There’s no doubt that photographers, artists, designers, and other creatives can further their careers with a website about their craft. Whether they opt for a personal blog, an online vCard or resume, or a portfolio, they can bring their work to new audiences by sharing it online in an organized and aesthetically pleasing way.
So, how do you get there? You found this article, so you are probably already thinking about using WordPress. Great! I really recommend you opt for the installable version of WordPress found at WordPress.org, NOT .com, for the most ease of control.
After you are set up with a host (the host I use and recommend is Bluehost) and have WordPress installed (with Bluehost this takes one click from the control panel), the next thing to do is to choose a theme. WordPress portfolio themes are a great option, because they make it easy to share a gallery of images, each leading to its own description page.
It can be difficult to sort through the thousands of available portfolio themes for WordPress in order to find the one that would be perfect for your work. Do you want to show off a wall of images in an organized grid, or more of a masonry-style gallery, like Pinterest? Or would your photograph or piece of artwork speak best as the full screen background of a page? Portfolio WordPress themes offer these options, and more.
To make your job easier, I’ve pulled together some of the most beautiful, most functional, and best selling WordPress personal portfolio themes. Keep scrolling to see preview images and learn a little more about each one, and don’t forget to click the buttons to explore the demo or theme info more closely. The perfect theme for your work is out there – and I hope I can help you find it!
1. Bridge
Bridge is a powerful responsive and retina-ready theme with a page builder and over 60 different demo configurations. Since it is a multipurpose theme, you can use it for all kinds of types of sites – blogs, agency or personal portfolios, one-page websites, landing pages, and even eCommerce stores. The demos include several different types of portfolios, but they are simply examples; you can do many different layouts with this theme.
Like many themes, a color picker allows you to customize the color scheme to your heart’s content, and the popular Visual Composer plugin allows you to build your site from the ground up with drag and drop functionality. All of the demos can be loaded up into the theme when you install it, allowing you to start with your favorite demo and customize from there.
Whether you are looking for a grid, a masonry-style portfolio, a slider or even a full-screen background image, you can accomplish it with Bridge. Use Bridge to present your portfolio exactly as you envision it. Click the buttons below to see or buy Bridge today!
2. King Size
Use King Size to make your portfolio larger than life. Mesmerizing full screen backgrounds transitioning on a timer are a staple of this responsive theme. King Size has support for both still image and video backgrounds.
King Size has a variety of different options for displaying your portfolio, using shortcodes and a variety of lightbox plugin options to create your ultimate gallery. The theme also includes quick gallery setup, which lets you upload and reorder images on the fly. This theme was obviously made with photographers and designers in mind, and the multitude of configurations and display options shows it. Click the button below to take a closer look at this beautiful theme!
3. Salient
Salient is a gorgeous responsive and retina-ready theme just waiting to house your portfolio. Like Bridge, Salient is a multipurpose theme that includes the plugin Visual Coder for the ultimate in drag and drop customization. Multiple homepage options feature parallax with sliders or video, immersive video backgrounds, and nice animations and transitions. The many demos show off the power of this theme, with beautiful options for blogs, eCommerce, portfolios and more.
Though the theme boasts many uses, it is for portfolios that Salient truly shines. It has all kinds of options for grids, masonry portfolios, and more.
This theme comes with great support and even offers video tutorials for learning all you can about how to use your new theme. Click the button below to explore the many options Salient has to offer.
4. Ananke
Ananke is a highly-detailed responsive and retina-ready WordPress theme for agency or personal portfolios. It offers up a gorgeous one-page design available in both light and dark styles.
Ananke features a simple page builder and unlimited color options. It has support for video backgrounds, parallax, and features a variety of beautiful animations and transitions. You really have to see the demo to know what I mean – click the button below to check it out!
5. Visia
Visia‘s creator describes it as an impressive one-page parallax portfolio – and that’s exactly what it is! It is a responsive and retina-ready theme for personal or agency portfolio use.
The parallax in this theme is simply amazing, and it works its subtle magic the whole way down the page. Simple but powerful animations accompany it. The blog is separate but carries over the same clean, modern, and flat design feel of the rest of the theme.
Images play a starring role in Visia, with a filterable grid layout and a bold color overlay when you hover your mouse over it. Projects open up to a description page with an image slider and room for text. On the back end, drag and drop gallery management makes it easy to control how your visitors see your work, and a custom thumbnail cropping tool gives you total control on presentation.
