Recently, we showed you how to create a filterable portfolio and included a free starter theme suitable for portfolio sites. However, if you’re more of a designer than a developer, customizing a starter theme might not be what you prefer to do. To save you the time, we’re going to showcase three great WordPress themes that will fit any portfolio site. Best of all, they’re free and you can download them straight from your WordPress dashboard.
The first theme in our showcase is Portfolio Press, by Devin Price. Portfolio Press is a simple, responsive theme that will showcase your work. With over 440,000+ downloads in the WordPress.org directory, you can’t go wrong.
To setup your portfolio, download and activate Portfolio Press from your WordPress dashboard. Create a new page and choose the following page template: ‘Full Width Image and Gallery Posts.’ Next, go to your Settings > Reading > and update your Front page to be the portfolio page you created. For posting, simply create a new post, choose the Image Post Format, and add a featured image. After adding posts, you’ll have a great new portfolio site.
Fukasawa, by Anders Noren, is another great option. While the developer does not list the theme as a portfolio theme like Portfolio Press, the grid layout is popular among artists to showcase their work. Its minimalistic design can make any site look great.
Set up of Fukasawa is couldn’t be easier: Create a new post and add a featured image. You can choose whether you want the post with a featured image to display a title or not by selecting the Image Post Format. Posts with simply text without image also look great on the homepage.
If you like a drag and drop experience when publishing, Make by the Theme Foundry would be a good choice. Its popularity is clear when you see there’s over 240,000 downloads on WordPress.org.
Make lets you customize everything from your background color, create custom layouts, and choose different fonts for your site. The Theme Foundry offers excellent documentation to help get you going with your portfolio site. The Make theme is also a good choice if you like your site to have a more professional feel to it.
While the above themes are all spectacular to choose for your portfolio site, we still want to encourage anyone to get into WordPress theme development.
Here are some resources to get you started:
Underscores.me (for generating a starter theme)
Have you used these themes before? What other ones would you recommend?