This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Brenda Barron
Whether you’re a photographer, a painter, or a web designer, one thing remains a constant: you need a portfolio. After all, portfolios are the time-tested, best way to give potential clients or employers a look into your work history and methodology.
I’ll give you an example. A photographer needs a portfolio to display their best work with categories for featuring different types of photos like black and white or nature-themed. Likewise, a web designer needs a creative portfolio that can be used to show off their latest client projects and even provide space to write about the development process.
Portfolios can take on many shapes and many styles. But the important commonality here is that they are, in fact, important. If you want to ensure your work resonates with its target audience, and pick up a few new clients or customers, you can use WordPress portfolio themes to build a stunning representation for your work on the web.
Quality, Not Quantity
When building a portfolio bear in mind that vast swathes of work are less likely to draw someone in than carefully curated portfolio examples.
“The best portfolios I reviewed usually had two projects in them – one that showed breadth, and one that showed depth” – Jon Kolko, Austin Center for Design
A portfolio designed to appeal to a potential employer will likely need to be assembled very differently from one which is put together to draw in clients, but the principle of quality over quantity still holds true.
Where To Find Best Portfolio WordPress Themes To Show Your Creative Work Online
With a good understanding of what makes up the very best portfolio WordPress themes available for creatives of all types, we can move on to the theme showcase.
The WordPress themes included here are some of the very best options for creating a portfolio out there right now. And best of all, these are the top sellers, the themes that many people have already tried and loved.
NEW: Bridge - Creative Multipurpose WordPress Theme
Bridge is a highly developed, creative and multi-purpose WordPress theme with two page builders: Elementor and WPBakery.
This creative WordPress theme is ideal for creatives wishing to create Magazine WordPress sites or Listings, Music, Travel and Education WordPress websites.
Complete with demo import content, you'll be up and running in no time with this professional WordPress theme that includes support. Bridge has over 570 homepages and plenty of amazing WordPress portfolio examples. You won't run short of portfolio theme ideas! Check them all in the preview!
2. Emily Nolan - Creative Photography Portfolio Theme
This creative photography WordPress theme is a minimal, responsive solution to displaying and showcasing photos with modern twists such as parallax.
It's search engine friendly with a clean and simple ultra responsive design that is retina ready to concentrate on showcasing your work to potential clients.
3. Brooklyn | Creative Multi-Purpose Responsive WordPress Theme
Looking for fresh portfolio theme ideas? Brooklyn is a drag-and-drop visual website builder that requires no coding. Powering thousands of websites around the world, Brooklyn offers over 30 niche demo sites with one-click installations to meet your needs quickly and easily.
Optimised for fast page loading speeds, Brooklyn is more than an theme, it's almost an all-in-one ecosystem to build and manage WordPress sites.
4. Stockholm - A Genuinely Multi-Concept Theme
Stockholm is another WordPress theme to use WPBakery for a drag-and-drop page builder experience. This theme is fully responsive right out of the box and includes a number of plugins and is compatible with the best, such as WooCommerce.
With 40 stylish demos, Stockholm incorporates powerful features such as one-click imports of demo content, access to more than 800 Google fonts, combine and customise elements from any demo all with no coding skills required.
A beautiful implementation of a minimalist, clean WordPress theme.
5. 907 - Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme
The 907 Parallax WordPress theme is very versatile with a huge number of options and features making it ideal for many uses.
Including 24 demos, with easy one-click import, there's also access to 134 theme blocks to make page building quick and easy. With contact form implementation and WooCommerce support, this really is a versatile and creative WordPress theme.
6. Fortun | Multi-Concept WordPress Theme
Fortun is a versatile and responsive WordPress theme with 18 modern demos. It includes a Visual Composer for building any kind of website imaginable.
With fastidious attention to detail, Fortun has been designed and developed from the ground up with the incredible best settling Drag-and-Drop Page Builder to create unique looking websites for those wishing to express themselves and create an outstanding WordPress website.
