Re: Airtable-Based Art Portfolio Web Site

Tim_Dietrich · ‎May 15, 2015

I recently redesigned one of my personal Web sites - an art portfolio - using an Airtable base on the backend. If you’re interested, you can check it out here: http://art.timdietrich.me

The site is PHP-based. It pulls all of the artwork (including the information about each piece and the images themselves) from the Airtable base via the Airtable API. It also uses Stripe to handle credit card payments, and saves the orders back to the Airtable base. And for email notifications and receipts, it uses Mandrill.

More information is available on my blog: http://timdietrich.me/blog/airtable-based-art-portfolio-site-launched/

Thanks for checking it out - and let me know if you have any questions about it.

– Tim

Ken · ‎May 21, 2015

This is really cool, Tim.
What are your candid impression of using the Airtable API for use as a simple backend?

Tim_Dietrich · ‎May 21, 2015

Thanks Ken!

I’ve found Airtable to be a nice alternative as a backend to basic Web sites. I’m using it as a CMS for a few Web sites now, both for my own use and for a few clients.

Airtable’s ease-of-use, flexibilty, low cost, and powerful API make it ideal as a backend for basic sites. I’ve also found that Airtable makes it very easy to publish images, documents, and so on.

If you have any questions about how I’m using Airtable, please let me know. I would be happy to share my thoughts and experiences - and I’d love to hear how you are using it, too.

~ Tim

Renee_Jacobs · ‎Dec 05, 2015

Tim, does Airtable allow a grid/contact sheet sort of view like you have on your site?

Tim_Dietrich · ‎Dec 08, 2015

Renee –

Unfortunately, no - Airtable doesn’t support the grid-like format that I’m using on my site. I’ve used the Airtable API to display the artwork in that manner.

~ Tim

Mike_Eovino · ‎Feb 13, 2016

Are you reading the JSON from the API and processing it in PHP, or are you using something on the client-side?

Felicia_D_Ascan · ‎May 03, 2016

Looks like the first link is coming up with “Error: 28”

Moe · ‎Aug 14, 2020

We’ve built a gallery extension that would fit nicely in a portfolio website. It has a transparent background when it’s embedded and it adjusts its height automatically.