with a project. need advice.

Hi there folks! I’ve noticed a lot of portfolios featuring incredibly high quality, ultra realistic, niche level mockups, and I’d love to create the same level for my own portfolio. I tried ChatGPT, but the results came out sloppy. Does anyone know a better approach, maybe like a prompt, workflow, or tool, that could help me get mockups like those?

Beforehand, yes the Hero background picture is AI, i am waiting on a golden hour style Picture from my client. Besides that, i worked pretty hard on this site designing it mostly with Astro Build for fast loading. I would like some honest critique what can i do better? Thank you!
URL: https://ilas-photography.com

Need a website?

I have recently started a small business and need to have a website made showing off some of my work and leading to contact details and information about the business. I have basically failed to pick up any meaningful skills relating to anything IT/web over my 34 years on this earth and don't really know where to start when engaging someone to design my website.

I am conscious of avoiding ai slop and am also worried about potentially being held ransom by a web designer who holds the keys to my website in the future.

If you were a client, what questions would you be asking of your designer before deciding to work with them, and what would you look out for when selecting a competent designer?

Thank you!

Hi y'all, I've been playing around with Figma for a while and wanted to finally create a website. I made the design. I researched options. Framer didnt work. It completely resized my website, broke textboxes, and realigned my grid to its liking (i properly used auto layout on all needed elements). I also tried AI builder tools, but as you may expect, "please pay 49.99$ a week for ✨ premium perks super team pack tier dubai chocolate to use the most basic functions ✨". Im really troubled, because what IS the industry standard for the design -> product process if you dont have a web developer to slave for your designs??? how do yall do it?

originally posted in r/Websites, wanted to hear from the web designer community. please reply/comment directly on the original post as I’m not the OP. I pasted the post url here since cross posting is disabled.

edit: the thread was deleted but join r/Websites for more great posts.

Hi I'm a web developer and designer if the work is still available contact me here is my website yosvance.netlify.app you can find my number and email there

WordPress and PHP security have changed. Do our hosting habits need to change with it?

As you may have heard, the past few months have reshaped website design and website hosting security.

In the past, we assumed that the mature software we use every day would be secure and that only through some level of neglect or incompetence would a website be compromised. Those days have passed.

In 2026, there is a high likelihood that the code used on your website “today” is, or will be, exploitable.

WordPress is built on PHP

With the latest advances in AI, what might have taken a hacker a year or more to find exploits and compromise systems has been whittled down to hours or days.

I’m not trying to scare anyone, but I am hoping that folks will come to appreciate that sites with no one manning the store are much more likely to be compromised or have their content deleted today.

I’ve been doing this since WordPress version 1.0, and I fully appreciate the situation we are in and the ramifications of what some are calling the “PHP Armageddon.”

While none of us can prevent hackers from exploiting current and future vulnerabilities in PHP and WordPress, we can take steps to help mitigate risk. In this respect, nothing has changed. Monitoring, managing updates, and backups remain the cornerstone of my security approach.

Your choices matter…

Due to AI innovations, what was acceptable in the past is no longer acceptable today. I would like to share these concerns so you can take action before they become costly emergencies.

1. PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.4

Websites using any version of PHP prior to version 8 are much more susceptible to compromise. Most web hosts no longer allow PHP 7.4 or earlier on their servers.

If you have a web host that allows these older versions of PHP, you cannot assume you are safe. Your web host is taking a risk by allowing these versions. While we can commend their willingness to help their clients by not shutting down websites running these versions of PHP, the writing is on the wall that this will not continue for long.

Any website running a PHP version older than 8 needs to be updated today, and all efforts should go into replacing code that still requires older versions of PHP.

2. Unmaintained WordPress and other PHP-based websites

Hosting unmaintained WordPress or other PHP-based content management system (CMS) websites is now a severe risk.

If you haven’t logged into a website for over a year, or if it’s no longer maintained by anyone, I strongly recommend either deleting its contents entirely or converting it to HTML only, removing PHP coding from the content as much as possible.

