The Website Workshop:
Create your own portfolio or blog site

This class is perfect for beginners, as well as people who have some experience and are looking to revamp their site with new tools. No coding experience required!

This workshops series was designed by and for creatives, designers, and artists who are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Colour) / racialized / members of the global majority.

If you're looking to create a website to showcase your artworks, films, photos, music, interviews, activism, poetry, podcast, stories, personal narratives, or any other creative expression using a website, than this workshop is for you!

For the first session, please bring something to take notes. This could be a notebook, your phone, and/or a laptop.

For weeks 2 and 3, please bring a laptop computer. You'll need to create a Penpot account for Week 2, and to download Publii for Week 3.

In Week 2, the website design techniques will be demo'd using Penpot, an open-source user interface design web app similar to Figma.

In Week 3, we'll be using Publii to create the site pages and publish the website to a free web host. Publii is a free, open-source, desktop-based application which acts as both a static-site generator and content management system.

As a participant, you are free to use whatever software tool(s) that best meet your needs, and we'll discuss different options during Week 1. That said, the workshop series and assistance provided will focus on Penpot (for Week 2) and Publii (Week 3).

This workshop series won't teach you how to create websites from scratch using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Instead, you'll learn how to use a site generator. That said, I'll share some resources for those who do want to learn more advanced website programming. The platform we'll be using also allows you to add custom code if you have the knowledge to do so.

The workshop also isn't ideal for websites that need backend databases such as e-commerce sites, forums, mobile apps, social media sites, sites that need to be edited on a phone, sites that require multiple simultaneous editors, etc.

The online sessions will be recorded, but the recordings will only be shared with registered participants.

The Website Workshop series is a hybrid, and you have the choice of joining us in-person or online.

The in-person portion is happening at the Arts Court building, which has an accessible ramp, accessible and all-gender washrooms, automated doors, and an elevator. Arts Court also offers transport chairs and walkers free of charge by reservation.

The online portion of the event will happen over Zoom video-conferencing, and there will be auto-generated captions / transcripts available.

Short-answer: Yes!

Everyone who has signed up for the mailing list will receive future updates on other events.

This is the first pilot run for this workshop series, so future programming may explore different formats (in-person, online, synchronous, asynchronous) based on the feedback provided by this first cohort.

The plan is to provide a variety of learning materials in different formats and build a community of creatives who are interested in this sort of thing.

Everyone who participates in the workshop agrees to follow our safe(r) spaces policy:

This space welcomes people across races, gender expressions, orientations, abilities, and lived experiences. We are committed to respecting people’s boundaries, pronouns, and consent.

As such, there is a zero tolerance policy for bigotry, harassment, or violence.

This is an encouraging and affirming learning space which understands that everyone has different experience and comfort levels with the technology used. Everyone is encouraged to share their knowledge and resources on the topic with the community.