The simplest way to show off your creative work to potential clients is on a portfolio website. After all, building a physical photo book or portfolio takes much longer than creating an online portfolio of all your best work. As long as your contact information is visible on your portfolio website, you can reach more people in more locations without spending extra money. Who knows? Your next creative job may be right around the corner!
Furthermore note that the best portfolio websites ought to have eye-catching templates, adaptable designs, a straightforward drag-and-drop website builder, blogging tools, and ideally SEO tools. Many free options are available for you to start creating a portfolio today. Some creative professionals prefer a single-page website-style portfolio, while others benefit from multiple pages.
This article lists the top portfolio websites for showing off your work in graphic design, web design, art, and photography.
Let’s first look at what a portfolio website is:
What is a Portfolio Website?
A portfolio website is a distinctive way to display your work and introduce yourself to others. It functions as an evergreen platform for your initiatives, case studies, and personal data. It’s also one of the best ways to convey your personality, background, and skills. If you have a website, customers can always find you and, if they’re interested, contact you.
Nowadays, if you don’t have an online presence, you are outdated. Therefore, photographers, designers, developers, writers, and a variety of other artists look to showcase their work online with a portfolio. It enables you to express your identity through your work.
What Are 3 Reasons to Create a Portfolio Website?
#1. To Promote Your Talents:
A portfolio website gives you a space where you have complete control over how others perceive you. Put your best projects and best foot forward on your website. You are the owner of your skills, so there is no reason not to exhibit your best work. Your company might own a particular project, but it can never own the skills you use to make demos specifically for your website.
Additionally, your blog is the best place to market your skills if you’re a writer or someone with similar abilities. Your portfolio will be the place to market your skills if you’re a designer of some kind or use your abilities to create something visually appealing.
#2. To Develop Credibility.
With a portfolio website, you can establish a presence in your field and gain notoriety. People are more likely to trust you as they become more familiar with your ideas and body of work, which increases your credibility in the community.
Additionally, you would have more faith in someone who has written extensively about the subject and demonstrated their familiarity with it as they offer enough credibility through their website that they won’t even need to persuade anyone that they have accomplished great things and are capable of doing so again.
#3. To Protect Yourself:
Today’s job market is challenging to navigate. Since there is no such thing as a job for life, you must get ready. You might feel like you’re performing at the top of your game and producing excellent work for your organization, but you never know when things will change internally.
Therefore, you should be ready to begin job searching right away if you have secured the rights to some of your work and assembled them onto a portfolio website. Just as it’s crucial to regularly update your resume and CV, you should also maintain a well-maintained portfolio website that displays all of your most recent successes rather than just listing them.
Do I Really Need a Portfolio Website?
A professional portfolio website gives you the online presence required to thrive in the current market, regardless of whether you work for the largest company or are a one-person operation looking for your next client.
The following are some reasons why you need a portfolio website:
#1. Employers Get a Great First Impression from it.
An employer will probably click on your website link to see what you’ve created if they see it on your resume. A great first impression will come from the fact that you took the time to create a website with examples of your work, recommendations, previous presentations, and more.
#2. It Improves Your Online Presence and Visibility
Your professional portfolio will appear among the top search results when a potential employer searches for your name on Google.
#3. It Gives You Flexibility
You can express your personality by selecting the design, layout, and copy for your online portfolio because of its flexibility.
Do Employers Look at Portfolio Websites?
Yes, employers look at portfolio websites when deciding if you should be given a shot at a role. So let’s examine five aspects of your portfolio that employers are interested in. If you check off every item on this list, your portfolio will be well on its way to being useful.
#1. What Do You Specialize In?
What area or areas of design you specialize in will be one of the first things an employer wants to see from your portfolio so they can quickly determine whether you fit with a particular position or freelance gig that’s open.
Think carefully about your passions and what kind of work you want to do in the future, and curate your portfolio to sell that version of you.
#2. Quality Images
On the one hand, the images in your portfolio shouldn’t be excessively large. If it’s a website, it will load too slowly; if it’s a PDF, the employer’s email inbox may reject it. However, your work will appear sloppy and unprofessional if the images are pixelated and too small. So make sure you test your portfolio on as many different sizes of devices as you can to make sure it looks professional.
#3. How to Contact You
Although it may seem obvious, a potential employer will want to get in touch with you if they are interested in your portfolio. In that case, the more options you can provide, the better. The employer might decide it’s just not worth the hassle if, for instance, your portfolio is online and you only provide a contact form.
