Creating a new website is a lot easier than it used to be – rather than learning HTML and CSS, you can just click and drag with your mouse and have something very professional-looking on the internet in minutes.

The wealth of website builders means you’ve got a great selection of tools to choose from, but it can be difficult to pick out the best from a crowd of so many. To help you narrow down your choice, we’ve picked five website makers that are particularly well-suited to portfolio work and offer a good balance of price points and features.

All of these site builders offer simple ways of customizing your pages once they’re online, so you can regularly change the look of your work, and make sure your talents are always being well promoted on the web.

1. Weebly

Weebly was first set up with the intention of making it easy to set up a portfolio of work online, and those origins stand it in good stead today, even as it has broadened its horizons to become more of a general website builder. If you don’t mind a Weebly subdomain, some ads on your site, and a limit of 500MB storage, you can actually use it for free.

While the choice of themes is relatively small, they’re all fully customizable, and they all work on any size of screen, automatically reformatting to suit the display dimensions. Weebly has one of the most elegant and user-friendly website editor interfaces we’ve seen, so you can tweak your portfolio in exactly the way you want.

One of the many areas where Weebly excels is in the way it calmly handles a lot of technical stuff quietly in the background: it gives you enhanced SSL security by default, and (on the paid options) advanced analytics for your website, plus the option to transfer over a domain name.

If you want to get up and running quickly, would like to spend some – but not a lot – of time customizing your site, and need something that’s going to be reliable and comprehensive, Weebly fits the bill. The fact that you can get started for free to see if you like it is an added bonus.

2. Cargo

There’s a lot that appeals to us about the website builder Cargo: the unconventional and varied choice of templates, the intuitive page tweaking interface you can edit them with, and the way that you can build up an entire site without paying a penny (you won’t be charged until the site goes live).

It’s certainly got more of an edge than other comparable website builders, which might be good or bad depending on what you’re looking for. The templates available are all eye-catching and bold, and will work best for people wanting to stand out from the crowd, whether that’s with photography or writing.

Every template is responsive and works on a variety of screens, while Cargo also offers some cool animated image effects you can play around with too. On top of that, the site builder is to be commended for its wide choice of fonts as well.

Besides all of the features on the surface – including an online template editor that hits a nice balance between simplicity and customization – you get 6GB of cloud storage, unlimited pages, unlimited bandwidth, the option to transfer over a domain name if you need to, and a ton of help and support (including tutorial videos).

3. IM Creator

Built on the latest HTML5 technology and with useful extras like e-commerce and domain name support included, IM Creator is going to be too advanced and in-depth for some, but will suit other portfolio builders perfectly. That’s not to say it’s difficult to use – there’s just more going on.

You don’t need to know a shred of code to get started, there are plenty of different themes and looks to choose from, and we like the way the themes are already pre-populated with content. That means you can just edit the sample material that’s already there rather than starting from scratch, which can be more daunting.

If you want to go deeper into your website building and customizations, then IM Creator makes this possible. The site editor includes a variety of gallery and slideshow options, plus image effects to drop over your uploaded pictures, and the option to change everything from the fonts used to the page margins.

We’d recommend IM Creator if you’re looking to stand out from the pack – it has a wide choice of templates and some detailed editing options too. On the other hand, it does need a bit more of a time and effort investment than other site builders.

4. Krop

Krop is a creative jobs site and a portfolio builder rolled into one, so you know that its services are trusted by people in the same industry as you (or the same industry that you’re trying to break into). What’s more, its template options are some of the most well-designed that we’ve seen.

The website builder ticks all of the boxes that you should be looking for. Setting a site up is quick and easy, you can register a custom domain if you want to, and making tweaks to the design and layout of your pages is very straightforward too. On top of that, you get neat extras like Dropbox and Instagram syncing, and Google Analytics integration.

If you do know some CSS, then you can take more control over the way your site is designed. If not, you can just use the simple site editor instead – picking colors and fonts is as easy as clicking on a side panel.

Those of you who are looking to get a gig at the same time as building your website can of course switch straight over to the job section of the Krop site to find work – there are some big-name employers on the portal.

5. Adobe Portfolio

Considering Adobe makes some of the best creative software in the business, you would hope it knows what it’s doing in terms of displaying portfolios on the web – and we’re glad to report that is indeed the case.

This is slightly different to the other services we’ve mentioned here, because it’s a free add-on to the Creative Cloud suite developed by Adobe. If you don’t already pay for the programs then Portfolio is unlikely to tempt you to part with your cash, but if you are a CC subscriber, it’s worth looking at this before venturing anywhere else.

While it doesn’t offer as many customization and layout options as some of the other site builders we’ve mentioned here, Adobe Portfolio does make the process of getting your work online simple and fun. Of course there’s also the tight integration with Adobe’s apps, so you can easily share your work straight from Lightroom to the web.

