Best websites for building a portfolio
As a creative, having an online presence is vital to showcase your work with potential employers. But with so many options out there, where do you start?
We’ve compiled the ones used most often by fellow creatives below and give you the pros, cons and costs.
Oh, and for the purpose of this post, we’re going to take you through the best options that allow you to create your own website, rather than using free sites. If you’re after FREE sites, then check out Instagram, Dribbble or Behance.
ADOBE PORTFOLIO
They claim to offer beautifully simple creative portfolio websites. And we can’t argue with that. Portfolio comes free with any Adobe Creative Cloud plan (#winning) and allows you to quickly, and simply, build a website to showcase your creative work.
While the templates are clean, modern and responsive, they haven’t got loads and they only offer a few customisable options. If you want the work to do the talking, they’re great, but if you want to add some quirky personal things, then you may want to look at other options. It does however sync to your Behance account (if you have one) so when you upload new work, it’s gets added there too. You can also add a custom domain, but you’ll have to do the legwork in setting it up.
CARGO
This was big 8-10 years ago in creative corners, then got superseded by Squarespace. It’s since relaunched to offer quirky and fairly easy to use portfolios. It doesn’t feel as intuitive or flashy as Wix or Squarespace – it reminds us more of a blog/Tumblr style – and while you can add personality to it, it’s not to everyone’s tastes. If you’re looking for something a bit different, this is certainly that. Luckily it’s free to have a play, and you only pay to make your site live.
SQUARESPACE
They launched themselves as the website for creatives – and that’s meant they’re pretty damn good for portfolios. Plenty of clean, modern and responsive themes to choose from. No coding knowledge required but limited customisable options without getting your CSS hat on. Snazzier options than Adobe Portfolio, but then it’s a tenner a month, plus you’ll still need to rent Photoshop etc
WIX
If you think you’re a budding web designer, but lack the coding skills, this is a great option. Design straight on the page with their drag and drop page builder. The free version doesn’t offer everything, and has an annoying banner and no custom domain, but it offers hassle-free maintenance and the chance to get creative with your site. By the time you’ve paid to remove the banner and added a URL it’s basically the same price as everything else.
WORDPRESS
Our personal favourite just for the shear number of customisable options vs on-going costs.
Yes, there are thousands of themes, plugins and whizzy things you can add – but you also need some knowledge of coding, hosting and requires regular maintenance.
Don’t let that put you off though as there are drag and drop builders like Elementor or Essential Addons that do the hard work for you, for free. Or you could buy a flashy theme for about £50.
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