#4. Good Grammar and Spelling
Employers frequently express their dissatisfaction with portfolios’ spelling and grammar, which creates a bad impression for the designers. However, it must be said that it can be very challenging to see your errors at times. To be certain that you haven’t made any mistakes, show your portfolio to as many (literate) friends and coworkers as you can.
#5. The Level of Your Creativity
In addition to good grammar, design studios seek individuals with personalities that mesh well with the group. The best way to convey that in a portfolio isn’t always obvious. But you should still keep it in mind when creating your portfolio, selecting your projects, and creating the supporting text: Will my portfolio accurately convey who I am to others? Is something you should consider.
The Best 15 Portfolio Websites in 2023
Free Portfolio Website:
You can set up and manage a free account for your photography or design portfolio on the best portfolio websites that are listed below.
#1. Adobe Portfolio
Adobe Portfolio is part of every Creative Cloud subscription. You can therefore have a free portfolio website if you already use an Adobe app for your graphic design workflow or your photography projects. You have the option of building a portfolio site with numerous pages or a landing page. The platform is very simple to use, and you can add text, image blocks, contact forms, and other elements to create your photography website.
Additionally, you can create up to five websites, protect them with a password, and connect a custom domain with your portfolio page.
#2. Behance
You can showcase your work and interact with other creators on the Behance platform, which was developed by Adobe. It is entirely free to use, and unlike Adobe Portfolio, you are not required to be a member of Adobe. One of the top portfolio websites for meeting potential clients and locating creative jobs is Behance. This is because you can apply for jobs on Behance using your profile and portfolio.
Lastly, it is a one-page portfolio website with unlimited projects.
#3. Dribble
Dribble is not intended to serve as your online resume as it functions more like a showcase platform and should be used in conjunction with your portfolio website. For artists on Dribble, you can draw potential clients who will visit your design portfolios to get a better idea of what you can do.
Anytime you want, you can create a free account, but it can only be used to browse. You must receive an invitation from other designers if you want to exhibit your work. However, the effort is worthwhile because among the potential clients are large corporations like Google, Facebook, Apple, Shopify, Dropbox, and others.
#4. WordPress
You can create a portfolio website on WordPress.com for free, with a 1GB capacity cap and a wordpress.com domain name. You can upgrade to a paid version if you want to connect with your domain name or require more capacity. Although the free plan has few features, you can still easily build a fantastic portfolio website. When you’re ready to add any of the numerous plug-ins, like an online store, you can upgrade.
#5. Wix
You can create a portfolio website with Wix using one of three types of plans: the free plan, website plans, and business and e-commerce plans. No matter what kind of plan you choose, Wix has a ton of customizable themes and templates you can use to make a stunning graphic design portfolio or one for your photos. You need to upgrade because the free version has just a 500MB maximum storage limit, the lack of online payment support, the inability to use video, the absence of Google Analytics, the presence of Wix ads on every page, and the favicon are a few of the most notable restrictions. Additionally, you must use a wixsite.com domain with it.
Finally, you can create as many websites as you want, and the interface is very simple to use as it is mobile-friendly.
#6. Coroflot
Designers can advertise their work and search for employment opportunities on Coroflot. You can make a designer portfolio here, get ideas, look through the job list, and even research design salaries around the world. You must apply along with some personal data and samples of your work if you want to become a member of the Coroflot community. If you’re a freelance graphic designer, Coroflot might be a great place to connect with like-minded individuals or even find your next position. Just make sure to keep your design portfolio current with the newest styles.
Paid Portfolio Websites:
The following paid options give you more customizability and useful features if you’re willing to put a little money into building your portfolio. If you want to upgrade, keep in mind that the top portfolio websites below also offer paid plans.
#7. Pixpa
Pixpa has one of the most affordable plans for a premium portfolio website, and it offers students and teachers a 50% discount. You can build a portfolio, an online store, a blog, enable client galleries for sharing and proofing, and build an e-commerce store to sell photo prints and downloads depending on your plan. Additionally, it allows the integration of third parties like; Booking Bug, Paypal, Instagram, Google Maps, Issuu, and Tawkto. With the more expensive plans, you can have a Pixpa expert set up your website for free or select the template you like the best and start customizing it right away.
#8. Squarespace
Squarespace is a great portfolio website for photographers, graphic designers, and visual artists to showcase their work, build their brand, and sell their products or services.
Last but not least, expand your audience by providing discounts, launching email marketing campaigns, utilizing SEO tools to increase site traffic, etc. Squarespace offers a free trial period and four different plans with either monthly or yearly payments.