3. Login access

Restricting access to your PHP-based website remains one of the strongest choices you can make when securing your WordPress website. There are various ways to do this:

• 2FA or two-step verification. I know we all hate this, but it’s one of the best ways to restrict access when multiple administrators are required. Wordfence includes this option for free as part of its feature list.
• Restricting login by IP address. If you are a solo operator and your IP address never changes, a simple update to your website can restrict login access to you and only you. This is my preferred method, as it’s easy to set up and provides multiple benefits, including reducing your account’s bandwidth usage, possibly improving website load speed, and preventing other administrator accounts from being used to log in to your dashboard.

4. Separate hosting accounts

Not hosting multiple websites in the same shared account remains one of the most effective ways to reduce costs in the long term. While hosting multiple websites in a single shared account may seem more cost-effective at first, with AI agents roaming the Internet looking for exploits on websites day and night, a single exploit in a single WordPress installation could result in the complete deletion or manipulation of all content within the shared account in literal seconds.

Services like WHM/cPanel allow websites to be placed in separate accounts.

The future of website hosting and preparedness

When I sat down to write this, I never intended to scare anyone into action. But it’s become clear that we can no longer just hope the software that we count on for presenting our businesses and hobbies online is intrinsically safe and secure.

The actions we take can greatly mitigate the risk that AI bots and agents have created for online content management.

Some may say, “It’s over, dump everything and start over with a pre-WordPress style no-code website,” or convert everything to an unproven and expensive cloud-based solution. For most of us, that’s not practical or is simply cost-prohibitive.

I would argue that you can keep operating as you have for the past several years, but we all need to be more mindful of the implications of future technology and the choices we make for our websites and online presence going forward.

So I’m curious what others are seeing:

• Has AI-driven scanning noticeably changed what’s hitting your sites or servers?
• Is anyone still running PHP 7.x in production, and what’s holding the upgrade back?
• Are you converting old or abandoned sites to static HTML, or just deleting them?
• IP-restricted logins vs. 2FA: which do you actually use?
• Is “keep WordPress, just be more careful” still a reasonable position, or is it time to move on?

A few days ago, someone told me he discovered something on Me by Muzli that made him smile.

Apparently, he'd been using the platform for a few days before realizing that our 3D logo isn't just sitting there in the corner.

It actually follows his cursor around the screen.

When we were building Me, we wanted to add a few little surprises throughout the experience. Small details that people might not notice right away, but when they do, they feel something.

A moment of surprise, a little laugh, or just a smile.

Because I believe those little moments are often what make people remember a product.

Not every design decision needs to improve usability or conversion rates.

Sometimes, making someone smile is a good enough reason.

So, did you notice our little guy watching you?

Hi all,

I designed my portfolio around a Matrix theme: dark background, green accents and an interactive feel. I’m unsure whether the style makes the content more memorable or just harder to read.

https://portfolio-msrishav.vercel.app/

Specific questions:

I’d appreciate any critique, including harsh ones. Thanks!

Most of my income is websites and then small edits here and there... almost every client now asks for a WhatsApp button and then asks how their 3-4 staff can answer from the same number..

So after a bit of research I'm thking now of reselling a white-label inbox under my brand and adding it to hosting as a monthly fee. Anyone bundle something like this with hosting? Did clients see the value or just the extra cost?

Finally finished working on this beauty

live site: royaleva.vercel.app

portfolio: future212.com

I just launched Shade Studio for creative studios. Normally $129, but I'm giving away 20 copies for free.

https://www.framer.com/marketplace/templates/shade-studio/

To enter, just comment your thoughts. I'll DM 20 random winners in 48 hours.

Hello everyone,
I’m a web developer based in Nigeria, specializing in building functional websites and web applications using Python, Django, HTML, CSS, and Tailwind CSS.
I’ve been working on practical projects that address real-world needs, particularly in education and digital service delivery.
Some of my recent projects include:
1. Student Exam Result Checker
A web application designed to make examination results accessible online.
Live demo: https://student-exam-result-checker.onrender.com/

2. University Notice Board
A web-based platform developed to publish university announcements and important information.
Live demo: https://global-wealth-university-noticeboard.onrender.com/

3. Personal Portfolio Website
A portfolio showcasing my web development work, skills, and services.
Portfolio: https://samuel-emenike-portfolio-po63.onrender.com/

My goal is to continue improving my development skills, build useful digital products, and collaborate with businesses and individuals who need reliable web solutions.
I’m sharing my work to connect with fellow developers, receive constructive feedback, and learn from the community.