7. Salient- Responsive Multi-Purpose Theme
Salient is a very well established theme on Themeforest with almost 100K sales and nearly a perfect rating as judged by thousands of satisfied buyers. It’s a multipurpose theme, catering for all kinds of uses, and includes a wide range of creative portfolio options.
Its collection of shortcodes and customization options, combined with hundreds of individually designed sections, will help you build the custom portfolio you’re looking for.
8. Bifrost - Simple Portfolio WordPress Theme
Bifrost is a WordPress portfolio theme with a plethora of homepage designs for you to choose from; and some seriously unusual and creative layouts too! Take a look at this interactive grid layout:
If that’s a little too conceptual for you, this dark masonry layout might make you feel more at home:
Built with Elementor, you’ll have a huge array of assets and layout extras to take your portfolio to the next level. Bifrost comes with more than 30 pre-built header blocks, for example. Check out this video tutorial for more on how to work with WordPress themes and Elementor:
9. Brynn - Creative Portfolio Theme
Brynn is a super-stylish portfolio theme, featuring 14 creative homepage variants (all completely unique) and an array of inner page layouts to accompany them.
It’s perfect for anyone who needs an organised and friendly portfolio to show off their work (be that design, illustration, photography, videography, whatever) putting the product first with acres of space, some lovely broken grid designs, and subtle animation. Joy!
10. Kalium - Creative Theme for Professionals
Kalium is another long-serving Themeforest theme, currently at version 2 and boasting almost 25,000 sales. Its creative portfolio and agency demos are pleasantly minimalistic themes (something common amongst portfolios, because heavy styling is frankly out of place) and the space it offers to show off any creative work is perfectly balanced.
11. Illustrator- A Portfolio Theme for Illustrators, Designers, and Artists
I love a good niche theme, and this one is perfect if your niche is illustration. Tailored to the needs of illustrators, artists, photographers, animators and so on, this theme showcases portfolio collections and individual pieces equally well.
The screenshot above shows the masonry layout, but there are fourteen other homepage arrangements to choose from, as well as a wide range of page templates to make the most of your work.
12. Argenta - Multipurpose WordPress Theme
With clean lines and demo’d with cool, calming photography, Argenta is a WordPress portfolio theme for creatives in search of that stylish solution. It comes wrapped up with Visual Composer, Revolution Slider, and ACF (advanced custom fields) Pro, a range of portfolio settings, and a host of navigation layout options.
13. Ronneby- High-Performance WordPress Theme
If you need to display your creative work online with a robust canvas of options, Ronneby is a great choice! It’s dubbed a high-performance WordPress theme and for good reason. It can be used to create just about any kind of site you want, and is certainly up for the task of making a stunning portfolio.
It comes with a versatile set of display options, with over 40 layouts, plenty of portfolio options, numerous demo layouts, and several plugins like Slider Revolution, Visual Composer, and Ultimate Addons for Visual Composer.
This responsive and retina-ready theme includes one-click installation, 8 pre-made headers, Mega Menu options, modern typography, portfolio hover variants, 23 portfolio page types, 48 styled widgets, over 1,700 font icons, and it’s WooCommerce-ready. Support and updates are included as well.
14. TheFox - Creative Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme
TheFox is a multipurpose WordPress theme that offers plenty of options for creating a stylish portfolio that suits the needs of creatives from all walks. This theme is responsive and super flexible, allowing for numerous customizations to build the perfect site to suit your needs.
It comes with loads of demos, plenty of documentation, support, and a video tutorial for quick setup.
Also included are 30 homepage designs, over 250 design details, a robust theme options panel, Visual Composer, Premium Slider, and a shortcode generator. You also get a one-click demo importer, Mega Menu, WooCommerce compatibility, CSS3 animations, unlimited colors, header options, and so much more. A flexible and robust WordPress portfolio theme to display your best creative work.
