A good portfolio is characterized by a few key attributes. It needs to immediately identify who you are and what you do. It needs to highlight your contact information in a prominent place. And–most importantly–it needs to showcase your best work for all to see.
There are plenty of free portfolio themes out there for WordPress and we’ve gathered up 20+ of them here to ensure you have plenty of options to choose from
Photomania – Free stock photos WordPress theme
ThePhotomania WordPress theme has a visually impressive layout, with a modern and responsive design. This is a photography theme, so all of the images show up in a portfolio. We recommend it for photographers or even agencies with images from their past work. The custom background adds a nice touch to the entire theme, while the custom colors and logos are easy to change around and brand your site. You also receive a custom menu for guiding your users around your site.
What’s more is that the theme provides featured images for all of the blog post previews. Furthermore, the footer area allows for custom widgets such as social media buttons or recent post listings. You get a right and left sidebar if you activate them, and the two column layout organizes your content in a professional manner. Along with translation features, threaded comments, and some solid theme options, the Photomania theme delivers.
back to menu ↑Enigma – simple personal recent works wordpress theme
Consider theEnigma theme you’re looking for an option with tons of settings and capabilities. The theme provides responsive elements that snap into place when viewed on a smaller device. You can use it for business, blogging or for a portfolio, but we recommend combining all of these functionalities to make it a great place for people to stop by. Support for WooCommerce is strong, so when you implement the plugin it only requires you to upload your products, connect your payment processor and start selling. Five widgets are available for customization, and the dark and light skins give you a little flexibility in terms of branding. Change your logos and other settings on the organized backend, and use the translation files to expand your reach to people all over the globe.
The custom backgrounds and menus are ideal for finding a look that agrees with your business, and the featured images are revealed on the homepage as a feed of your most recent blog posts. Choose how many columns and sidebars you want, and utilize the widgets to make the design process a little easier. Widgets and sidebars are also useful to organize your information in a reasonable format. As you may have assumed, this is a free theme with support for a beautiful portfolio. You can break down your past work into different categories and display small thumbnail images for users to click through and read more about your work. The threaded comments are there for you to chat with your potential customers, and the overall design is something that most creatives should agree with.
back to menu ↑Talon – just another porfolio theme
TheTalon theme is one of our favorites for constructing a beautiful portfolio website. It serves both freelancers and companies, with a stunning responsive layout and a large slider/header area. What’s cool is that you can select what type of header you would like. For example, some people choose a slider, while others go with a static image. Changing around colors only takes a few clicks of the button, and the bundled icons can be expanded if you’d like. The theme is 100% translation ready, just in case you’d like to adjust the default language.
TheTalon theme offers a solid set of Google Fonts, and this combines nicely with the page builder support, since you really don’t have to use any code to put together your website. The widgetized footer allows you to insert a wide variety of widgets such as social media buttons or content lists. The default blog layout is pretty simple, but they do give you an option to switch this to a masonry grid.
back to menu ↑Pure – clean, white and minimalist porfolio theme
The Pure theme from GT3 themes is aptly named because it offers a minimaldesign that’s not cluttered up with unnecessary features or distractions. It’s pure design, plain and simple. It includes a dropdown menu, a custom header, a grid layout, and a variety of filters for displaying your pages.
For your blog posts, you can post using a variety of formats including Masonry, single image, full-width, single YouTube, single Vimeo, and single slider. Pure also lets you customize a variety of elements of your pages and posts including testimonials, tabs, message boxes, progress bars, icons, custom buttons, and more.
back to menu ↑Slider – Simple slider theme
The last theme in this collection is another offering from Dessign. Slider is a responsive theme that lets you set a custom background and offers a modern design that can easily complement your portfolio. It’s built on XHTML and CSS and is compatible with all the latest browsers.
This theme also comes with a useful theme options panel for making easy customizations. It also allows for custom menus and includes free updates. It’s simple and looks good doing it. What more could you ask for?
back to menu ↑Mixfolio
If you want a dynamic portfolio based on HTML5 and CSS3, you should check out Mixfolio by Graph Paper Press. With this theme, you can create a variety of types of sites all using the same layout options. Create image, gallery, video, or regular blog posts with just the click of a button.
This theme is 100% responsive and can be customized easily to add your own header, logo, background image or color, favicon, menus, fonts, and more. It also comes with custom widgets and page templates so you can create the kind of site you want with minimal hassle.
back to menu ↑Pictorico – grid porfolio wordpress theme
The Pictorico theme was created by Automattic and provides a streamlined grid layout for displaying your latest projects or pieces for the world to see. It comes with a post slider for highlighting your very best work and lets you set featured posts and featured images for drawing further attention to precisely what you want to call attention to.
