A good quality portfolio page is extremely important for any creative person to get more business. Showing off your work in a stylish portfolio page can be more effective than any other marketing tool, as your work will speak for you.
But, if you plan to change the WordPress theme in the future, the portfolio section of your site may get altered because the portfolio functionality comes as a custom post type with the theme. So, it is a good idea to have the portfolio option through a plugin.
In this post, we have collected the best portfolio plugins for WordPress that will help you create a stunning portfolio section on your WordPress site.
Top WordPress Portfolio Plugins
#1 - Go
Go portfolio plugin is one of the most popular portfolio WordPress plugins which offers you tons of amazing features and helps you create beautiful portfolio pages.
With this plugin you can create new custom post type for creating portfolios, you can also use the existing posts and a custom post type with this plugin.
This plugin is compatible with Visual Composer plugin, which is a drag and drop drop page builder – you can combine these two plugins to create a stunning portfolio.
It comes with 38 amazing ready to use designs with demo data which will help you get started immediately. It offers you an unlimited number of colors to choose from and 600+ Google fonts to style your portfolios.
Originally published Jan 1, 2020 2:56:00 AM, updated January 28, 2020
Would you like to create your portfolio on the site? Usually, most freelancers create separate sites with specially selected portfolio themes to showcase their work. But what if we want to add a portfolio to an existing site? In this article, I will show you how to wordpress portfolio plugin to put it on the site without changing the theme.
There are many plugins for the wordpress engine that help you create a portfolio. But I will focus on two that make it easy for anyone, even a novice user, to create a portfolio.
Portfolio wordpress plugin Envira Gallery. Method 1
Building a portfolio is more than just adding pictures of your work along with descriptions. Your portfolio should be visually appealing and easy to navigate. The Envira Gallery plugin is perfect for this.
Envira Gallery is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create image galleries. With it, you can create amazing slides and albums that look equally good on all devices, as it has the ability to adapt images.
This plugin is paid and you will need to pay at least light version to get basic addons. Although for review, the opportunity to work with the plugin is provided for free.
Install the plugin on your site and activate it. Then, once activated, you can add the gallery to your site. We go to the section Envira Gallery, Further Add new and in the window that opens, add all the photos of the work that you want to show to a potential client.
You can upload photos or pictures from your computer, or choose from your blog's media library. After the photo is uploaded, you can view the thumbnails on the computer screen.
You can arrange the pictures however you want by simply moving them around in the order you want them to appear. You can also insert meta-data into pictures, such as title and alt tags, by clicking on the information icon located on the left upper corner each picture. The plugin allows you to add HTML code in the header section of each image. It is possible to add a link to any page or site in the Image Hyperlink field.
After editing the meta data is finished, open the Config tab and here you can convert the display. This tab sets how we want the gallery to be displayed on the screen. You can choose the number of columns, gallery theme, etc. Initially, the plugin provides the ability to select only the base theme of the gallery. At the same time, you can set additional topics if you install the paid version of the plugin.
After the configuration has been dealt with, you should click the Publish button and the gallery will be created. After publishing it, a code will appear on your screen that you will need to insert into a post, page or widget in order for it to appear on your blog.
Create a gallery directly from a post
Envira allows you to create a gallery directly from the edit page new record. This means you don't have to switch between different screens to create a gallery for your future portfolio. Just go to the Add Post tab in the blog admin panel and there will be an Add Gallery button at the top above the post editing area, or go to the bottom of the screen and there will also be a window for creating a portfolio gallery.
This is how you can create your WordPress portfolio. You can also convert an album by changing settings such as adjusting the image height or the number of columns in the gallery.
Portfolio wordpress plugin Nimble Portfolio. Method 2
Another plugin that is used when creating a portfolio is called Nimble Portfolio.
First you need to install and activate it. After activation, a menu will appear in the admin panel of your blog, which is called Nimble Portfolio. You will need to go to Nimble Portfolio > Add Portfolio Item to start building your portfolio.
You will need to write a title and description for the portfolio. Next, you will need to add or select filters. Filters, like categories (headings), allow users to select portfolio sections.
Below the article editor, you'll see portfolio options. Here you can upload pictures or embed videos. You can also write the video URL from or Vimeo.
These pictures or videos will be shown to visitors in a pop-up window when they click through portfolio sections.
After you have added all types of portfolios to the site, they need to be transferred to the blog. To do this, simply create new page, which you call Portfolio, write the name in the title title. And already in the page editing window, insert the following code:
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I hope the article turned out to be useful for you, and now the issue with the ability to insert a portfolio on wordpress using a plugin will not cause difficulties.