Pages are optimized for any device and certain ones can be password-protected if needed, and there’s also the option to bring over a domain name you already own. For a simple portfolio maker that plugs right into the apps you already use (assuming that’s the case), it’s ideal.

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The UAE’s smart city initiatives, connected mega-events such as Expo 2020 Dubai, and the growth of “intelligent enterprises”, are key factors set to drive the country’s IT market forward, according to SAP’s newly-appointed UAE Managing Director Julien Bertin.

This follows from BMI Research’s prediction that the UAE’s IT market will reach AED 20 billion in 2018.

“Winners in the UAE’s digital economy will be organizations that gain a first-mover advantage, adopt ‘next practices’ that allow them to innovate faster than the competition, and become better, faster, and more out-of-the-box than ever before,” said Bertin. “We’re co-innovating with UAE organizations across all sizes and verticals to run at their best and improve people’s daily lives, especially in enabling Smart Cities and connected mega-events.”

In the UAE, SAP says that the government and public sector, banking and finance, healthcare, and energy and natural resources are seeing the fastest digital transformation.

Recently-appointed Bertin comes to SAP with more than 18 years of IT experience, having previously served as Managing Director for the Middle East at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He holds a BS in Mathematics from Northumbria University, an MS in Computing Science from London South Bank University, and is currently obtaining an MS in Space Science and Technology from The Open University.

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1 billion. That’s how many people are likely to tune in to watch the Russia World Cup 2018 final. To make sure that every single one of those football fans get to see the match in the best possible way, a lot of preparation has been done.

Filming a football match is a complicated process, that takes hundreds of man hours before a ball is kicked. It also takes a huge amount of infrastructure investment – in total 300 broadcasters are showcasing live matches to 210 countries. 

In the months leading up to the World Cup, Fifa announced that this would be the first to have all 64 matches shot in Ultra HD, with HDR to boot. To do this, it was revealed that 37 cameras would cover every single match. 

A hybrid UHD/HDR/1080p setup is being used. In short, this means that, regardless of the picture quality chosen by broadcasters around the world, there is a feed they can take and use. 

Out of the 37 cameras shooting the action, eight are shooting in UHD/4K format (the main one with a wide lens to make things look a touch more cinematic), another eight are piping out 1080p/HDR and 1080p/SDR dual output.

Getting the shot

To make sure that even the fastest goal isn’t missed, a further eight cameras are there purely to capture footage to be shown in super slow motion and then there are two ultra-motion cameras. These are usually cameras used for things like Hawk-Eye – where the game is shot at a really high frame rate (usually in the thousands) then it can be slowed down for research purposes. 

These cameras are key for things like VAR (video assisted referee) technology and have already been used to make sure the right refereeing decisions are made when controversial moments arise in a game.

Another two cameras are the Cinefex helicam and a cable cam. Oh, and there are two reverse corner cameras and one tunnel camera to round things off.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s another camera that will be filming the match in 360 degrees. This is for those who want to watch a bit of football in virtual reality. 

In total, there are 370 Sony cameras in use, 29 XVS switchers (also made by Sony) and a 1000 plus monitors used to deliver the feeds. 

All of this is done by a company called Host Broadcast Services (HBS), who have been doing the job of showcasing the World Cup since the 2002 tournament in Korea/Japan.

Given the focus is very much on 4K this World Cup (there were trials of the format in Brazil 2014 but not much else), it’s a shame then that the world’s TV channels haven’t quite embraced the format as you would have expected. 

A lot of this does have to do with broadcasting rules in many countries that realise the importance of World Cup matches being accessible to as many people as possible, so it’s insisted that they are shown on free-to-air channels. 

These channels simply don’t have the investment – or the technology – needed to show the games in 4K. 

This doesn’t mean that you can’t watch 4K football. In the UK, the BBC has gotten round the fact that it doesn’t have a 4K channel (remember, it’s a broadcaster that still broadcasts local news in standard definition) by showing its games in 4K on the iPlayer, it’s fantastic IPTV platform. 

The stream is limited to certain TVs and set-top boxes and there is a limit to how many streams can be shown at once, but it’s an impressive demo of what’s to eventually come to its terrestrial channels.

In the US, where cable and subscription services rule the broadcast waves four providers are offering 4K: Layer3 TV, Dish Network (54 games in total), Comcast Xfinity X1 (4K games are available 24 hours after their live showing through VOD) and those with Hisense TVs and the Fox Sports App can also view 4K content.

Let’s hope by the Qatar World Cup 2022, 4K channels will be standard. Then again, we’ll all probably be wanting 8K – given 8K filming trials are currently taking place at the World Cup. 

Latin American broadcaster Globo has been running 8K feeds in Brazil and can be viewed at the Rio de Janeiro’s Museu de Amanhã – which translates aptly as the Museum of Tomorrow. 

(main image: Gokhan Balci/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

TechRadar’s World Cup coverage is brought to you in association with Honor. 

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