15. Unicon- Design-Driven WordPress Portfolio Theme
Unicon was made with designers in mind, offering plenty of customization options without bogging down users. It comes with a Drag & Drop Page Builder, a responsive and retina-ready design, 50 Page Builder elements, and one page layouts. It also features multiple headers, sticky headers, Revolution Slider, Mega Menus, one-click setup, over 650 Ultrasharp icons, and over 50 premade layouts.
Unicon packs high-quality code, numerous features, free updates, as well as the display options you need to make a rockstar online portfolio!
16. Uncode - Multi-Use WordPress Portfolio Theme
Another best-selling WordPress portfolio template worth checking out is Uncode. This theme is multi-use, so it can be configured to suit just about any purpose. However, it comes packed with loads of portfolio features sure to please creatives of all types: designers, illustrators, photographers, and more. It also includes several high-quality plugins like Visual Composer, Layer Slider, Revolution Slider, and iLightbox.
It’s WooCommerce compatible and WPML ready. It comes with 20 homepage layouts, a full admin options panel, grid layouts, over 6 menu styles, and dedicated portfolio and blog templates for total control over your design.
17. Atelier - Creative Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme
While the primary focus of the Atelier theme is e-commerce, it’s also a perfect WordPress portfolio template and comes with the features to back up that claim. It comes with 12 demos that can be installed with one click, a minimal design, speed and SEO optimization, and a responsive design.
It also packs in 10 different header types, animated headers, 5 cart animations, multiple product display types, and drag-and-drop page builder. It features Visual Composer compatibility, numerous page types including portfolio and blog. You can make quick use of its shortcodes, RTL support, Mega Menus, and more.
18. Scalia - Multi-Concept WordPress Theme for Creatives
Scalia is another best-selling WordPress portfolio theme that offers multi-concept solutions for businesses, shops, and creatives. This theme’s numerous portfolio layouts and gallery options make it a great choice for displaying your creative work. It features five different designs to suit varying tastes and includes 100 unique page templates.
There are 8 blog styles, multiple shop pages, quick finders, and more. It also comes with Visual Composer, Mega Menus, and a responsive design. It’s robust and ready to be extended with WPML, sliders, and WooCommerce compatibility.
19. Borderland - A Daring Multi-Concept WordPress Theme
Borderland is a creative WP theme that can be used for a variety of purposes, but we’re focusing on its portfolio features today.
It comes with 12 beautiful demos that can be imported with a single click, WooCommerce shop compatibility, Ajax page transitions, Fullscreen Elated Slider, a clients carousel, and a testimonials shortcode.
It features numerous layout options, such as portfolio single templates, portfolio list layouts, hover animation effects, multiple blog layouts, sliders, and custom post formats.
You can also make use of parallax backgrounds, video backgrounds, and a number of additional features. Grab this WP theme today to create a stylish portfolio and to standout on the web!
20. PhotoMe - Creative Photo Gallery Photography Theme
If photography is your outlet of choice, you’ll love the PhotoMe theme. It comes jam-packed with over 50 gallery and portfolio layouts, one of which is certain to fit your next project.
It also comes with 8 demos, all of which can be imported with a single click and supports a multitude of options and portfolio templates for customizing your site to best display your work.
This portfolio theme supports the Live Customizer, features a responsive layout, comes with a Content Builder, blog templates, and a one page layout. It also packs in Revolution Slider, WooCommerce support, and includes support and documentation. PhotoMe is a feature-rich theme you can use to set up your photography portfolio online!
21. Photography - Photography WordPress Portfolio Theme
This is a WP theme that’s ideal for photographers and is aptly named Photography theme. This responsive theme comes with 24 demos that can be installed with just one click, dark and light style options, as well as over 70 gallery and portfolio templates—to display your best work.
It also features, infinite scroll, a photo proofing section with password protection, Live Customizer support, a Content Builder, 8 menu layouts. It comes with support, documentation, and professional files to get your photography portfolio started right.