Hello freelancers! How great it would be to just tell clients: I'm really good, trust me - and clients would send us a lot of money. Unfortunately, life is not so simple. Clients want to make sure you know what you're doing before they hire you (how selfish of them!).
So how can you convince them of your qualifications? With a portfolio. How to create a portfolio on WordPress? With one of these amazing plugins.
These plugins are not just for freelancers. It seems to us that everyone should demonstrate the results of their work. Even if you are 100% satisfied with your current job, it is always nice to feel in demand. Nowadays, only with the help of a change of work can one achieve a promotion. It never hurts to have fallbacks.
Today we will tell you about a few best WordPress portfolio plugins.
1. WP Portfolio
This free plugin is number one on this list because it's the one we use on our personal websites. It is very convenient to embed portfolios and thumbnail images here.
For creating WordPress Thumbnails Portfolio Plugin integrates with the ShrinkTheWeb service, which automatically generates thumbnails. We couldn't get this service to work, so we manually created and uploaded the images, and then the plugin automatically created the thumbnails. If you understand how to run ShrinkTheWeb, then creating thumbnails will be even easier.
Add new element portfolio is very simple. Just enter a title, website and description. You can edit Advanced Settings if you want (that's where we added custom thumbnails), but it's not necessary:
Also easy to set up appearance portfolio with basic html:
For example, we edited html template to remove the description. Therefore, in the photo example of the site above you will not find a description. Just a thumbnail and a link to the article.
If you want to add something to the template, then with a basic knowledge of HTML, it will be a breeze.
This plugin is perfect for people whose profession is not very related to something visual. That is, if you are a photographer, it is better to choose another plugin. But if you are a writer, web developer, or even a web designer, then this plugin is for you.
2. Portfolio by BestWebSoft
Portfolio by BestWebSoft is a free plugin that is very similar to the WordPress Portfolio Plugin. What is the difference? It offers additional functionality, but is slightly inferior in design:
In the screenshot above you can see additional functions like lots of screenshots, completion dates and more. But you also probably noticed that the design is a bit strange. Lots of skewed text. This is not a disaster, of course, but in this aspect the plugin lags behind the WordPress Portfolio Plugin. Well, in our opinion.
3. Real 3D FlipBook
Real3D FlipBook is definitely the most unique plugin on this list. Instead of displaying portfolio items in a gallery or list, the design looks like a flipbook.
Most likely, the plugin will not work for all portfolios, but if you like this art style, then this is a really cool option. You can add HTML to each page to make it more interactive. For example, embed a video. Or you can upload your portfolio in PDF or JPEG form and create a real interactive book.
Here is an example portfolio with a video:
Real3D FlipBook is a premium plugin available from the CodeCanyon store for $39.
4. Portfolio for Professionals
Portfolio for Professionals is relatively new free offer. But it makes up for its "youth" with regular updates and great features.
Unlike previous plugins, Portfolio for Professionals creates a grid-like layout that consists mostly of images. This is great for photographers or artists:
There are three types of grid layout:
- Masonry
- Fit Rows
- Vertical
You can also include (great feature for large portfolios), add titles and tags, split across different projects, and more.
5. Huge IT Portfolio
Portfolio Gallery by Huge-IT is another plugin for photographers and other creatives. There is a paid and a free version, but the free one has a wide range of features.
You can add both images and videos from YouTube or Vimeo. If you want to embed video in your portfolio, then choose this plugin. You can add a title and description to each work.
Sorting and filtering are also great features. Filtering is only available for premium version, but potential clients will be able to search through the most important parts of the portfolio. In the paid version, you will also get access to a customizable lightbox.
The premium version costs $40 and is available on Huge-IT. There is also a developer version available, but it is more expensive.
6. Go Portfolio
Go Portfolio is one of the most popular premium portfolio plugins on CodeCanyon. Since this is a paid plugin, it has a huge number of different features.
You can expect:
- 38 templates for an easier start
- Touch Device Support
- Compatibility with Visual Composer
This plugin has templates for all kinds of portfolios. Some of them allow you to create an "As seen in/As featured on..." window. This is a great proof of your qualifications.
Go Portfolio is available for $23 on CodeCanyon.
7. Bonus - WordPress Themes with Embedded Portfolio
You don't always need a separate plugin. Some themes initially contain methods simple addition portfolio in options and settings.
So check your theme for such a feature.
