One of the fastest-growing segments of the WordPress theme marketplace are themes for creative agencies, professionals, and freelancers who need ways to showcase their work in attractive ways. In an attempt to capture the interest of this intelligent and aesthetic minded crowd, theme developers are racing to create beautiful new WordPress portfolio themes that offer image-forward designs while not sacrificing business branding needs.
But what does all of this mean when you’re trying to build a website? Let’s explore.
What Can a Portfolio Site Offer Me?
A portfolio site is an excellent way to feature your best work. And when you use a WordPress theme, it’s very easy to setup. You don’t have to worry about creating fancy layouts from scratch or manually building grids to contain your portfolio items. Instead, you can just insert a new item when your latest piece is finished. It couldn’t be simpler.
What Should I Be Looking For?
Look for high-quality responsive designs that offer parallax content, full-width feature sliders, masonry-style layouts, and multiple portfolio layouts. You want to have plenty of options on hand so you can customize your site as you see fit and to ensure it matches your artistic style and vision.
Best Portfolio Themes to Satisfy the Creative Eye
If you are on the lookout for great themes to feature your work this ongoing roundup of the very best will guide your way.
Gallery
Gallery is a free WordPress portfolio theme that is perfect for sharing photos, illustrations, and other content. The theme is fully responsive, and it looks good to search engines. It features minimal design, grid-based layout, sticky menu, interactive images and so on. Clean design ensures that the theme will not distract your website visitors from your portfolio. Also, there are some social networking icons added to the theme connecting it to your social media accounts.
This free WordPress theme is a perfect choice for anyone looking to build a portfolio website, a brand website or an agency website. It allows you to showcase your best works and of course your works will demonstrate your partners and potential clients what you can do. Consider this theme if you care about readability, easy navigation, and elegant typography.
The Gallery theme comes from dessign.net, the theme company that has been offering free and premium WP themes since 2010.
Furion
Try out the Furion theme if you’re interested in one of the ideal themes for making a creative portfolio. This gem features the perfect portfolio structure with a smooth portfolio category filter that helps clients find the most relevant work. The modern design is a refreshing change from what many portfolio themes look like today, and the brilliant homepage layouts ensure that your website stands out from the competition. They also help you refresh your design without changing your theme. The stylish blog layouts add variety to your blog posts and the extended documentation that comes with the theme is sure to help out if you run into any problems. The Furion WordPress theme includes responsive layouts. Quite a few premium plugins come with your purchase. The Visual Composer plugin allows you to manipulate the layout of your pages and posts without the need to touch any code. The Slider Revolution plugin has everything you need to create stunning slideshows.
Include overlaying buttons, text, and animations in your slider to impress your visitors and direct them to your sales or contact page. Google Fonts and FontAwesome icons are included for extra visual appeal. Parallax backgrounds engage users and provide smooth transition effects while numerous portfolio layouts enable you to get creative with the ways you portray your past work. The blog is ideal for boosting your search engine rankings and it includes several post layouts that ensure variety throughout your portfolio website. If you have multiple people working on your team, a team member module is a perfect way to feature them and include a short bio with links to their social media profiles. Testimonials and counters showcase your skills and provide social proof. Social media buttons are placed at the bottom of the page and a large map can be shown to show the physical location of your office. Along with contact details and tons of media support, the Furion WordPress theme is an option that you shouldn’t miss.
Venture for Creatives
The Venture for Creatives WordPress theme has what it takes to turn your portfolio into something truly special, using a one-page layout and a photo-friendly design to make your images and content look wonderful. The fully responsive theme looks great on mobile devices. The amazing color options and Google Fonts ensure that you can incorporate your own branding and social media buttons allow anyone to share your portfolio on social media.
The portfolio has several ways of showcasing your latest work. A gallery section is provided to upload images and icons. You can insert a thumbnail of your project and link to a separate page that offers more details and descriptions of that particular project. You can utilize the recent article module to share your latest articles or you can use it as another way to showcase your latest projects. This allows you to add even more details and describe your process behind each project.
