I’ve been using Format for years, both as someone who works on the platform and as an artist who runs her own portfolio on it. And in that time, I’ve stumbled onto a feature tucked inside Format’s Workflow tools that most visual artists overlook completely: Galeries des clients.
Client Galleries were built for photographers. They’re meant for client proofing, letting a photographer share a shoot and get feedback. But nothing about that use case is exclusive to photography. As a painter, I’ve hacked this tool into something much bigger: a way to send my work to galleries, curators, and collectors with full context attached, control over how it’s viewed, and a built-in record of who looked at what. It’s also, almost by accident, become my inventory system.
If you’re still emailing ZIP files and following up with a separate word doc or spreadsheet of titles and dimensions, you need this tool in your life! Client galleries are the key to cutting down on confusion and admin time, and helps you keep a consistent body of work with next to no upkeep.
Why This Beats Email and File Transfers
When you send a curator a Dropbox link or a WeTransfer file, you’re handing over a folder of unlabeled images and hoping they can match “IMG_4471.jpg” to “Untitled (Blue Study), 2024, oil on canvas, 40 x 50cm, $2,200.” You also have zero visibility into whether anyone ever opened it.
A Client Gallery fixes both problems. Every image carries its own caption with title, date, dimensions, materials, price, whatever you want, alongside the image file. And once it’s sent, you can see in real time who downloaded and favorited what, and when.
Setting Up Your First Gallery
Head to Workflow → Client Galleries and create a new Client Gallery. From there:
- Add your images. You can import directly from your existing Format portfolio pages, storage folders, or upload straight from your computer.
- Ajouter des légendes. This is the detail that makes the whole system work—use it for title, date, dimensions, materials, and price, so your contacts have everything they need without a follow-up email.
- Add header text or image (optional). I use this space for an artist statement or any context I want the viewer to have before they scroll into the work.
Don’t forget to save your changes to the gallery before moving on.
Styling the Gallery
Go to Design → Theme and click on Client Galleries. From there, you’ll be able to adjust:
- Thumbnail size
- Layout—grid, square, masonry, and a few other options
- Typographie
- Colors
I generally use Masonry for my layout. This maintains the image’s original aspect ratio. You can click Avant-première to see the final layout in context. I also like how you can click on an image from the grid to see it in a lightbox view.
Ready to turn your studio workflow into a system that works as hard as you do? Start your free Format trial and build your first Client Gallery today.
Controlling Access and Privacy
This is where Client Galleries start to feel less like a photo dump and more like a professional tool. In the gallery’s Paramètres, you can:
- Give the gallery a custom title and subheading
- Set visibility and password. If you have favoriting or downloading enabled, email addresses will be auto-required, but having a password is a nice, extra layer of security.
- Assign the gallery to a specific client from your contacts list, so you have a running record of exactly which galleries you’ve sent to which person, and when
- Customize the shareable URL
Designing the Client’s Experience
Still inside Settings, the client login screen lets you replace generic text with a branded, split-screen landing page for whoever opens your link. From there you can choose to:
- Show the file name
- Show the caption (I always turn this on—it’s how my title, date, and description actually reach the viewer)
- Allow favoriting, which is genuinely useful when you’re sending a large body of work to a curator and want them to be able to select pieces as they go
Setting Download Options
You also have three choices for downloading: disable downloading entirely, allow full-size downloads, or set a restricted size. The restricted option lets you cap the longest pixel dimension, which can be a quick way to generate web-ready versions of an image without manually resizing files yourself. And because Format supports files up to 100MB in a Client Gallery, full-size downloads mean you can deliver print-ready work, not a compressed preview.
Sharing your Client Gallery and Tracking What Happens Next
Once the gallery is ready, hit Share. You can send it straight from Format by entering an email address, write a subject line and message, and go, without ever opening your own email inbox.
On the receiving end, whoever you sent it to gets a clean, branded download screen (no third-party file-transfer branding), and a Download All button that packages everything into a single ZIP file. It looks considered and professional, and nobody has to go hunting for your work later.
Then comes the part I actually think is the biggest advantage: Activity tracking. Open the Activity tab on any gallery and you’ll see exactly which images were downloaded, by whom, and when, filterable by recipient. If you’re sending the same body of work to multiple curators or collaborators, you can see precisely who engaged with which pieces. That’s a level of visibility a standard file transfer will never give you.
The Bonus Use Case: Inventory Management
Here’s my actual pro tip, and it’s the reason I now build a Client Gallery for practically every project I make: it doubles as an inventory system. Every gallery I create becomes a permanent, organized record of that body of work, with full details, full-resolution files, all in one place, accessible from my Format profile from anywhere. When an opportunity comes up unexpectedly, I’m not scrambling to find files or remember dimensions. It’s already there, ready to share.
Quick Recap
- Build the client gallery from existing portfolio work or fresh uploads, and caption everything.
- Style it in the Design panel so the layout matches the work.
- Lock down access—password, client assignment, custom URL.
- Customize the client-facing login screen and decide on captions and favoriting.
- Choose your download settings based on who’s receiving the files.
- Set notifications to a level you can actually live with.
- Send directly through Format and use Activity tracking to see what lands.
- Keep every gallery as a permanent inventory record.
Client Galleries weren’t built with painters, sculptors, or mixed-media artists in mind, but that doesn’t mean they’re not exactly what we need. Give it a try on your next studio update, and see how much time it saves you the next time a curator asks, “Can you send me some images?”
Give your work the presentation it deserves. Essai gratuit de Format and see how Client Galleries fit into your creative practice.