22. Kinetika - Fullscreen Creative Photography WP Theme
Kinetika is a fullscreen photography theme that includes numerous gallery and portfolio features that allowa for the creative display of your latest and best works. If you’re a photographer or need to display your work at full-screen, then this is a great WordPress portfolio theme to start with.
It includes a promotion box, a portfolio and blog carousel, fullscreen slideshows and videos, and a proofing gallery. You’ll also get slideshow text, multiple headers, video page backgrounds, and a fullscreen menu. And it packs in Revolution Slider, WooCommerce compatibility, WPML compatibility, as well as optimization for speed and SEO.
23. Foundry - Highly-Flexible Wordpress Portfolio Theme
Foundry is another multipurpose theme that can be used to create a knockout portfolio to impress your clients. The design here is flat, responsive and totally professional, all while being super easy to customize thanks to the inclusion of Visual Composer, and numerous page builder elements.
It also comes with great display options, such as: fullwidth and boxed layouts, ready-to-use demo pages, over 20 homepage designs, coming soon pages, Mega Menus, and multiple menu styles. It has easy to customize components like one-click color changes. It includes features like, page notifications, Google Fonts, WooCommerce compatibility, and well as documentation and video tutorials.
With Foundry you can have your portfolio online quickly, but you’ll also get all the WordPress portfolio theme features you need to work with as you grow your reputation and expand your folio of professional work.
24. Vigor - A Fresh WordPress Theme for Creative Folios
The last theme to make our cut of the best-selling portfolio WordPress themes is Vigor. This theme is easy to customize and ideal for creating a compelling portfolio that truly captures attention. If you want your portfolio to stand out online, this is the theme to grab!
It comes with a powerful admin interface, multiple header layouts, Edge Slider, parallax, animations, a masonry gallery, fullscreen menus, Mega Menu, and video backgrounds. As well as great visual display options, like LayerSlider, Visual Composer, portfolio lists, single items, and sliders, a client carousel, and pretty much everything you’d ever need to display your work in-style online.
5 Best Free Portfolio WordPress Themes For 2021
You've seen a great selection of WordPress portfolio examples from our premium marketplace. These are some of the best portfolio WordPress themes you can get.
But if the money is tight, you can also create a portfolio on WordPress with WordPress portfolio themes free options. We'll share a few portfolio theme ideas from WordPress free theme catalog. But don't forget to check the free WordPress themes available on ThemeForest as well!
1. BlogJr Portfolio - WordPress Portfolio Themes Free
The BlogJr Portfolio is a good option if you're looking for portfolio theme ideas. The free WordPress portfolio template is masonry designed, very light weight and easy to use.
2. Portfolio Magazine - WordPress Portfolio Themes Free
This magazine style portfolio is another of the free WordPress portfolio examples. The easy portfolio WordPress theme has a modern design and can be adapted for any creative field.
3. CWW Portfolio - WordPress Portfolio Themes Free
Create a portfolio on WordPress with this free option. This WordPress portfolio template is great if you want to share your CV and personal portfolio online.
4. Career Portfolio - WordPress Portfolio Themes Free
Do you need WordPress portfolio examples for your online curriculum? This easy portfolio WordPress theme can be an option for you. It comes with responsive design, various portfolio pages and more.
5. ePortfolio - WordPress Portfolio Themes Free
Do you need unique portfolio theme ideas? Check out this easy portfolio WordPress template. ePortfolio has a minimalist design and is SEO ready. WordPress Portfolio Themes Free like this are great to grab the attention.
Useful WordPress Portfolio Theme Features
While the best portfolio themes can vary widely in presentation style, they often include a similar feature set. Getting familiar with what is offered aids in the decision-making process. It let’s you know what to expect in a solid portfolio theme purchase and allows you to quickly compare creative options. A few popular features include:
- Dedicated portfolio page layouts. These give you the ability to customize the look of your portfolio without having to dig into code.
- Masonry, grid, and list options. Because varied presentation options are the spice of life and can help maintain visitor interest.