Lara Portfolio Theme
The Lara Portfolio Theme is another great theme for sharing your best work with potential clients. Whether you’re looking for a job or trying to promote your freelance business, the Lara Portfolio Theme has great support for beautiful images that display your recent projects and for adding all the details about them. The banner at the top of the website is a solid place to provide a brief description about your portfolio. Add a button to allow easy scrolling to a different section of the homepage.
Create your own photo gallery that links to more information about your content, or consider using the blog post slider to tell a story behind each project. Either way, you can include an image, a link, and a description. Several shortcodes are available to format your portfolio. Add a button or create different column layouts for your portfolio simply by adding a shortcode to your post. The options are endless with Lara theme and you don’t have to know anything about coding in order to share your work with the world, whether it be design, writing or art.
Simple
In terms of versatile, mobile-ready portfolio themes, the Simple theme is one of the best themes you can find on the market. The theme offers a one-page layout which ensures all your content is placed on one page which minimizes the amount of clicking your visitors need to do. Hundreds of fonts choices and color options are available to make your portfolio match your brand and look good. People can even see all of your work on a mobile device thanks to the responsive design. Tons of front-page layouts are provided to allow you to create a unique website along with parallax effects to provide smooth transition effects.
Try out shortcodes to create items like columns and buttons, both of which come in handy when you’re attempting to put together a professional looking portfolio. The best part is that you don’t have to know any code to do this. The portfolio can be added in the Theme Features section or you could simply update your blog to show recent articles that serve as your portfolio items. If you go with the blog method, it brings you all sorts of functionality since you can include plenty of details about each project. You could upload videos, images, shortcodes and more, all to help sell yourself.
Electric
The Electric theme offers unparalleled flexibility to build all kinds of websites including a beautiful portfolio for your business or creative showcase. The theme is fully responsive so your work will look just as amazing on a tiny mobile device as it does on a full-size desktop monitor. The best way to get a feel for the breadth of potential that this theme has to offer is to review the beautiful array of demo websites on display here.
Reveal
The Reveal theme is a very simple and straightforward portfolio or business theme that would work well for photographers, architects or creative professionals. What makes this theme special is the Ajax display on the front page which allows your website to load fast and provides an interesting way to view your portfolio projects. An additional feature that adds to the theme is the masonry style sorting of categories/tags on the front page project grid.
Made
Made has been called the best WordPress portfolio theme on the market by professional photographers and artists, and it’s easy to see why! The Made theme by MINIMAL is unique in that it has been developed over the course of 3 years in collaboration with key members of the WordPress creative community.
Notable features include responsive design and 4 professional gallery styles: Masonry, Horizontal, Carousel, and Vertical. This premium theme also includes the ability to showcase your portfolio on a project-by-project level along with an option to include a written description of each project or gallery.
Made by MINIMAL is also an amazing theme for showcasing videos as it allows YouTube and Vimeo video content to be embedded into any of the 4 built-in gallery styles. Click the Details link to see the full list of features including gallery settings, menu styles, and blog options.
For professionals who want their work to stand out online, this theme is worth every penny!
Alona
Alona offers a light, airy aesthetic alongside a rich feature set to provide users with a great platform for showcasing past work or even for selling products and/or services. The theme can be used for all kinds of websites, especially in health, beauty, craft industries or any other where simplicity and softness are a benefit. The theme also offers a unique blog layout that adds to its flexibility and usefulness beyond the traditional portfolio website. The author SubSolar has a great rating on ThemeForest so we hope to see many more great themes from this shop.
Lobo
Lobo is a high-impact, full-screen, portfolio template that should work well for many websites in the creative industries like photography, graphic design, illustration, or even architecture and drafting. The theme is sure to make a lasting impression on anyone who lands on your website and allow you to create a stunning online presence As with an increasing number of themes offered on ThemeForest, Lobo comes with a custom page builder that allows you to develop complex layouts with responsive modules. The best part about this approach is that you don’t have to have any coding knowledge. Lobo is fully responsive and comes packed full of additional features like multiple menus to choose from and infinite scroll baked-in.
