Bring your portfolio up to date with these stunning themes.
It's not news to anyone that if you want the world to know about your work, you'll need a good-looking portfolio. But it's easy to fall into the trap of building it and then sticking with the same design for years, with the result that what looked good a while back is now positively outdated and a little bit creaky.
If your design portfolio is showing its age, or if you're just starting out and looking for the best way to present your work, we've found ten of the best on-trend portfolio templates for you, delivering all the up-to-date technologies, effects and layouts you're likely to need. Many of them are available both as HTML and WordPress themes, and most importantly, none of them will cost you a fortune.
Werktatt provides a host of hover and sound effects
Built to bring out the best in your portfolio, Werkstatt offers a huge range of great-looking ready-made portfolio themes to choose between, plus plenty of options for creating your own custom look. It uses Visual Composer to help you build your page using drag and drop, and with any number of hover effects and even sound effects available, you can be sure your finished portfolio will get people talking.
02. Oriana
For a minimal look, give Oriana a go
If you like to keep things simple, Oriana is a sleek minimal theme that's made with photography in mind but just as suitable for graphic design or illustration portfolios without any unnecessary visual clutter. This WordPress theme is fully responsive and retina-ready, and its one-click install means you can have a site up and running in minutes.
03. Wizzard
Wizzard combines cool features and fast loading times
For a slick, fast-loading site with plenty of options, Wizzard is well worth casting an eye over. It's an Ajax-powered template (there's also a WordPress version available) suitable for all types of creative, and delivers plenty of in-demand features such as smooth scrolling, a full-screen overlay menu and beautiful page transitions, and with fast loading times you won't keep visitors waiting to see your work.
04. Sahel
Sahel's palette is an absolute eye-opener
We love the warm earth tones of Sahel's default configuration; if it's something that fits with the style of your own work then you'd be hard-pushed to find a better portfolio template. It's responsive and retina-ready comes with a full set of project and portfolio list templates, as well as an assortment of shop page layouts and blog templates; everything you need for a stunning site.
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05. Overlap
If you're not sure what you want, Overlap has plenty of options
Whether you want a simple one-pager or a more complex portfolio site, Overlap has an option for you. It's a fully customisable WordPress theme that makes it easy to create beautiful responsive pages using Visual Composer, and it gives you load of options for making your portfolio stand out, including text scrolling animations, video backgrounds and colour overlays.
06. Inshot
Inshot is ideal for photographers
Available in both HTML and WordPress versions, Inshot is a clean and modern portfolio template that's aimed primarily at photographers but ideal for anyone looking for the perfect way to present their creative work. It comes with six portfolio designs as well as 10 single-pagers, and with the option for full-screen images or video as backgrounds, plus seven homepage options including sliders and horizontal carousels, it has all the options you need to build a unique site.
07. Satelite
You can't beat a beautiful full-screen slider
A full-screen slider can be a fantastic way to give people a close-up look at your work as soon as they hit your site, and Satelite is a fast-loading and fully responsive way to do just that. As well as full-screen sliders, it also offers large and small carousel sliders as well as a Masonry grid, and for that cool extra touch it also gives you one of those mouse-following cursors that you see on all the best portfolio sites these days.
08. Notio
Notio delivers lightweight pages with lots of layout options
Built for WordPress with a stack of portfolio layout options enabling you to choose the perfect way to lay out your work, Notio comes packed with custom elements as well as eight unique templates with four different pagination options. It uses WordPress' adaptive images functionality to reduce loading times, and it also features three different filter styles for great-looking layouts.
09. Aoko
Aoko's video navigation is certain to turn heads
For that all-important first impression, take a look at Aoko. It's a responsive HTML template that's also available for WordPress, and its top selling point is its clipping video navigation that's guaranteed to catch the eye. It comes with stunning mouseover effects and CSS3 animation options, and it's built to be easy to customise.
10. CV Portfolio
Will you choose the light or dark side?
Finally, here's a simple way to create a stunning responsive portfolio. CV Portfolio comes with three basic homepage layouts – a type-based page, a video page and a static page – in light and dark variations, and it comes with ready-made page designs such as an about page and a contact page and of course that all-important portfolio page. It's built using the latest version of Bootstrap and it comes in both HTML and WordPress options.
Jim McCauley is a writer, performer and cat-wrangler who started writing professionally way back in 1995 on PC Format magazine, and has been covering technology-related subjects ever since, whether it's hardware, software or videogames. A chance call in 2005 led to Jim taking charge of Computer Arts' website and developing an interest in the world of graphic design, and eventually led to a move over to the freshly-launched Creative Bloq in 2012. Jim now works as a freelance writer for sites including Creative Bloq, T3 and PetsRadar, specialising in design, technology, wellness and cats, while doing the occasional pantomime and street performance in Bath and designing posters for a local drama group on the side.