- Portfolio item descriptions. This lets you describe each project and give visitors insight into how you work.
- Slideshows. Adding an interactive element can pique visitor interest.
- Parallax sliders and backgrounds. More smooth moving parts create visual interest and support for your work.
- Video backgrounds. Inclusion of video backgrounds can help engage visitors if you’re taking a storytelling approach to displaying your portfolio pieces.
- Galleries. Act as a nice supplement to portfolios and let you display more than one image or video per portfolio piece.
These are just a sampling of what many creative WordPress portfolio themes include. Your mileage may vary. But now you have a better appreciation of what to expect as you begin browsing through the many WordPress portfolio themes currently available on ThemeForest and Envato Elements.
How to Create a Portfolio on WordPress Using Themes
We've seen some of the best premium WordPress portfolio templates and best free portfolio WordPress themes. Now, we'll review how to create a portfolio on WordPress using these cool themes.
1. Carefully Install Your Theme
After picking the right theme for your situation, make sure you install it correctly. This means following the theme’s included documentation as well as following general theme installation best practices.
It’s a good idea to create a child theme for the portfolio WordPress theme you select as well, since this will ensure that the customizations you make won’t be deleted when a theme update is released.
2. Use The Theme’s Customization Settings
Speaking of customization, it’s a fantastic idea to get familiar with how you can customize your chosen theme. Most good themes come with thorough documentation, so be sure to read that to find out all of the little things you can modify or adapt to suit your needs.
Whether it makes use of the theme options panel, Live Customizer, or includes a custom settings screen, familiarize yourself with what’s included and make use of it to the greatest extent possible.
3. Optimize Your Portfolio Items
While you’re perusing your theme’s documentation, you’ll likely come across some specifications about how to approach your portfolio items. That is, you should pay attention to the sizing specifications, formats accepted, and your layout options. Then, you can go through all of the items you’d like to feature in your portfolio and optimize them accordingly.
A great portfolio layout won’t help you if your items don’t fit the format correctly. Everything will look "off." To avoid this, take the appropriate time to resize and format your images. A pristine end result will be worth it.
4. Keep Your Portfolio Up-to-Date
Once your site is up and running with your new WordPress portfolio theme, be certain to keep your portfolio up to date. Set aside some time each month to review your work and see if something new should be included in the lineup. Doing this keeps your site fresh and ensures you’re always putting your best face forward.
Pick the Right Portfolio WordPress Theme Now!
Trying to cobble together a portfolio site can feel maddening when starting from scratch. But with a fantastic selection of creative portfolio WordPress themes to choose from, you can’t go wrong. With a little research, you’re certain to find the perfect theme to suit your personality and to act as your representation on the web. We have a whole lot of choices on ThemeForest, brought to you by the largest global community of creatives. Looking for more inspiration? Check out these resources before you leave:
Portfolios16 Amazing Masonry Grid Style WordPress Portfolio Themes
WordPress Themes15 Creative WordPress Themes for Portfolios & Blogs (2021)
WordPress Themes30 Best Personal WordPress Portfolio Themes for 2021 (Free & Premium)
WordPress Themes25+ Best WordPress Themes for Graphic Designers (Free & Premium)
WordPress Themes15 Best WordPress Photography Themes for Free (2021)
WordPress15 Best One Page WordPress Themes
WordPress ThemesBest Lightweight Themes for WordPress 2021
WordPress Themes20+ Creative WordPress Photo Gallery Themes for Simple Portfolio Sites 2021
Editorial Note: This post was originally published on 13 May 2020. It’s been updated with contributions from Maria Villanueva. Maria is a staff writer with Envato Tuts+.
This content originally appeared on Envato Tuts+ Tutorials and was authored by Brenda Barron
Brenda Barron | Sciencx (2016-03-30T18:15:30+00:00) 29 Best Portfolio WordPress Themes for Creatives. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2016/03/30/29-best-portfolio-wordpress-themes-for-creatives/
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