Ananke
Ananke is an awesome example of the modular design themes that have become so popular over the last year. If you want a cutting edge design with a huge array of features to choose from and a highly rated developer and support team this might be just the theme for you. Unlike many themes that offer plenty of features that result in a slow-loading website, Ananke is different. The demo theme seems to load quickly and with no noticeable lag beyond some of the load animations. There are basically unlimited ways to configure this theme because it comes with a page builder and revolution slider so you can let your imagination run wild.
Portfolio from MyThemeShop
The first element that stands out when viewing the Portfolio theme for WordPress is the fun, playful typography that greets the user in the page header. The portfolio images have an interesting and colorful hover effect that provides a brief description of the project. Icons, awesome typography, a robust theme options panel, shortcodes, and multiple page templates make this theme a great choice for a portfolio website, and to top it off, the blog offers a gorgeous layout with an eye-catching date and excerpt layout. Portfolio theme is fully equipped with SEO, social media, and all the typical bells and whistles you expect from a great theme shop. Go get it today!
Divi
Divi is the first multipurpose, flexible theme from Elegant Themes and it can be a great portfolio theme. Use the built-in visual builder, preset page layouts and the module options to easily customize the template to your liking. The theme is responsive and you can create a multitude of sites from just this theme. Think of Divi as a framework from Elegant Themes, rather than a theme in and of itself. There is endless potential with this theme and a variety of applications!
Vertex
Vertex from Elegant Themes is a great all-around multipurpose WordPress theme that can be used as a portfolio theme. Its front page full-width slider and responsive layout give it a modern edge. Parallax effects create a visually pleasing, dynamic page load, and you can populate the front page with all sorts of custom content like Testimonials, Team bios, client projects, and other features.
Nimble
Great for products and services, portfolios and blogs, Nimble is a portfolio theme for WordPress that offers shortcodes, responsive layout, pricing tables, full-width slider, and more. You can choose from five portfolio layouts to showcase your work. There is a fully integrated and styled blog, with custom shortcodes to make your content even more dynamic.
Freelance Engine
If you are in the market for a more robust freelance portfolio theme, say maybe an entire freelancer marketplace, hop over to EngineThemes and check out Freelance Engine. This framework runs on WordPress and lets users either search for or list their services as a freelancer. Payment and membership features are fully integrated into the theme, with a variety of payment plans available. Translation support, SEO optimization, and a beautiful, unique design all make for an interesting, creative, and powerful freelance portfolio theme from Engine Themes.
Dorsey
Dorsey is a super clean, uber-minimal portfolio theme from the folks over at MadeByMinimal. They produce some of the best-looking themes out there so you should definitely check them out and give their themes a try. Dorsey would make an amazing showcase for a photographer or illustrator but it could also be just as powerful for professional portfolios like draftsmen, engineers, and architects.
Flexible
With a variety of page templates, a sortable AJAX-powered media gallery, unlimited color schemes, and cross-browser compatibility, Flexible is a great addition to your collection. You can choose from various background colors and pattern overlays to customize the look and feel of your site. There is an extensive number of page templates available as well, including an image gallery, 6 portfolio templates, advanced search option, member login, full-width template, sitemap, and contact us template.
Hestia Pro
Hestia Pro is a one-page portfolio WordPress theme catering to freelancers, professionals, and creatives alike. And, without sacrificing your branding needs, this theme provides an image centric display that draws site visitor’s attention directly to your best work. For example, create a huge custom background with an image, a video, or even a slider. Next, take advantage of the unique material design style Hestia Pro is built on and change web elements such as colors, fonts, and logos to complement.