Results
A portfolio is a must for a freelancer or anyone who wants to showcase their work. If you are not working in the arts, then WordPress Portfolio Plugin and Portfolio by BestWebSoft are for you.
If you are an artist or photographer, then take a look at Portfolio for Professionals or Portfolio Gallery.
Finally, Go Portfolio is a great all-around plugin, although it's not free. And if you need something special, then choose Real3D Flipbook.
Do you have a favorite portfolio plugin? Tell us in the comments!
The theme of the design of the online portfolio does not lose relevance, as does the search for new & cool free templates on WordPress. Here are the free WordPress themes to create a stylish modern portfolio or website creative personality. These are the best free WP templates, fresh and just updated. The selection includes WordPress themes based on the Bootstrap framework, HTML5, CSS3, one-pagers and Lite versions of paid themes:
From a collection of professional portfolio-themed web templates, selected premium themes include $0 versions (upgrade to PRO and Unlimited Websites available). Lite versions of popular paid templates are designed for freelancers and businesses, creators of a personal or commercial website, including corporate agencies.
New and Better for Personal & Commercial Portfolio Building
So, the best modern WordPress themes for a portfolio, a business website, a project with Art / Web installations, photos and creative content. The templates are free, but you may be asked to click a social media link to download.
i-amaze - Beautiful Free Portfolio WordPress Theme
Flexible WordPress theme with premium elements includes full screen slider, portfolio and social proof sections. Responsive design and high customizability make the theme ideal for business, blogging or creating a personal website. Composed of: unlimited colors, block / wide layouts, custom backgrounds, css styles, social. links, blog layouts. The built-in OnePageR plugin will add functionality. Installations 2 000+.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
CleanPortfolio - Free Multipurpose Portfolio WP Theme
An elegant, super clean and clean professional portfolio WordPress theme. Due to its aesthetic appearance, it suits a corporate website; photographers, designers, bloggers, illustrators will appreciate its functionality. CleanPortfolio is ready for translation. With excellent adaptability and social media integration, it has everything you need to promote a product / service.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
PHLOX - Multipurpose WP Theme for Business and Creative Portfolio
A modern and powerful theme will become ideal solution for business, bloggers, photographers and travelers. Completely free PHLOX includes various options for designing portfolios and other pages, a customizer, Master Slider, custom widgets, and useful options.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Eight-Degree - Impressive Business Portfolio WordPress Theme
An eye-catching theme for small businesses, corporate portfolios, and a bouncy agency site, customizable to the needs of freelancers, bloggers, and creative professionals. With advanced customizer, you can easily create a beautiful design in the desired style. In favor of choosing a cool and free WP template:
- Highly customizable
- The theme offers several page layouts, customization options
- Stylish CSS 3 animation
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Glaciar Lite - Creative Portfolio & Design WordPress Theme
Great theme for photo portfolio and design website. Responsive, Ready Retina design, animation effects, ease of customization, portfolio based on masonry tiles, galleries, widget sections. The theme is ready for translation.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Tech Literacy is a flexible WordPress theme for creating any type of website
This WP theme is mobile friendly with a clean minimalist design. Suitable for educational website, online store, personal portfolio, agency and startup. Due to its simplicity and flexibility, the theme is suitable for creating any type of website, it has an intuitive Drag & Drop builder. Active installations: 700+.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Business Point - Flexible Multipurpose WordPress Theme for Business / Portfolio
An extremely flexible, responsive business theme with a multifunctional design and tons of options. Suitable for creating a landing page, portfolio, agency, entertainment and information site. Active installs: 2,000+.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Reykjavik - Stylish and Fast WordPress Portfolio Theme
A fresh, fast and lightweight WordPress theme suitable for creating a stylish portfolio, blog or WooCommerce site. Compatible with Beaver builder, Elementor, Visual Composer and other visual page builders. The theme is SEO ready, the code and navigation are optimized for mobile devices, any elements are customizable. Active installations: 1,000+.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
RichOne is a stylish WordPress theme with a timeless clean design
Portfolio theme and blog with visual content: minimalistic Scandinavian style will make photos, art galleries, videos stand out. The theme supports WooCommerce, color changer, logo upload and welcome messages.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Live Portfolio - a simple but effective theme for a beautiful portfolio design
A simple WordPress theme with beautiful css3 effects, custom colors and other customization options.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
York Lite - portfolio template with block design for creative people
A beautiful portfolio WordPress theme suits creative people, photographers, freelancers and agencies. The grid-based layout, large typography and minimalistic style will create a professional website with a timeless design.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Portfolioo - Quality Free Portfolio WordPress Theme
