Format monthly product updates and news.

Showcasing Our Community

Every member of our community has a story to share — share yours through us.

Last month we invited you to share how using Format has helped you and your for your chance to win a free lifetime Pro account. For photographer Stacey Axelrod, her success story began last February with a dream job posting and less than 24 hours to create and polish her online portfolio. Read the rest of Stacey’s story here and follow our future stories on Twitter and Facebook.

If you have a success story to share, please send an email to [email protected] with the subject line “Format Story” for your chance to be featured next month.

One lucky member of our Twitter community is chosen at random each month to receive a free one year Pro account. Congratulations to our August winner: @0800leonardo! Tweet why you love @useformat for your chance to win in September.

At Format, we firmly believe that with hard work comes play. Last month we joined our friends and family in celebrating Format's new office space and all the hard work that went into making our relaunch a success. We’d like to extend a big thank you from the Format team to all those who helped make the evening one to remember.

Take a look at some photos from the night: http://party.format.com.

Each week, Explore Create Repeat releases original articles and artist interviews to provide insight and inspiration to the creative community at large. Last month, photographer Clement Pascal and mixed-media artist Alana Dee Haynes spoke to ECR about the influence that NYC has had on their respective styles, while illustrator Kim Wells explored our collective fascination with reimagining the familiar.

ECR contributors shared insight on overcoming obstacles by Getting Things Right in The ‘Wrong’ Direction and how to Get Unstuck By Revealing Your Process, as well as why it’s important as a creative professional to Take The Time To Teach. Subscribe by email or follow ECR on Twitter and Facebook to receive the latest updates.

We’re always proud of the many talented professionals that have chosen Format — you help to inspire and motivate our entire community. Congratulations to Scott Rankin, Katie Sadie, and Jessica Lehrman for their recent successes:

Scott Rankin, via Studio Beat
Katie Sadie, via Cdn Photographer
Jessica Lehrman, via NY Times

Beginning Our Next Chapter

Last month we proudly shared the product of a year’s worth of hard work with the unveiling of our new name: Format.com.

Along with our redesigned identity, we introduced a whole new portfolio experience: we’ve made Format more elegant, more powerful, and even easier to use. The community response so far has been tremendously positive, including features in TechCrunch, TechVibes and The Toronto Standard. Every day we refine our service based on your suggestions. We would love to hear your feedback — please email us at [email protected].

ECR Cover is a daily photo Tumblr blog run by our team at Format dedicated to showcasing the latest work from the very best photographers from around the world. If you would like to nominate your work or others’ to be featured, please send an email to [email protected].

As we move into the next chapter of our Format story, we’d love to hear yours. Share how using Format has helped with your career or getting your name out there for your chance to win a free Pro account indefinitely. Email [email protected] with the subject line “Format Story” detailing your success story in 2-3 paragraphs. Three winners will be chosen and announced next month. Good luck!

One lucky member of our Twitter community is chosen at random each month to receive a free one year Pro account. Congratulations to our July winner: @daniel_campagne! Tweet why you love @useformat for your chance to win in August.

Each week, Explore Create Repeat releases original articles and artist interviews to provide insight and inspiration to the creative community. This month, ruin photographer Rob Dobi and Zeum Magazine founder Danielle Suzanne spoke about their passion projects, while Mariell Amélie discussed her work/life balance and the role that environment plays in it.

ECR contributors shared tips on how to prepare your workspace to Combat Distraction Before It Hits and why as a creative professional it’s important to Be Complementary, Not Competitive. Subscribe by email or follow ECR on Twitter and Facebook to receive the latest updates.

The New Format

Our mission is to provide the creative community with an online portfolio solution that is powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use. Today, we are proud to share some exciting changes to our platform — starting with our name.

We’re excited to announce that as of today Format will be known as Format, with the new domain format.com. Our new name reaffirms the values that we strive for in both our service and our brand: it’s clean and timeless. This redesigned identity maintains our modern global brand while more accurately reflecting our goal of simplicity and honesty. To achieve this, we distilled the graphics down to a few impactful elements: a strong, straightforward wordmark alongside a showcase of the impressive work produced by the Format creative community.