The great thing about Hestia Pro is that it is compatible with the popular SiteOrigin Page Builder plugin. This means you can create your portfolio site to look as you want it to, all without knowing a lick of code. In addition, your beautifully crafted website will always display on tablets and smartphones and will work with all major internet browsers so you will never lose out on a customer or client because of poor site rendering.
Origin
Origin is a unique grid-based theme that allows you to tell stories through imagery. While not functioning exactly like a masonry layout it has many of the same features. The posts are displayed in a large grid of thumbnail images creating a calendar or collage-like appearance. The responsive design ensures your projects look great no matter which device your visitors are using to view your site.
Like all products from Elegant Themes, you’ll be getting access to not only this theme but also all the other themes in the collection. Your membership also contains perpetual access to updates and support. Most themes in the collection are responsive and come packaged with the Elegant Themes options panel.
DeepFocus
The DeepFocus theme is accessible with an Elegant Themes subscription and it allows you to create a fully-functioning photo gallery along with a beautiful blog. The idea is to show off your work while still being able to share your knowledge and tips with your audience.
The theme is designed primarily for artists and designers, but even other creative people find that the five unique color schemes and responsive design are great for showcasing past work and incorporating your branding. The theme includes plenty of options and the shortcodes ensure that you can create a button or column without touching a single line of code. Page templates make the theme easy to manage as well.
eClipse
Opt for the eClipse WordPress theme if you want all of the attention on your portfolio items, without the clutter. This is an extremely powerful theme since it offers unlimited homepage layouts for the ultimate unique look. Choose from unlimited colors and place videos and images in your portfolios. The SEO and mobile-friendly design looks great on just about any mobile device, and the GT3 Page Builder plugin is ideal for those who don’t have experience with website development.
You can even start selling on your website thanks to the integration with WooCommerce. The full-screen design is your biggest asset with this theme since it uses all the real estate and ensures that your customers are focused on the right content.
Hero
Think about using the Hero theme if you’re looking for a clean and responsive solution for your portfolio needs. The idea is to showcase your best work and Hero helps you achieve that goal with functional tools and a strong interface that puts most of the focus on your top content. The responsive layout looks wonderful on all devices, and the built-in theme options help you implement anything from logos to custom colors. The Hero theme has a slideshow shortcode, which is a handy tool for creating an area to show off promotional banners and even testimonials.
The parallax banner works wonders for capturing the attention of your visitors and the custom widgets allow you to add extra content to your sidebar and footer areas. Localization support is included, meaning you can translate your website. Hero has a filterable portfolio to help people find relevant work and the video support allows you to add videos from sites like Vimeo and YouTube. Along with button shortcodes, page templates, and Google Web Fonts, you can’t go wrong with the Hero theme.
Universe
The Universe WordPress theme is one of the more creative options on this list, with more feminine design elements and a stunning grid-based layout for building the perfect portfolio website. The responsive theme offers four layouts for the homepage, from business to law layouts. However, the main feature of the theme are the galleries which make it ideal for a portfolio website. Universe comes with a contacts area with icons and a map. You can add a custom background and upload your own logo to add your own style to your website.
Various social buttons are packaged with Universe and even sharing buttons are included, which allow users to share your blog posts and other content. Custom widgets allow you to add anything from a search bar to a recent posts area. The featured slider is ideal for showing banners and the portfolio even has filter buttons for easy navigation. Built-in shortcodes offer the ability to make things like pricing tables and buttons, while the social media support is some of the best you can find.
Gridster
With creatives, it’s always nice to stand out in some way. The best way to do this is with a unique website that shows off your personality and creativity. The Gridster WordPress theme allows you to create a stunning website based on a one-page layout. The portfolio information is displayed in a grid format, with all other distractions eliminated. Upload your logo from the backend within seconds and create additional pages to provide more information about your past projects. But remember that the portfolio is the most important part of your website so don’t clutter the way you currently see this theme in the demo. Widgets for text, tags, and categories are available, but not necessary.