Other features include a variety of post formats, sticky posts, custom widgets, custom menus, custom header and footer, and custom backgrounds. A premium upgrade is available that lets you change colors and other CSS elements.
back to menu ↑Illustrious
Illustrious is another offering from CPOThemes and features a stylish slideshow on the homepage to really capture attention. Add background images and use as many slides as you want, including captions. Basically, you can build precisely the kind of site you want to create with minimal hassle.
This theme is responsive, of course, so it looks great on any device and includes custom page layouts for added convenience. You can also select from five sidebar layouts, swap out the header and footer, and use custom post types. Illustrious is also compatible with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads, plus it allows for unlimited colors, custom shortcodes, and includes Google Fonts.
back to menu ↑Svelte
The Svelte theme by Themecobradefinitely makes a statement. It’s a part of the minimalist design movement, to be sure, and its use of bold imagery and space is something to be praised. It’s perfect for a photography portfolio and includes plenty of customization options to keep tinkerers satisfied.
Features include a multi-use template, responsive layout, keyboard navigation, featured slideshow, retina optimization, social media icons, multi-language support, and free updates. It also includes a theme customizer for easily modifying colors, fonts, icons, and textures.
back to menu ↑Widely
Developed by Themes Kingdom, Widely is designed with portfolios in mind and offers a simple website that puts your imagery front and center. It comes with a white labeled theme admin panel that allows for customization. It also uses several post formats like aside, gallery, link, images, quote, video, and audio.
Several page templates are included as well as a shortcode generator for quickly creating columns, quotes, buttons, and more. Other features include custom widgets, Google Maps, a contact form, translation support, and plenty of other resources and support.
back to menu ↑Creative – with big slider
Created by Dessign, the Creative theme is a great choice for displaying a portfolio for a creative agency. The layout is simple yet effective, offering a straightforward way to display your best work. The layout is responsive, too, so it can easily be viewed on mobile devices.
Other features include a responsive slider, custom menus, SEO-friendly design, and compatibility with all current browsers. It also comes with a theme options panel that allows you to customize the background image and color, fonts, and more. This free theme comes with support and is updated regularly.
back to menu ↑Espied – Portfolio theme for designers
The Espied theme was created by Automattic and is another simple portfolio that offers plenty of features to keep designers satisfied. It’s perfect for anyone wanting to show off photography, artwork, or web design. So long as the center of attention is images, this theme ought to suffice.
This theme is responsive and uses the built-in Portfolio feature in WordPress to create stunning layouts and intuitive organization for all of your latest projects. You have the option of displaying images at full-width as well as in landscape, portrait, and square aspect ratios. The portfolio shortcode makes it easy to inserta portfolioanywhere you want. It also comes with social links, widgets, and more.
back to menu ↑Snaps
Snaps is another offering from Graph Paper Press that lets you put your portfolio front and center. It’s designed for displaying portrait images and can be used for artwork and photography. The layout is completely responsive, so it’ll look just as good on a mobile device as it would on a desktop.
This theme also comes with a customizer for changing out the logo, header, favicon, background color and image, menus, fonts, and more. You can also add custom widgets and make use of a variety of posttypes, too including images, galleries, audio, video, links, quotes, and standard.
back to menu ↑Integral – one page theme
TheIntegral WordPress theme offers a beautiful business website structure with a full portfolio. The header features a large image area, and you can have overlaying text and buttons that serve as call to actions. As a one page theme, you’ll gain access to quite a few content rows. For example, one of them is made just for your past work. The portfolio shows your projects in a simple and elegant manner, and the rich color scheme can be switched between dark and light options. Furthermore, the Integral theme offers a beautiful parallax effect for grabbing attention.
We like the blog layout that comes by default, and the custom background helps out a bit with branding. The theme presents several settings for custom colors, headers, and menus, and it lets you integrate with an eCommerce plugin such as WooCommerce. The featured images look large and bold, while the full width template comes in handy when you’re trying to clear out the clutter. Several columns can be utilized, and the right sidebar provides a space to insert your widgets. Some of the other features include sticky posts, language support, threaded comments, and translations.
back to menu ↑Hatch – free Wp theme for Photographer
The totally classy Hatch theme was developed by AlienWP and is a knockout in terms of style and presentation. It can be used to display your photography or other work and is optimized for any device size. You can customize it via child themes. It also uses core WordPress features like the standard media uploader and gallery.
Other features include a custom header and background, widgets, theme settings, a lightbox, and the ability to match the theme to a variety of contact form plugins. It’s also translation-ready.
back to menu ↑Portfolio Press – Artwork, photography, graphic design showcase WP theme
Portfolio Press by WP Theming is a free theme that’s perfect for showing off your latest works in a straightforward way. It doesn’t have much by way of bells and whistles but it does offer a clean interface that presents your photography, web design, art pieces, or other projects beautifully.
