I belong to several web design groups on the net and one of the biggest questions from newcomers is, How Do I Create a Portfolio? They are wise to understand that a good portfolio is their ticket to landing jobs and building their reputation. This is whether you are a web designer, graphic artist or photographer. What you put in your portfolio is, of course, of paramount importance. At first, you won’t have much, but don’t throw just any old piece into the portfolio to bulk it up. Even when just starting out, having a handful of really outstanding examples is better than having more mediocre ones. Later, as your portfolio and reputation grow, make it a rule of thumb to delete one or two old pieces when adding something recent.
Now that you have in your mind what your portfolio should contain, we will next deal with how to get it online. The sky is the limit but even if you’re just starting out with little or no budget for a professionally-designed web site, you can still get online. Spend a few dollars for one of the premium packages below and you’ll be set for a number of years.
- A Good Portfolio
- Pricing?
- $7/month; $70/year. Free plan limits you to 25 images, no custom domain, premade themes.
- Custom Domain?
- With premium plan only.
- Custom Design?
- With premium plan only.
- Other Features?
- Drag and drop photos; bulk uploader; multiple albums; unlimited descriptions.
- Behance
- Pricing?
- Behance.net account with unlimited portfolio capabilities is free. Behance also has a paid service called ProSite, which is a hosted portfolio services that syncs your Behance.net projects with your ProSite web site. It costs $11/month.
- Custom Domain?
- With ProSite, yes; with Behance.net, no.
- Custom Design?
- With ProSite, yes; with Behance.net, no.
- Other Features?
- Unlimited “Projects.”
- Big Black Bag
- Pricing?
- Prices range from $49/year for the Student package up to $249/year for the Pro Unlimited package; there are a lot of a la cart items that drive the price up.
- Custom Domain?
- Yes
- Custom Design?
- Yes
- Other Features?
- Ecommerce; custom event proofing; lightboxes; password-protected pages; media search; FTP; web states and more.
- Carbonmade
- Pricing?
- There are two packages, Meh (5 projects, 35 images, ads), free; and Whoo (50 projects, 500 images, 10 videos, ad-free), $17/month
- Custom Domain?
- Only with Whoo package
- Custom Design?
- Yes
- Other Features?
- Project “hiding” with Whoo package
- Coroflot
- Pricing?
- Free
- Custom Domain?
- No.
- Custom Design?
- No.
- Other Features?
- Coroflot is more like a community of graphic designers and other creatives. You can create your online portfolio and browse design jobs available, join an online community of other creatives and more.
- Creative Hot List
- Pricing?
- Signup and listing is free; creation of a portfolio requires purchase of Hotlist Tools, which are $35/month for 6 months.
- Custom Domain?
- No.
- Custom Design?
- No, but you can choose from several premade themes.
- Other Features?
- This is more of a listing services that hooks up creative with those wishing to hire. You can join as an individual, as a company/studio, or as a recruiter.
- Folio Link
- Pricing?
- Pricing ranges from $99/year (Edu) to $649/year (Pro), but that gets you a number of features.
- Custom Domain?
- No
- Custom Design?
- Yes
- Other Features?
- The Pro package offers client and proofing areas, cloud storage, image archiving, ecommerce and more.
- Pixpa
- Pricing?
- Pixpa has a non-nonsense pricing plan that’s right for everyone. All features are included in each plan, the only difference is the number of images allowed.
- Custom Domain?
- Yes
- Custom Design?
- Yes
- Other Features?
- Connect with social media, private client login, SEO, Google Analytics, Contact Form, Booking Calendar, iPad and iPhone enabled and more.
- qFolio
- qFolio is unlike the other portfolio solutions presented here. It’s completely managed by qFolio. You have to upload and submit the images, pages, text, and other content you want on your site, and they will quote you a price for all of this, along with your monthly “lease” fee. When you want to update your site, you have to submit your changes to qFolio once more. It’s great if you want absolutely no hands-on dealings with your portfolio, preferring to hand off management of it to qFolio. But that comes at a steep price.Pricing?
- You have to submit your content and qFolio will get back to you with a quote. They have some a la cart pricing as well.
- Custom Domain?
- Yes
- Custom Design?
- Yes
- Other Features?
- Pages, digital image scanning, portable (PDF) portfolio.
- Viewbook
- Pricing?
- There are several pricing plans, ranging from $48-190 a year, limiting the number of images, the number of additional pages, and the presence of ads.
- Custom Domain?
- Only with the Pro package
- Custom Design?
- Only with the Pro package
- Other Features?
- All plans include mobile galleries optimized for viewing on Smartphones, iPads and other tablets, password protection, ecommerce with Fotomoto.com, SEO, social media and tech support.
FolioLink is for the professional photographer more than the creative, but creatives can use its services. The pricing is steep, so if you are not a professional photographer, there is likely a cheaper, more appropriate solution for you than FolioLink.
Well I lied. There aren’t ten portfolio solutions here; there are a Baker’s dozen! Yep, you get three more simply because we believe that choosing the right portfolio service is paramount to your success, and simply had trouble choosing which ones to include in the Top Ten. So here are three more!
- Sortfolio
- Pricing?
- Base account is free; Pro, which allows six thumbnails of your work rather than one and lets you embed your logo, is a steep $99/month.
- Custom Domain?
- No.
- Custom Design?
- No.
- Other Features?
- Your listing is displayed by city, and naturally all Pro listings are shown before base listings. So the impetus, besides showing five more pieces of your work, is to get displayed higher on your city’s listing page.
- Jobrary
- Pricing?
- Completely free.
- Custom Domain?
- No, but you can have YOURNAME.jobrary.com.
- Custom Design?
- No.
- Other Features?
- This is just another avenue to get your portfolio out there. you can create several different galleries and upload photos, images and video. Jobrary also lets you create an entire resume, with job histories and educational background. So this is basically LinkedIn meets Behance.net!
- Zenfolio
- Pricing?
- There are plans to suit every need, from $25/year to $250/year.
- Custom Domain?
- Yes, except with Basic plan
- Custom Design?
- Yes.
- Other Features?
- ZenFolio has so many features present in all packages. It seems the logical choice for your online portfolio.
I saved the best for last. There are just so many great features in ZenFolio — even with the basic package — that it’s hard to think you would consider any of the other solutions above.
So there you have it. A nice round-up of possibilities for getting your portfolio online. What are you waiting for?!
Joni Mueller has been designing web sites for hire since 2003, when she first blew up her web host’s server by insisting on running Greymatter. Since then, Joni has designed for Blogger and Movable Type, TextPattern, WordPress and CMS Made Simple. She lives with her cat and shoe collection in a bucolic old section of Houston called Idylwood. For some strange reason, Joni likes to refer to herself in the third person. When she’s not working on web design, she’s ordering lawyers around. And blogging about it. Or both.
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