Along with our new brand, we redesigned our website. The same design principles that guide our themes are now embodied in our site: responsive design, seamless navigation, and beautiful display. We’ve also taken the opportunity to update the design of our Spotlight page for a better, more brilliant showcase of the diverse talent that makes up the Format community.

With our new name comes a renewed promise to create and build the best possible solution for creative professionals. We’ve completely redesigned the Format experience in order to make editing and updating your site as intuitive as possible:



The new Pages management tools let you create and add new pages, organize your content, and navigate between pages instantly. Convenient access to the pages sidebar allows you to build and manage your site more quickly and easily.



Customizing the design of your portfolio website is easier than ever. Effortlessly toggle between the Desktop, Mobile and Tablet views of your site, and explore and preview new themes, all within the new Theme Editor.



The interface has been redesigned to provide a blank canvas for you to build your portfolio site with improved clarity and legibility. The new color scheme matches our redesigned Format site and makes for a much more pleasant user experience.

Our dedicated team has been working for weeks to ensure that the transition from Format to Format is as smooth as possible. Your site will not be affected at all during this update. All new registered sites will use the user.format­.­com address. Existing accounts have a new option within their site settings to switch their site from user.Format­.com to user.format­.com, however both addresses will always work.

Please email [email protected] if you have any questions.

Your Photos, Our Fastest Delivery Yet

Brilliant ideas shouldn’t be scaled down; neither should brilliant images. In response to the overwhelming request from our Format community, we have begun increasing the maximum image upload size. You can now upload higher resolution images with ease — up to 20MB per upload. We will increase this upload limit as we add capacity.

One of our most popular vertical-scrolling themes is also the latest to be improved: Ora. This sleek, minimalist theme features a collapsible, left-aligned menu and stunning large image display. Updated automatic browser resizing and responsive site design allows for an intuitive viewing experience across all browsers and devices.

Updating and managing your portfolio should be simple. We’re happy to announce the launch of our latest image hosting platform, which allows your website images to load faster than ever before. With servers located all around the world, our new storage solution broadcasts images from the servers closest to your visitors — offering rapid delivery of your work wherever they are.

Each month, one member of our community is awarded a free one-year Pro Format subscription at random — congratulations to our May winner @zunleephoto! For your chance to win next, simply tweet what you love most about using @useformat.

Explore. Create. Repeat. releases new articles and artist interviews each week. Last month, photographers Henry Hargreaves and Christopher Boffoli shared their experiences using food as both their medium and subject, whereas Hollie Fernando and Laura Austin touched on their editorial and fashion work, and how personal projects guided their professional paths.

ECR contributors also provided useful tips for Rebounding From the Kibosh when your idea is rejected — and why it’s a good idea to Make It Then Fake It right from the start. Regardless of what you’re working on, you should Back Up Your Work With Purpose, because Daily Commitment Inspires Results. Follow ECR on Facebook or Twitter or subscribe by email to receive all the latest updates.

Format Blogs Are Here

Thanks to the incredible feedback we constantly receive from our community, we are able to deliver the features you want and need the most. After dedicated research, exploration and iteration, we’re thrilled to launch our most exciting new feature yet: Blogs.

Introducing powerful, image-based blogging built directly into your existing portfolio theme. Develop a strong, consistent brand identity by showcasing all of your work in one place. Integrate your blog into your portfolio to immediately update and share all of your content at once.

Manage both your portfolio and blog at the same time — create and edit posts from the same intuitive Format interface you already know and love. Simple, easy-to-use settings allow you to quickly edit and organize your blog posts in real-time and immediately view changes.

Add a personal touch to your professional brand by using your blog to tell a broader story. Share your background, outline your workflow, break down the sources of your inspiration, or simply give your audience a look behind the scenes.

Give a home to your thoughts, ideas, and inspiration — while simultaneously growing your online presence. Our blog feature has built-in social sharing for Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ that allows your audience to view and share your posts instantly.

We couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks to our early-access users who provided our team with valuable, helpful feedback during the beta testing period. Your insights have helped to improve the blog feature for the entire Format community.

Format Spring Cleaning

Last month we began releasing limited early access to our newest feature, Blogs, and the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive. As our beta testing continues, we welcome all feedback to help us perfect this feature and release it to the entire Format community.

Click here to receive early access to Blogs. If you have any suggestions or feedback during this beta, please email [email protected].