Visia is a great way to show off your work in a clean and modern way – click the buttons below to view the demo or buy this beautiful theme!
6. Wonder
Wonder is a beautiful, minimal, and incredibly simple to set up and use WordPress theme designed for creatives. It lets your work do the talking with a full-screen masonry grid of projects. Wonder supports anything you might want to put into your portfolio: images, stacked images, videos, audio, and sliders. There is even an optional “new” tag you can overlay over newly-uploaded projects.
Like most of the other themes on this list, Wonder is responsive and retina-ready. Check out the “seductively minimal” theme in action by clicking the button below!
7. Vertex
Vertex is a full-width responsive WordPress theme for personal or agency portfolios. A top-rated theme from Elegant Themes, Vertex takes advantage of parallax scroll in a clean and subtle way, scrolling through an image in the header and footer. A color picker allows for unlimited color schemes, and it comes ready to go with Elegant Themes’ great page templates.
This is the perfect theme for housing your portfolio in a sleek and modern way. On the page load the gallery of images fades in one by one, and the hover animations over each image are very smooth and professional. Each portfolio item links to a separate description page, where you can share details at length. The testimonials feature is also unique, letting the visitor explore a line of logos or headshots along with each quote.
Whether you are looking to bring an outdated online portfolio to 2015 with this classy theme, or simply get your work online for the first time, Vertex is the theme for you. It is unique, customizable, and comes with Elegant Themes’ world-class support. Click the buttons below to view the demo or get more info.
8. Omni
Omni is a beautiful flat design WordPress portfolio theme for individuals or agencies. The theme is extremely customizable and has options for both one page and multipage sites. It offers five different header styles: portfolio header, which tops your pages with a grid of your work, video header, parallax header, and two types of sliders, Revolution Slider and LayerSlider.
Whether you opt for one page or multipage, the page setup options are diverse and powerful. Use the page builder to create unlimited sections on your one page site or unlimited pages on the multipage site.
The standout feature here is the header, which is customizable in a different way on every page of your site. Choose from the header options or no header to keep things more minimal.
Omni is a great theme choice, whether you are an individual or an agency looking for a creative portfolio. Click the buttons bellow to download or view the demo!
9. KON/CEPT
KON/CEPT is a unique and minimal personal portfolio theme, riding the trend of masonry-styled gallery grids and rocking it. It is responsive and retina-ready, and the grid stretches beautifully to fill whatever screen size you have. Portfolio items animate beautifully on your mouse hover and lead to description pages that you can customize to your heart’s content using the built-in page builder. Colors are also unlimited, thanks to the theme’s color pickers.
One really brilliant feature this theme offers are four different navigation styles:
- classic: displays a horizontal menu, like many WordPress themes
- minimal: click the menu button to display the classic menu, X out to hide
- sidebar: click the menu button to bring a translucent menu overlay in from the side
- full: click the menu button to bring a translucent menu overlay over the full screen
Another exciting feature is the WooCommerce integration, which means that you can sell prints and products with your artwork right from your portfolio. Nice!
KON/CEPT is a gorgeous minimal and modern theme for creative professionals, whether you are a painter, chic graphic designer, or wedding photographer. Click the buttons below to see it or get it today!
10. Vixen
Vixen is a flashy and seductive portfolio that offers a wide variety of full-screen backgrounds and transitional effects. It is perfect for causing a stir with your work.
Vixen is responsive and offers both a light and a dark version. The theme’s greatest strength lies in all of the background options available. Backgrounds can be video, slideshows, sliders with blur, blind, or fade effects, swf backgrounds or “glimmering slices.” Overlay effects include bokeh, particle, and starfield.
It comes complete with seven custom page types including several different homepages, “showreel” page, a minimal contact form, and a page showing multiple videos. The portfolio page keeps thumbnails relatively small so that the background can still play the starring role, but portfolio items can be opened up into lightboxes.
If you aren’t afraid to show off a portfolio with a flashy design, Vixen is the WordPress portfolio theme for you! Click the buttons below to demo or download.
Whether you are looking to impress and amaze potential clients with a stunning website or put the spotlight on your work itself, these are the best personal WordPress portfolio themes 2015 has given us so far.
