Artist portfolio · design & build
Larry Burns
A portfolio for an artist working across art, writing and generative AI — work, essays and a shop in one place.
- Role
- Development, Webflow build, CMS
01 / 14 01 — The challenge
What wasn't working
Three bodies of work — physical art, writing and generative AI — that read as three different people when presented separately. Split across platforms, each one made the others look like a side project, and an audience arriving for one never discovered the rest.
02 / 14 02 — The objective
What success had to look like
Present one practice with three expressions: a single place where the work can be seen at full size, the writing can be read, pieces can be bought, and new work goes up without help.
03 / 14 03 — The approach
How we decided to solve it
- One visual system across three mediums
- Moving between art, essays and AI work should feel like turning a page, not changing sites.
- Let the work take the space
- The interface steps back while you're looking. For an artist, restraint in the design is respect for the output.
- Everything as a collection
- Each piece and essay is a content item, so publishing is filling in a form rather than requesting a change.
- Commerce inside the same world
- The shop lives in the portfolio's visual language, so buying doesn't feel like leaving the practice.
04 / 14 04 — The solution · 01
Introducing one practice, not three
The opening frames the work as a single body with several expressions, so a visitor understands the artist before choosing a route.
05 / 14 04 — The solution · 02
Giving the work its full width
Pieces are shown large, with the interface receding — the page behaves like a gallery wall rather than a grid of thumbnails.
06 / 14 04 — The solution · 03
Making publishing routine
New art, essays and shop items are added from the CMS, so the site keeps pace with a practice that publishes continuously.
07 / 14 05 — Key decision 01
A single visual system
It's what turns three disconnected bodies of work into one recognisable practice — the difference between a hobbyist and an artist with a body of work.
08 / 14 05 — Key decision 02
Work first, interface second
Anything competing with the artwork was removed. In a portfolio, the design's job is to disappear at the right moment.
09 / 14 05 — Key decision 03
CMS-driven throughout
An artist who has to ask someone to publish will publish less. Ownership of the site keeps the archive growing.
10 / 14 05 — Key decision 04
Shop inside the same language
Selling in a separate template would have broken the practice into 'art' and 'store' again.
11 / 14 06 — The outcome
What changed
The artist has one place that presents art, writing and generative work as a single practice, shows each piece at full size, sells from inside the same experience, and is updated by the artist himself.
12 / 14 08 — Capabilities
What we handled
- Web development
- CMS
- Responsive build
- E-commerce basics
Built with Webflow · Webflow CMS
In one line
Three scattered bodies of work now read as one practice — and the archive grows whenever the artist decides, not whenever a developer is free.
End of the story
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