A benefit of building a portfolio using WordPress is you have the ability to use the powerful blog features alongside your portfolio. A blog discussing your work or more about your processes and inspiration will add to the personality and allow potential clients to get to know you more increasing the attractiveness of you as a web designer. WordPress can also act as a more than adequate CMS for displaying your portfolio work.
Previously we’ve looked at Fantastic Presentation Styles of Web Designers’ Portfolios so taking what has been learnt from there, let’s look at WordPress themes which make great portfolio displays. Many people are of the assumption that WordPress is nothing more than a blogging platform but it can easily be adapted to behave more like a traditional content management system as the following themes demonstrate.
Ready-made WordPress themes are great:
- for web designers who don’t know WordPress
- for web developers who can’t design
- if you don’t have enough time to build a WordPress theme
- because they give you the opportunity to learn about different techniques and the inner workings of complex themes
- as they’re inexpensive
- because they are supported by the sellers and are often updated to fix problems or even make improvements
1. Display ($42)
This theme makes use of a prominent area to display your work on the home page with the use of a slick 3D flash box that transitions between images in a unique and cool way.
2. DesignFolio+ ($32)
3. LondonCreative+ ($32)
A striking design through the use of colour and pixel perfect layout give the LondonCreative+ theme a distinct look and feel that is almost instantly memorable and one that visitors are likely to come back to.
4. Varnish ($37)
Varnish doesn’t have a portfolio page built in but you’ve got a fantastic three column design to build off and create your own.
5. Manilla ($27)
Manilla doesn’t do anything particularly special but what it does do, it does extremely well. A great use of tabs, textured background and whitespace make this theme a great way way to show of your work.
6. Pandora ($32)
This theme uses an AJAX filter on it’s portfolio page so it’s perfect if you have many examples of work to show off.
7. Magnifizine ($32)
Magnifizine utilises a large image to show off the latest work on the homepage. Also the contrast against the dark background really brings out the colour of the images.
8. Bosspress ($32)
The header of the Bosspress theme is a giant showcase of your work. Certainly a memorable showpiece for any visitor.
9. Northern Lights ($27)
10. Picco ($27)
Picco implements a carousel effect on the homepage to present a select few pieces of work.
11. CUBE-X ($32)
The centrepiece of Cube-X is a big colourful image of 3D blocks with your project work overlaid on top to really make your work jump out.
12. Business Planet ($27)
13. Ambiguous ($32)
14. ShapeShifter ($32)
ShapeShifter uses the same 3D flash image rotator as the Display theme above. It’s also a sleek one-page portfolio with a minimal style.
15. TurboMax ($27)
TurboMax really comes to life as you navigate through the pages when a parallax scrolling effect causes the clouds and leaves to move with the sections. The portfolio page itself may need a bit of work but it’s a great base to build from.
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shame none of them are free!
Lovely roundup, there are some great commercial wordpress themes out there.
Typo on Varnish theme. Written Varinsh
“Big Feature” is a great clean theme by vfxdude. Lots of customization and great support. http://themeforest.net/item/bigfeature-wordpress-theme/51702
Excellent collection and I liked Northern Lights and now I am going to design a site with the help of that and then post it in a contest running by grafikguru.com
Thanks for featuring my LondonCreative+ theme guys
Wordpress themes are like an art form now
great post. i wish i could have varnish
Great graphics, yes. Some of them lack usability, but ok.
thanks for sharing, i choose great theme but a litle bit expensive