WordPress theme with free design widgets. Suitable for the site of a photographer, designer, developer, software engineer. SEO and Retina Ready Theme uses HTML5/CSS3 and complies with coding standards.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Adagio Lite - professional WordPress theme for portfolio and personal website
A professional theme designed for a memorable personal/business website. The clean and minimalistic design is based on a balanced layout. The theme has a custom header, logo, favicon and 3 widget areas.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Olivo Lite - Original Photo / Design Portfolio WordPress Theme
A theme for those who need to stand out from the crowd to organize a creative portfolio. Created for designers and photographers.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Ignis - Nice WordPress Template for Selling Portfolio Site
Modern portfolio template with multiple blog layouts, color and font options. Use Jetpack to apply portfolio options. Active installations: 3000+.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Portfolio Lite - Minimal Portfolio Theme for Creativity
A modern, professional WP theme with a minimalistic style and a slideshow template for published images. A great option for creative self-expression and creating a creative portfolio for a designer and photographer.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Verity is a stylish portfolio theme for quickly creating a quality website
A minimalistic WordPress theme for creative professionals. Design chips are sacrificed for clarity and unambiguity, and visual simplicity focuses attention on the content. The theme is translation ready, and its functionality will allow you to create a stylish modern blog or portfolio site without any coding.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Masonry - Super Minimal Theme for Blog, Portfolio & Agency Website
A clean, aesthetically pleasing theme will suit a personal blog, agency site, personal portfolio and fit into other topics. The theme is optimized for mobile screens and SEO, has valid code, and with an intuitive interface with sticky menus, it's easy to navigate.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Doke Doke - a nice looking theme for a beautiful design of a portfolio site
Nicely designed WordPress theme for a freelancer/creative agency website. Includes all the necessary features to build a professional portfolio and site of a creative person.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Kahuna is a powerful and advanced portfolio WordPress theme with a beautiful design
Kahuna stands out for its exotic design, editable layout and ease of customization. Personal and business websites will benefit from this, including portfolios, blogs and online stores. There are many advantages, here are some: , with RTL the theme is easy to translate, optimized for SEO (microformats & micordata); supports WooCommerce, wide and block layouts, masonry tiles, google fonts, typography options.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Screen is a responsive WP theme with built-in slider and innovative minimalism
The minimalist theme immediately captures attention with a beautiful full-screen slider. The theme is concise and focused on readability – a great choice for a graphic designer, as well as for photographers, bloggers, agency and creative sites.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
WP Generic - portfolio theme for agency and corporate website
Powerful WP-theme will cope with the tasks of business and creative site of any type. Suitable for e-commerce and freelancers. An easy-to-use theme with an intuitive interface is easy to customize with a built-in page builder with a preview of changes, changing colors, fonts, text. Ready for localization.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Emmet Lite - agency and corporate website portfolio theme
WordPress theme with a clean professional design was created for creative and business websites, mainly corporate and portfolio websites. The theme comes with multiple page layouts such as resume, Landing page… and thanks to the built-in WordPress customizer and visual editor content, easily customizable without coding. Compatible with bbPress, BuddyPress plugins and suitable for selling portfolio with WooCommerce. Number of installations: 5,000+.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
HESTIA - An Impressive Multipurpose Creative Agency Website Theme
A fully responsive and customizable WordPress theme has become a good solution for many startups. Sleek ties in beautifully with eCommerce support - great opportunities for building a selling portfolio.
DOWNLOAD | DEMO
Free Portfolio WordPress Themes + PRO Version
Sometimes, in order to increase popularity, developers complete their themes with a Lite version. A modern free theme for WordPress can include almost everything you need to create a high-quality and stylish portfolio site.
This is suitable for both a freelancer and a company preparing a product for quick start. A matter of choice ready template for their business, is often of interest to novice entrepreneurs (the desire to “try the topic” is taken into account).
The free versions of decent WordPress themes have some limitations: by downloading the template and building your site now, you can easily upgrade to a premium theme. Redesigning a WP site with a move to a new theme is incommensurably more difficult and risky than upgrading to a PRO version.
Hi all!
Today, when a significant part of specialists in the field of web development, design and photography prefer remote work, important point for the customer becomes the portfolio of the performer. There are many specialized services that provide the ability to create a simple online business card. But there is another way: creating a portfolio in WordPress using free templates and plugins.
Who needs a portfolio and why?