Each month, we make it even simpler for you to make your portfolio truly your own. The most recent updates to the Listing Page editing interface allow you to add items even faster and more easily. Manage your Listing Page effortlessly with improved editing for captions and links, all within a new, simplified design interface — allowing your visitors to seamlessly navigate all of your galleries at once.

Our goal is to elevate creatives to new heights by enabling our users to showcase their work as easily and as beautifully as possible, which may require that we make improvements to any outdated themes or features in order to provide you with the best product available. This month, improvements have been made to some of our most popular themes — Panorama, Order, Horizon, and Horizon Left — including better scrolling options, improved social icons, video support for all aspect ratios, and additional theme refinements. You never stop improving upon your craft; neither do we.

One lucky member of our Format community is randomly chosen each month to win a free one-year Pro Format subscription — congratulations to our March winner, @LiamCox_! For your chance to win next month, tweet what you love most about using @useformat. Thank you to our entire community for all of your involvement and feedback.

Each week, Explore. Create. Repeat. curates original articles and artist interviews to provide insight and inspiration to the creative community at large. In March, photographers Matthew Albanese and David Uzochukwu shared insight into the creative processes involved in the making of their magical worlds, and Michael George and Daniel Blom both discussed the idea of leaving your comfort zone to pursue what you love.

Last month, ECR contributors determined that For Freelancers, Short Term is Long Term — but both your long- and short-term successes Define Your Professional Story. While it’s important to Expose and Own Your Failures, coming to terms with your professional failures may simply begin by Choosing The Right Metrics for Success. Follow ECR on Facebook or Twitter or subscribe by email to receive all the latest updates.

We are in the process of redesigning the Format website and producing a product video which will feature some of the best work from our community. We have updated our terms of service and included a detailed description which explains how we will highlight the work of the Format community. We can't wait to feature your work and share these projects with you and the global creative community.

If you have any questions or if you prefer not to participate in our projects and choose not to showcase your work on our projects please let us know at [email protected].

Helping You Create Stronger Connections

The most-requested feature is coming to Format: Blogs. This month we will begin sending blog beta email invites to the first users who sign up, with more invites to be released later in March. If you have not yet signed up for the beta, receive access to this in-app blogging feature here: http://format.com/blog-beta.

Please email [email protected] with any feedback during the beta.

Each month we continue to make improvements to the tools and services we provide, to ensure that the best, most current solution is available to every creative professional. The latest feature to be improved is Gallery pages. The same interface you already use has been upgraded and simplified – editing images, adding captions, and updating your portfolio has become faster and easier.

With the introduction of contact forms last year, direct contact has been made simple: your online visitors can connect with you without ever having to navigate away from your site – or your work. Based on our current monthly averages, we look forward to sending over 72 000 emails this year alone via contact forms – each conversation started with just the click of a button.

Sometimes the biggest victories are the silent ones. Throughout February, we quietly began to offer 24/7 customer support, with members of our expanded support staff team now located in Toronto, London, and Mumbai. We are happy to report that 50% of all emails received a response within an hour. As our community grows, so do the solutions we provide – and we’re proud to have such an amazing team behind each one.

Each month, one lucky member of our Format community is chosen at random to win a free 1 year Pro Format subscription – congratulations to our February winner, @_marksalmon! For your chance to win in March, simply tweet the reason you love using @useformat. Thank you to our entire community for always continuing to share your positive feedback.

Each week, Explore. Create. Repeat. curates original articles and artist interviews in order to provide insight and inspiration to the creative community at large. In February, photographers Dixie Dixon and Oleg Oprisco discussed the preparation that goes into each one of their shoots, whereas Kyle Galvin and Dustin Parker shared their thoughts on the never-ending process of professional growth.

This past month, ECR contributors also looked at why it’s important to Soften Your Skill Set as a creative professional – and why you should Reconsider the Purpose of Criticism. As The End of Work is Where Creatives Begin, it’s essential to develop skills that help you create meaningful work. Follow ECR on Facebook or Twitter or subscribe by email to receive all the latest updates.

Delivering The Features You Need

We’re thrilled to announce that beta testing for our new in-app blog feature is now underway. Seamlessly integrated into all current themes, this feature allows you to conveniently and easily share the store behind your portfolio. Sign up now to receive an email for early access, and start blogging directly from your current Format interface.