I’d appreciate your thoughts: What improvements would you recommend for these projects in terms of functionality, user experience, or design?
Thank you for taking the time to review my work.

Built around a Scottish Highland legend, this concept blends immersive storytelling, 3D visuals and cinematic scrolling to create something beyond a conventional hospitality website.

Hot take but I'm turning most of them off now.

Every agency site fades & slides each section in as you scroll. Looks great in the Figma prototype.

On a real phone you scroll fast, text shows up half a second late & you're staring at empty space for a bit. Feels like the site is loading, not like it's fancy.

I keep maybe 1 thing animated in the hero & let everything else just be there when you get to it.

Clients don't notice it's gone. They do notice the site feels quicker..

Hey everyone! It's been a few months since i launched lucagiraldi.com⁠, my personal website as a digital marketing consultant based near Venice.

One small note: the website is in Italian, so apologies for that!

I worked on the design myself and tried to create something professional and user-friendly.

I’d love to hear your honest thoughts, especially on the visual design, typography, layout, color palette, and overall user experience. What would you change?

I’m not making this site for any particular reason except to practice web design, so that I can later build myself a better website. I plan to write a few more posts to give this one more content. I’m looking for feedback and suggestions on the layout/design: https://homejunglejournal.com

Just look at the UI

I'm a UX/UI designer exploring whether it's possible to build an affordable AI website auditor that produces genuinely useful recommendations for people without design experience.

First, thank you to everyone who contributed advice to my previous posts. I've organized the feedback into a technical reference document and have been working through it with my AI assistant.

Before starting development, I wanted to understand how existing tools perform.

1. The experiment

I investigated six AI UX auditing platforms, spending $5 in total.

I used three websites with very different characteristics:

• An unconventional website with obvious usability concerns.
• A reasonably well-designed professional website.
• A polished creative agency website.

I wanted to compare the findings, severity classifications, scoring, and report usability.

2. What I found

The inconsistencies were fascinating.

Three platforms gave the same website scores of 34, 59, and 73 out of 100.

Some tools identified legitimate problems. Others made questionable recommendations, applied disproportionate severity levels, or produced findings that needed further verification.

And here's the irony: several UX auditing platforms had surprisingly complicated user experiences themselves.

Lengthy onboarding, confusing dashboards, overwhelming reports, and unnecessary steps before accessing results.

3. What I'm trying to build

My intended audience isn't UX professionals.

It's the small business owner who built a website and wants to know what needs improvement.

The proposed experience:

Paste a URL → Optionally upload screenshots → Receive a short, prioritized list of actionable recommendations.

The challenge is making the analysis accurate without overwhelming the user.

4. Development plan

I'm starting with UX, which I consider the most challenging category because of its subjectivity and dependence on context.

The first module will extract webpage evidence and generate structured findings. I'll compare the results against my professional judgment before expanding into UI, copywriting, content, accessibility, SEO, and marketing/conversion.

The initial $1,500 budget is strictly for feasibility testing and development.

Next step: Build the first UX module and find out how reliable the analysis can actually be. Fingers crossed.

I have built a few websites during the years, but nothing fancy at all. Old html without css and then a WordPress site years ago. The last couple of years I've just posted my stuff on Art Station, but now I'm actually building a dedicated portfolio site with html and css from an onlline tutorial I did years ago, just a static one.

I'm curious to know how you are handling the content that goes on the site, images, thumbnails etc. Tools I should be aware of perhaps. I got some recommendations and so I have an image directory where each project has its own folder. In this folder are images, nothing else atm.

Then I have a work.js that look like this where I can give it a title, descriptive text etc. If it's a project, a breakdown, I use the same structure, but put in blocks and structure it more. Every work and project as presented is in this one file though, which is then read and cards are created from this. To me this seems fair, but maybe I'm overlooking something, maybe it would be better to split it up into individual files as this work.js can get very big and hard to manage with growing projects. Or if I want to remove a project, I have to both go in here and then the images/work folder.

{
img: "images/work/tv-series/game_of_thrones_dragons.jpg",
title: "GoT - Dragons",
desc: "Photoshop illustration from a scene in Game of Thrones.",
cat: "2d", hover: true
},

Now I don't have massive amounts of images or projects. Probably Under 50 all in all and I would need to create thumbnails too. It just feels like very laboursome, but I guess it's just the name of the game?