Setting up your portfolio theme to show off your work can be a daunting task. The first obstacle that stands in your way is your choice of Wordpress theme. The right theme will convey the message you want about your work. The wrong theme, while visually appealing, might turn off your site visitors or give them the wrong impression about your work.On top of that, you have to choose between a paid and free theme. While most paid themes are visually stunning, they can also be quite pricey. Free themes are, well, free but they can also look "cheap" and lack features found in paid themes. Fortunately, there are some free themes worth considering.
1. Portfolio Press Theme
Portfolio Press is a clean WordPress portfolio theme. Visually, it's very simplistic and includes the following features:- Simple 2-column layout with the ability to display as many photos as you want in a three-column photo albumn in a tile format.
- Hovering over any of the pictures in the layout will display the title of the photo.
- You can swap out photos in the portfolio, add tags, and even set the portfolio as the homepage.
2. Creative by Nature
This theme was created by CSSMayo.com for Smashing Magazine and its readers and features:- The ability to easily add and remove portfolio photos.
- Separate and distinct areas for your work, blog, headlines, and upcoming projects.
- A very artistic feel.
3. Fotofolio:
Fotofolio is a beautiful free WordPress theme that you can use to showcase your best art, photographs or graphic designs. The gallery features:- A main display photo with clever image placement and CSS, giving the main photo a drop-shadow.
- Five images under the main image.
- Images automatically rotate.
- A text area for testimonials and client reviews.
- A text area next to the testimonials that you can use to input arbitrary text.
- A subtle navigation menu off to the left of the photo gallery.
4. Viewport:
This theme was created by Paul Bennett. This theme features:- A fully configurable sidebar and background.
- Stunning visual portfolio homepage that draws visitors into the site.
- A content-driven theme with subtle navigation menu.
- A well-placed text area for arbitrary text.
5.The Unstandard
This theme is definitely unstandard. Be careful though, since version 2.0 is a complete rewrite of the theme and requires that you have Wordpress 3.0 installed. Features include:- A two-column layout.
- Three widget-enabled zones.
- A clean layout with a five-photo gallery.
- A simple and subtle navigation menu.
6. Work-a-holic
Work-a-holic theme showcases your best work in a layout that is very flexible. Its features include:- Fully-customizable navigation menu. Many free themes lack this basic functionality or make it difficult to edit or remove nav menus.
- A clean, grid-style, layout.
- The ability to post thumbnails, crop, and sort content all from the back-end of Wordpress.
- A fully widgetized site. Choose from existing widgets or upload your own custom ones for added functionality.
- A discrete navigation menu, category menu, blogroll, and recent posts menu that doesn't distract users from the content.
7. Hatch
This responsive theme is both stunning and simple. It features:- A text area justified to the left of the main portfolio image.
- A gallery of images under the main photo.
- Minimalistic design.
- A calender, tags, and text widget under the main gallery.
- A subtle drop-down style menu.
8. Nova Nova
It is a sleek, responsive, theme that features:- A slideshow gallery.
- Auto-rotation of your work in the gallery.
- Three content areas below the slideshow.
- A simple drop-down menu.
9. Simple Grid
The simple grid showcases all of your work in a grid format. It features:- A simple layout.
- Photo titles and description on mouse-over.
- Uncluttered navigation menu.
- Footer widgets.
10. Panoramica
Panoramica is a free theme that focuses on providing an excellent user experience, regardless of the screen size. It features:- A fully fluid layout so your visitors see what you intended for them to see, regardless of screen size.
- Fully customizable widgets and text areas.
- Automatic or manual slider to display your portfolio.
- Description of your gallery images on mouse-over.
Conclusion The best way to figure out which theme is best for you is to test drive a few of them. Put up a feedback form on your site and ask for visitor feedback. Finally, do a monitored user test similar to what usability expert Jakob Nielson does. Gather about 10 to 20 people together and sit them in a room with you.
Ask them to navigate your site while you site back and analyze how easy or difficult it is for users to move through your portfolio. Ask users to write down or tell you their experience while they are using the site. Use this information to make tweaks to your layout and site design.
Isaac About the Guest Author:
Isaac writes for Dewsign,a full service web development agency in London. Dewsign create award winning web designers in London producing websites for e-commerce, big brands, Universities and more.