#9. CarbonMade
CarbonMade begins by asking you about your line of work so that it can provide you with website designs tailored to your industry. Later, you can modify the template by dragging and dropping draggable blocks. The platform can handle PDF files, before-and-after visuals, 4K videos, images, and more. With just one click, you can alter the website’s navigation, and for a more artistic look, you can use a color picker and gradient.
Even on the most basic of the three plans, you get unlimited photo and video storage. Additionally, insights and analytics options are included in all three to monitor site visitors.
#10. PhotoShelter
PhotoShelter is a platform to manage digital assets, collaborate, and create a portfolio.
As a creative team, you can access your media from multiple devices and on the go, tag images using AI, integrated accounts for sharing images and content, personalized suggestions to arrange your media library, and more. Furthermore, PhotoShelter has a plan for you whether you want to store, organize, or display your portfolio online.
#11. Fabrik
Fabrik’s minimalist web design allows users to create a website that organizes their work into projects and portfolios. Therefore, depending on how much storage you require and how many projects or portfolios you want to upload, there are three pricing options which include a 14-day free trial.
#12. SmugMug
SmugMug offers a variety of plans to suit different budgets and features, including unlimited storage, privacy, and image protection controls, a personalized website, 24/7 support, drag-and-drop templates, domain names, tools, and marketing instruments.
However, you can begin with the fundamental plan and progressively upgrade as your company expands. Use the 14-day free trial to determine if this is the best website for your portfolio.
#13. Semplice
Semplice allows for complete customization of websites, including photo and video files, full-screen images, interactive grids, and custom animations. It also has Semplice V6, allowing you to create a blog and publish a magazine, journal, or news section. It is a single purchase for a lifetime license.
#14. Format
You can use Format’s online portfolio and workflow tools to build your website and manage your business, respectively. It gives you nnnnnnthe option of purchasing the bundle or just one of these services. You can look through the templates by profession or gallery type. After that, you can create your website, launch a print market, upload your photos to the cloud, etc. Otherwise, you can hire a Format specialist to create your photography or graphic design portfolio; however, Pro Plus members are the only ones who have access to this service.
Which Is Best for a Portfolio Website?
After interviews with professionals who have portfolios, we learned that the best portfolio websites must be user-friendly and display your work. Based on this, we determined the top fourteen portfolio website builders, with WordPress emerging as the clear winner at this time.
WordPress has improved steadily over the past few years, improving its performance and raising its overall rating in our portfolio research to 4.8 out of 5. Knowing that WordPress is an affordable option is comforting as the cost of living crisis looms over us all.
WordPress has the best designs we’ve seen so far and has strong SEO tools to help new clients find your portfolio. Additionally, its usability has significantly improved even if you have no prior experience building websites.
What Are the Pros of a Portfolio Website?
#1. It makes you visible.
The top priority for job seekers should be building their brands and getting noticed. It’s common knowledge that prospective employers will Google you before making a hiring decision to gauge your familiarity with networking sites like Linkedin and how you present yourself online. You don’t want your online reputation to reflect poorly on your resume.
Therefore, understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and developing an online following for you and your work will drive more traffic to your website and, if you’re a freelancer, increase the number of clients you have.
#2. It creates a good impression.
It takes time to perfect building a website from scratch, including designing the graphics and creating the widgets, especially given how crucial it is for your portfolio to represent you. Employers will value the time and effort you put into making one, and it’s very impressive if you can include the URL of your website in an email signature, for example.
#3. It helps display your technical skills
Even though most websites are made to be simple to use for those with some computer literacy, creating one from scratch requires some technical know-how. Your portfolio is the best place to embed any unusual videos you may have produced and edited, graphics, media packages, and presentations, depending on your line of work. Use it to demonstrate your technical proficiency and competence because, regardless of industry, employers value IT skills.
#4. It provides an opportunity to exhibit your talent
You will produce a lot of work for an online audience because the internet has taken over almost everything. The benefit of having an online portfolio is that you can show off your digital creations in all their high-definition splendor. Employers should be able to see your best work in a portfolio. Be as creative as you can when publishing content and packaging it to support the qualities you boast about on an application.
What Is the Disadvantage of a Portfolio Website?
- Digital portfolio creation calls for sophisticated knowledge, expertise, and occasionally pricey, high-tech equipment which most people do not have.
- It is occasionally necessary for the viewer to have specialized software as well as additional knowledge and skills to view a digital portfolio.
- Using online portfolios can frequently obscure the view of a person’s accomplishments.
- The fact that your information is already in a digital format and can be easily copied, pasted, or saved onto another person’s computer may make it easier for someone to use it without your knowledge.
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