The Gridster theme is fully responsive. The theme customizer has a wide range of features and settings, all of which are managed in the backend. Change the colors to suit your brand and customize the fonts to add elegance to your blog posts. You can choose from hundreds of Google Fonts. Several custom widgets allow you to add content elements like social media, Dribble, and Flickr. You can also display third-party ads or sell ad space to monetize your website. Along with localization files for translating your website, the Gridster WordPress theme is a solid choice for a minimalist portfolio website.
Skywalker
Skywalker isn’t only the name of a Star Wars character. Rather, it’s a solid portfolio theme suitable for a variety of creative niches. This theme is a sleek and professional take on a portfolio theme, with plenty of white space to bring most of the focus to your work. The theme is fully responsive which ensures your website will look good no matter which device your visitors are using to view your website. The filterable portfolio has its perks because potential clients can easily find projects they find relevant. The built-in shortcodes are handy to add various elements without touching a single line of code and the social media integrations allow your visitors to connect with you on social media as well as share your content.
The Skywalker WordPress theme comes with an AJAX contact form making it easy for anyone to get in touch with you. The theme offers a Google Maps integration allowing you to display your office’s location. You can also implement a Flickr feed with all of your images from there. Various other features make this theme a great choice for a portfolio website. Along with YouTube and Vimeo support, a recent work slider, Google Web Fonts, and lots more, the Skywalker WordPress theme has just about everything to create a stunning portfolio website.
Stag
The ideal WordPress portfolio theme is one that includes responsive elements and beautiful images. The whole point is to get users to the most relevant portfolio items in a short amount of time and the grid-based format is generally best for this. The Stag WordPress theme gives you a few options for homepage layouts right from the start. One of them has a Revolution Slider plugin to showcase your portfolio items, recent posts or special offers, while another layout includes a parallax image header for a more creative look. They all lead to a grid-based portfolio with beautiful imagery. The portfolio section includes the filter function so visitors can find relevant projects. Include a brief project description on the homepage and include a link to full project description where you can add more images and even videos to explain your creative process.
The Stag theme has several other elements besides the portfolio module which make it an exceptional theme. You can add a module to feature your team members along with their profile photos, bios, and social media links. Several page layouts are included with the theme and the blog has an elegant layout that allows users to focus on your content. Easily add your own contact page so clients can easily reach you and utilize the logo area towards the top to build brand recognition. Social media buttons allow you to grow your social media presence, while the testimonials module allows you to add praise from past clients to build social proof. Overall, the Stag WordPress theme is rather impressive, with a wide range of features and tools to get your site launched in minutes.
Photex
We have removed this review becuase this theme is discontinued.
Section
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Exhibit
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Elevation
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Radioos
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Immensely
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Vector from Dessign
We have removed this review becuase this theme is discontinued.
Portfolio from Gavick
We have removed this review becuase this theme is discontinued.
Drone
We have removed this review becuase this theme is discontinued.
Neo
We have removed this review becuase this theme is discontinued.
Mindfulness
We have removed this review becuase this theme is discontinued.
Prestige
We have removed this review becuase this theme is discontinued.
Start
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Cinch
We have removed this review becuase this theme is discontinued.
Vanilla
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Awaken
We have removed this review becuase this theme is discontinued.
Laverne
July 25, 2015 at 1:52 amSpot on with this write-up, I really think this website needs much
more attention. I’ll probably be back again to see more, thanks for the
information!
Sarah Bishop
September 7, 2016 at 10:03 pmThank you, Laverne!
Nader
October 13, 2016 at 9:21 amHello, take a look on Wally theme. Wally is a creative multi-purpose WordPress theme, with a clean and modern design. It offers unlimited variations for your listing layouts with no coding knowledge required.
https://themeforest.net/item/wally-creative-portfolioblog-multipurpose-wordpress-theme/17287099
Sarah Bishop
October 13, 2016 at 12:42 pmHi Nadar,\n Thanks for the suggesting of Wally to our readers. The user friendly platform and design add to the modern design, and I can see it being a very useful theme.