Even if you’re not creating a portfolio, this theme is a great choice because it can be used as a stylish blog. The theme options panel lets you easily set a custom logo and modify the layout. Use image, quote, and gallery post types if you want. There’s even a full-width layout option to really put all eyes on your content.
back to menu ↑Portfolio – simple portfolio theme
Designed by GavickPro, the Portfolio theme is about as clean as you can get. It’s simple, sophisticated and a stunning way to display your best work. This free theme comes with all sorts of features and is quite intuitive to use. For starters, it doesn’t bog down your site since it uses a relatively light framework. The layout is really appealing and uses reveal animations to add a dynamic element to your posts and photos.
The theme’s design is responsive, so it looks great on any device and includes a whole host of features like social media icons and share buttons and support for Disqus to encourage greater site visitor interaction. Portfolio also makes use of the Theme Customizer to give you control over color schemes, animations, fonts (including Google Fonts), and layouts.
back to menu ↑Emmet Lite
Check out theEmmet Lite theme if you’re interested in a clean and professional design with support for corporate websites and portfolios. This is a theme that’s completely integrated with the WordPress customizer, and it comes with a page builder so that everyone can make their website without touching any code. We like this for both advanced developers and beginners, considering it speeds up the process and ensures that nothing gets screwed up in the source code. TheEmmet Lite theme integrates well with a wide variety of third party plugins. For example, you can install the WooCommerce plugin if you plan on selling anything through an online store. In addition, bbPress and BuddyPress both work with theEmmet Lite theme, allowing for social networks and forums, both of which are essential in building a community around your portfolio.
Custom colors and menus are provided when you download the free theme, enabling an environment that is friendly to companies that want to brand however they want. The responsive layout is great for people who want to bring up your portfolio on the go, while the translation ready files are there to assist users who may not be able to understand your content in English. The full blog acts as a way to give out free articles to your users, but it also comes in handy if you’d like to boost your search engine rankings. Each of your blog posts are highlighted on the homepage, and they include featured images that get cut down to a smaller size without you doing anything. We like theEmmet Lite WordPress theme for its simplicity and flexibility, so give it a try for your next portfolio.
back to menu ↑Ignis
TheIgnisWordPress theme delivers a sleek design and bold lettering for making a statement with your portfolio website. Besides being free, theIgnis theme has several benefits including the fact that it supportsJetpack’s Portfolio custom post type. This allows you to display your portfolio items in a more professional manner, while also making it easier to organize and manage them on the backend. The theme is completely responsive for viewing on all devices like tablets and smartphones. Not to mention, the theme options area looks powerful and ready to control anything from colors to fonts. The header media allows for a video or picture, both of which have overlaying text for a bold introduction. A blog comes with theIgnis theme, and three layouts are packaged into the theme so you can choose which one works best for interacting with your clients and visitors.
Enjoy access to some awesome Google Fonts, and use the translation ready tools so that everyone around the world can understand the words on your website. A live customizer allows you to adjust items on your site, while the online shop integration ensures that you can sell anything from merchandise to books and services through your site. Quite a few animations are provided through theIgnis WordPress theme. Therefore, whenever a potential client scrolls through your portfolio they may see a quick change in colors or a zoom-in effect that draws their attention into a certain portfolio piece. Overall,Ignis has a minimalist feel, with plenty of white space and room for your content to breathe.
back to menu ↑Astrid
TheAstrid WordPress theme is one of our favorites, because it’s one of the quickest free solutions for building a stunning business website. Yes, a portfolio is included, and it looks simple and modern for your clients to find relevant content without any problems. Color options and fonts are all managed on the backend, and you can choose from a seemingly endless amount of these settings to find your ideal branding setup. The blog assists with boosting your search engine rankings, while the custom widgets are there to turn your design process into somewhat of a drag and drop situation. A full width header image is offered for you to upload high resolution photos. The header has overlaying text and buttons to send users to other parts of your website, and to announce new blog posts or promotions.
Translation settings are included with theAstrid theme, bringing your portfolio work to people from other cultures. The responsive design empowers users to open up your website on mobile devices. Although this seems simple, it’s particularly important for portfolio sites, considering a client is more likely to open up a link to your portfolio on a tablet or phone. The header does have a slider if you want to use it, and video support is one of the key features for choosing this theme. A footer background image is there for branding your site a little better, and the button styling options can work wonders if you do a little A/B testing to see which styles work best. The theme provides a spot to highlight the workers on your team, with images, descriptions and more. Along with testimonials, the portfolio offers thumbnail images that you don’t have to edit beforehand. The quick animations and links are sure to convince people to click through your past work items and eventually hire you for a job.