The term "portfolio", which has firmly taken its place in the lexicon of modern man, in English language means folder with documents. Essentially, it could be like regular folder with paper sheets, and its digital copy. In the digital age electronic documents are widely used and are no less important in business processes, workflow and employment.
First of all, a portfolio is necessary for representatives of creative professions: an actor, model, stylist, graphic designer, photographer, artist, layout designer, web developer, copywriter. What will be the portfolio and its content depends on the type of human activity. The main thing is that it is able to present its owner better than any words.
A portfolio is a visiting card of working achievements, highlighting the successes in the chosen field, fixing the results achieved, characterizing the approach to business. As a rule, it takes a long time to create and fill a solid portfolio. For a professional in his field, the size of such a “folder with projects” becomes impressive over the years.
You can work and receive orders without a portfolio. For an offline employer, sometimes entries in a work book, interview results and aptitude tests are enough. In the online field, the presence of a high-quality portfolio often directly affects the degree of customer confidence and the level of payment.
Online services and WordPress site: pros and cons
There are many online services that give artists the opportunity to post and showcase examples of their work. As a rule, such services are in English and poorly adapted to the needs of specialists and customers of the Russian Internet. But among them there are also sites with a fully translated interface into Russian, such as Bechance and Portfolioopen .
An important point not in favor of third-party sites is their shareware use: you can create (download) only a few examples of work for free, to further expand your portfolio, you will need to purchase a subscription for the amount specified by the service, which is renewed monthly or annually. Also, in some online services, viewing a portfolio for unregistered users is closed, which creates certain difficulties for customers.
An alternative to a specialist portfolio site can be one or more preferred social networks that, according to functionality today they are not much inferior to sites with a portfolio. In addition, social networks offer users a potentially greater reach of interested audiences. To post a portfolio entry level social networks are the simplest of all possible and indeed free options. The disadvantage of placing examples of work in social network is practically complete absence the ability to manage them (edit, structure).
It is also necessary to understand that by choosing a ready-made solution (a page on the site of an online portfolio aggregator), you voluntarily transfer the content you create to the owners of a specialized site, which can stop working at any time and without warning or disable your account for any reason. Therefore, those users who have realized the importance of a portfolio to attract clients and choose a serious approach, sooner or later think about posting works on their site.
Your own WordPress portfolio site is entirely yours. For your project, you can choose its location (hosting), the appropriate form of data presentation and design (template). However, owning your own site implies not only full control, but also full responsibility for all actions performed on the site, its safety and performance.
For each type of content on the plugin settings page there is a corresponding download button, and for each element of the photo or video gallery in the settings you can specify a title, description and set external link. The plugin interface is in English, but at the same time quite simple and understandable.
Portfolio and Projects
Fully responsive portfolio WordPress plugin with creative mobile slider and navigation. Adding a portfolio is done using a shortcode with parameters that specify the number of projects, data display (date, title, description), sort order and layout type (one of four).
Premium version of the plugin Portfolio and Projects contains advanced features: 15 pre-installed portfolio designs, categorization, use of drag and drop projects using the Drag-n-Drop function to display works in the required order, project filtering, etc.
Portfolio by BestWebSoft
Another noteworthy portfolio plugin for WordPress in Russian. Free version works with an unlimited number of projects, to each of which you can add a title, description, images, due date, link. Works are sorted by the following fields: date of creation, number, title, in random order. The number of columns per page is adjustable.
In the screenshot above - only part of the main settings tab of the Russified plugin Portfolio by BestWebSoft. The user is also invited to download demo data to get acquainted with the possibilities of creating a cool portfolio site on WordPress. And switching to the premium version of the plugin adds the ability to manually sort examples of work and adds a breakdown of projects into categories.
WP Portfolio
A wonderful plugin for creating a portfolio on WordPress in Russian, unfortunately, it has not been updated for more than a year. A lot of blogger reviews are devoted to this advanced tool. The plugin allows you to create adaptive design portfolio, fully customizable layout (via HTML and CSS), supports project grouping.
You can enable/disable sort and filter buttons, customize thumbnails, paginate content, add links to work, create an unlimited number of custom fields in each listing, and much more.
Conclusion
A well-made portfolio and, moreover, your own website, can open up many opportunities for a freelance specialist remote contact With potential clients. At the same time, such a site does not require special knowledge and significant efforts: the process of creating and configuring a site on WordPress is currently able to be mastered by everyone. And a huge variety of specialized templates and plugins allows you to get a product that looks stylish and professional. For those who do not have the desire and / or opportunity to create their own portfolio, I strongly recommend that you look at the section of my blog.