Please email [email protected] with any feedback throughout the beta.

Click here for early blog access: http://format.com/blog-beta

Over the past year, we’re lucky to have seen both our wonderful community as well as our hardworking team increase in size. We’re pleased to welcome aboard five new members to our team. We look forward to the innovative thinking that each of them will bring forth across all areas of customer support, design, and development. Here’s to a year filled with endless possibilities.

We’re dedicated to always providing creative professionals with the best tools for showcasing and managing their work—and to making improvements for better, more current solutions based on your feedback. Order, our most popular thumbnail-based theme, is the latest to be improved. The new versions allow you to elegantly fine-tune the way you present your work, with new customizable options for image spacing and menu display and a new full-screen view and slideshow on click. Order now also features brilliant automatic browser resizing and responsive site design for seamless viewing across all browsers.

One lucky member of our Format community is chosen each month at random to win a free 1 year Pro Format subscription—congratulations to our January winner, @billyrowlinson! For your chance to win in February, tweet the reason you love using @useformat. Thank you to our whole community for continuing to share your positive feedback.

Each week, Explore. Create. Repeat. curates original articles and artist interviews to provide insight and inspiration to the creative community at large. In January, photographers Paul Giunta and Benjamin Von Wong discussed the value of taking part in workshops and tutorials, while Laura Eddolls spoke about the process behind each of her shots. Illustrator Adam Batchelor shared his thoughts on using art and social platforms as a channel for discussion.

ECR contributors proposed that A Short Memory is Best For Innovation, and that it’s important to Smash Your Echo Chamber in order to change your critical environment. While Vacations Are Dying, you may be able to save yours as long as you Break Up With Your Bad Habits. Follow ECR on Facebook or Twitter, or subscribe by email to receive all the latest updates.

Ring In the New Year With Format

While December is a period of rest and reflection, January is a month brimming with possibility. On behalf of everyone at Format, we would like to wish you all a Happy New Year, and all the best of luck in each of your endeavours, creative or otherwise, this year.

With so much positive momentum gained from your continuous feedback last year, we look forward to continuing with this stride well into 2014. We are excited to introduce many new developments launching this year.

iPad Portfolio
We are looking forward to announcing our new iPad based product which will introduce new methods for presenting and sharing your work with other creative professionals and prospective clients.

Format Blogs
In response to our most popular request, we are excited to announce that an in-app blog feature will soon be available to the entire Format community.

Here’s to making this year the best one yet for creative professionals.

We are passionate about helping creatives reach new heights - and we are incredibly proud when they receive much-deserved recognition for their work from the world at large. Despite the incredible increases in site traffic over the past year from artist features in publications such as Huffington Post, Peta Pixel, WIRED, and the New York Times, Format has always remained stable and unaffected for the rest of our community members.

Thank you to everyone for choosing Format to showcase your work - we’re excited to grow as you do.

Congratulations to Matthew Albanese, Alex Stoddard, and Kyle Thompson for their recent highlighted successes:
Kyle Thompson, via Huffington Post
Matthew Albanese, via Gizmodo
Alex Stoddard, via My Modern Met

Each month, a free one-year Pro Format subscription is awarded at random to a member of our wonderful community. Congratulations to our December winner, @michael_epps! For your chance to win a free year, simply tweet the reason you love using @useformat. Thank you to everyone for continuing to share your positive feedback.

Each week, Explore Create Repeat provides insight and inspiration to the creative community through its original interviews and articles. In December, ECR spoke to both conceptual photographer Marcus Møller Bitsch and fashion photographer Thom Kerr about the inspiration behind their unique styles. Illustrators Alex Mathers and Nick Alston weighed in on achieving balance between work and play, and designer Marco Cibola spoke about the creative’s role in the design industry at large.

ECR contributors proposed that the best way to Make Your Move is Thinking Big by Acting Small, and that successfully Learning From Greatness may require you to Clean Up The Way You Communicate. Follow ECR on Facebook or Twitter, or subscribe by email, for all the latest updates.

