m not sure how complicated the animations are, but could they be saved and or recreated as an animated gif.

Or could you also just create and edit a video of you navigating the site and highlighting the areas you wish to highlight?

It just seems odd to me to include a fully built out site as an example within a portfolio. I guess I’m trying to understand the justification.

1 Like
#8

I appreciate your input. I definitely got overly ambitious as an inexperienced designer.