Designing for an archive, not a portfolio

Most portfolio tools assume a small, curated set of images. The assumption shows up everywhere: in how galleries load, in how uploads are handled, in how albums are organised.

An archive behaves differently. It grows continuously, it is only partly curated, and it has to stay fast at a scale the tool was never designed for.

The practical consequence is that delivery has to be separated from storage from day one. Originals stay private. Derivatives are generated on demand and cached at the edge. The gallery never sees a full-resolution file until someone explicitly opens one.