For creative entrepreneurs, having a place to showcase your work online is essential to reaching the right people and gaining success in your industry. There are a lot of options available for hosting online portfolios, but one well-known company just added a new option to the mix.
Automattic, the company behind WordPress, just launched a new portfolio option aimed at designers, photographers, illustrators, and other creative professionals.
WordPress offers over 30 new dedicated portfolio themes, from simple options to some that have more style and some that are heavily focused on images. And of course there are a number of other customization options.
Some of WordPress’s more than 200 existing themes and templates already had some portfolio-like features as well, so there are even more options for users who may want a portfolio combined with a blog or for those who want to get creative with the layout of their sites.
The photo above shows just a few of the different options that photographers and designers have for showcasing their images in galleries on WordPress Portfolio sites. But the sites also offer options for videos and other media.
Building a basic portfolio site doesn’t cost anything depending on the theme you choose, but the site offers a lot of add-on options that come with fees, including custom domains, VideoPress, custom design, and extra storage.
WordPress also offers different options for you to share your work with social media integration, contact forms, and of course blogging.
This isn’t the only niche WordPress has worked to cater to over the past year. The company has also launched website options aimed at bands, weddings, cities, and restaurants. So it’s clear that WordPress no longer wants to be known as a simple blogging platform, but more as an all encompassing content management system with options for many different types of organizations.
So while portfolio building platforms aren’t exactly difficult to come by, WordPress does offer a lot of options that are easily customized. And it’s a pretty trusted name since more than 60 million websites are currently powered by WordPress.com or open-source WordPress.
Susan Tantlinger
I have a wordpress blog that is custom designed. I had pretty much given up having a visual portfolio on my blog and just link to my FASO web site. Would it be possible to have ONE page or two using one of these theme designs, while keeping my design on the main blog pages? I’d love to do that. Thanks for any help you can give. Susan Tantlinger