Wrapping Up 2013

This past month marked the 5 year anniversary of Format. Since our initial launch, we’ve been fortunate enough to see both our amazing team as well as our talented global community grow tremendously. The features and support of our platform have become the choice of tens of thousands of creative professionals across over 125 countries – and as our community continues to grow, so will the solutions we create and provide. Thank you for your continued support and feedback – we’re excited for what the next five years will have in store for Format.

Announcing new features to the Panorama theme. There’s even more reason to love one of our most popular tablet-supported themes of the year. With large, horizontal-scrolling images and intuitive gallery scrolling, Panorama already let you show off your entire body of work seamlessly. Now, it also lets you showcase each image individually – the improved Panorama features both image padding as well as the option to fade out any images not in view. Your gallery is only as stunning as the pieces that make it up so show off every one.

Each month, one lucky member of our Format community is chosen at random to win a free 1 year Pro Format subscription – congratulations to our November winner @EdwardTCooke! For your chance to win a free year, simply tweet the reason you love using @useformat. Thank you to everyone for continuing to share their positive feedback.

As the year comes to a close, we would like to wish the entire Format community a safe and joyous holiday season with your friends and families. We look forward to the exciting things that 2014 will bring – we are incredibly eager to share with you the many new developments that will be rolling out in the new year, and we can’t wait for you to be a part of them.

Happy holidays!

Each week, Explore. Create. Repeat. provides insight and inspiration to the creative community by showcasing stunning work and the professionals behind it. In November, 19 year old photographer Alex Stoddard spoke about self-learning his craft, while fashion photographers Dustin Hollywood and Philipp Paulus shared some of their industry tips. We also got a chance to sit down with the team behind The Design WalkIn to talk about why advocating for good design helps both designers and businesses alike.

Guest-writers Dmitri Tcherbadji and Betty Dai shared some insight as to how to Learn New Things Effectively, and ECR contributor Sean Minogue proposed that A False Start is Better Than No Start when you need to get things done. Learn how to Turn Creative Fear Into Fuel and how to Clean Up Your Digital Impact, all while browsing some of the best things the city has to offer professionals looking to Make/Design/Shoot in Toronto. Follow ECR on Facebook or Twitter, or subscribe by email, for all the latest updates.

The Perfect Presentation: Your Choice

Upon receiving a number of requests from the Format community for a sleek, simple slideshow, we are pleased to introduce our newest theme: Offset. Coupling a classic left-aligned menu with a minimalistic layout that presents each image individually, Offset lets your work showcase itself. Balance your perfect shot with a perfect presentation on both desktop as well as tablet - Offset automatically scales as the browser resizes.

Showcase your work on a whole new plane with our latest theme, Peak. Featuring a simple grid-based layout with a main title image and vertical scrolling, Peak allows you to present all of your work at once, seamlessly and comprehensively, across desktop, tablet, and mobile. Delve a bit deeper into an image by selecting its thumbnail to view it a full-screen window.

We are happy to announce that we have updated our About page to fully share our company beliefs, culture, and personality. Now, you can put a face to the team that’s behind our product every step of the way. Take a look at some of the things that goes on in and out of the office, or just stop by to say hello.

Beginning in October, we asked you to tweet why you loved using @useformat, and including everything from its ease of use to our outstanding support team, the response was incredibly positive. One lucky Format member was selected at random to win a free 1 year Pro Format subscription - congratulations to @campsiephoto! A new winner will be chosen for the month of November, so continue to tweet and let us know why you choose Format as your portfolio platform. Thank you to our whole community for your continued feedback to help us improve even further.

Featured in Explore. Create. Repeat. last month were interviews with underwater photographer Mark Tipple, street photographer Francois Constant, graphic designer/illustrator Karan Singh, and fashion photographer Ella Manor. Guest writer David Burkus offered 5 Ways to Recharge Your Creative Capacity, and The Importance of Self Motivation was explored, particularly when looking at Competitive Streaks: The Creative Value of Rivalry. Follow ECR on Facebook or Twitter, or subscribe by email, for all the latest updates.

Taking the plunge into freelancing, or simply staying afloat, can often be overwhelming. We have compiled some of our most popular content on the subject as featured in ECR, along with two unpublished articles, into a free downloadable ebook to help guide you through the in’s and out’s of it: The Complete Guide to Fearless Freelancing.