Portfolio Website Examples: Inspiration to Show Off Your Work
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The slideshow resume is dead. Long live the online portfolio!
The design revolution is truly waging its war in 2020. Gone are the days of image carousels and unprofessional screenshots.
2020 gives rise to the era of the dynamic web portfolio, characterized by animation, interactive design, and immersive video experiences.
For creatives, consultants, and designers, your online portfolio should be a story-driven narrative that articulates your design process and showcases your prize pieces.
Forget what you’ve heard before. This season’s portfolio website trends show that it’s time to ditch the packed portfolio — you need quality over quantity.
Instead, use these portfolio website examples as inspiration in designing a sleek, streamlined online portfolio that shows each prospective client every trick up your sleeve.
Portfolio Website Examples: Using Galleries to Signpost Clients
Galleries are a user-friendly and easy navigation technique to clearly signpost your web design experience and industry relevance to future clients.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: Aristide Benoist
Digital designer Aristide Benoist harnesses a sleek vertical gallery to direct prospective clients to industry-specific examples of their work.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #2: Parsons Branding
Parsons Branding elegantly leads visitors through an interactive gallery.
Clients can scroll through all projects at once, or can narrow down their search with clear industry-specific indexing.
Portfolio Website Examples: Brandishing Brand Names to Leverage Your Top Clients’ Reputation
Since 98% of all customers look for a ‘trust symbol’ to sway their purchasing decisions, it seems wise to show proof that your brand can be trusted.
The portfolio examples below establish brand trust by using huge text to flaunt recognizable client names.
Catchy typography and famous brand names act as social proof and as a ‘trust symbol’ of your work experience.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: Safari Riot
Safari Riot lets its experience speak using a bold sans serif font to highlight their most recognizable brands first.
A pop-up greets visitors that hover over each brand name, displaying a video sample of an advert produced by Safari Riot.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #2: Build in Amsterdam
Build in Amsterdam places Adidas as the central visual focus point in its photo-centric scrolling gallery to boast its prolific client base.
Lesser-known clients can be found by scrolling through the gallery, while a mouseover action will bring up a small summary to engage clients.
Portfolio Website Examples: Leverage Landing Pages to Tell Clients What You Do
Using a good tagline on your landing page tells prospective clients exactly what problem you solve as soon as they touch down to establish immediate relevance to their needs.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: The Papestielliz
The Papestielliz’s landing page opens with an animated typography tagline concisely explaining the design duo’s services.
The animated header deletes and replaces the last word with different terms, such as ‘ideas’ and ‘growth’ to show the company’s diverse expertise.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #2: Kalo
Design firm, Kalo, uses monochrome minimalism to prominently state its solutions on the landing page of their design portfolio website.
A simple sans-serif font is used to infer simplicity.
Portfolio Website Examples: Displaying a Menu of Featured Projects for Quick Navigation
Your prospective clients only spend 60–120 seconds looking at each portfolio that crosses their desks.
So, in the spirit of speed, you need to direct potential clients to your best work with a ‘Featured Projects’ menu on the landing page of your portfolio site.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: Adam Ho
Interactive designer, Adam Ho uses a pop-up navigation menu (in red, above) on his homepage to promptly direct prospective clients to his best and most recent projects.
The menu can be hidden if not needed, making it a useful tool without imposing.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #2: Object
Design and technology company, Object, harnesses an interactive typography menu to highlight its top projects.
Visitors scroll to these featured projects first, before seeing anything else on the website.
Portfolio Website Examples: Looping Promotional Video to Give Clients a Taster
Show off your style and experience with a quick montage video that flicks through portfolio samples.
A/B testing by outcome-based video marketing firm, Eyeview Digital, shows that video content can increase conversions by up to 80%.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: João Veríssímo
To kick off his digital design portfolio, João Veríssímo’s embedded landing page video features a selection of video clips that gives customers a brief insight into his design process in action.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #2: Agentur Loop
This design firm uses a full-screen landing page video that offers filmed snippets of the company’s previous work.
The quickfire succession gives the impression of diversity and breadth of experience.
Portfolio Website Examples: Employing Hyper-Realistic Graphic Design to Bring Finished Products to Life
Finished products help manifest customer visions.
Hyper-realistic imagery shows what your brand can do in real life, and the tangible deliverables that customers can expect from your work.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: Robin Mastro Marino
Interactive web designer Robin Mastro Marino uses hyper-realistic graphics of iPhones to demonstrate finished, interactive, mobile-ready websites.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #2: ToyFight
A digital and non-digital design company, ToyFight brings its design capabilities to life with hyper-realistic 3D graphic design.
The digital product mock-ups demonstrate completed work for previous clients, while the wrestling figures simultaneously show off their aptitudes to prospective clients.
Portfolio Website Examples: Presenting Multimedia Use Cases To Show Process
When demonstrating expertise and experience, a ‘show don’t tell’ approach sucks in clients by showcasing your process and immersing them within it.
The best portfolio case studies have more than simply images — they should tell the story of a firm’s process and value in dynamic ways.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: Explose
Digital design firm, Explose, packs each use case in its design portfolio with graphics, video, text, and sound.
Multimedia presentation enrolls their prospective clients on a multisensory and emotive journey through Explose’s vision, design process, and action steps, while still showcasing the finished product.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #2: Pascal Hegemann
Exhibiting his branding finesse, Pascal Hegemann displays his finished products in multiple content formats.
Each use case uses photography, digital imagery, video, animation, and more to demonstrate his toolbox of branding skills.
Portfolio Website Examples: Plugging In Interactive Elements to Engage Clients
Interactive design involves the clients by responding to their movements. This creates a responsive relationship where the elements on your portfolio site can influence a client’s attention or behavior.
Portfolio websites use this technique to guide clients through their lookbooks.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: No Format
No Format’s portfolio site features an interactive landing page.
Visitors are greeted by a huge scrolling eye that interacts with visitors by following mouse movements.
This perks the visitor’s attention while showcasing the firm’s digital design aptitude.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: Mariano Pascual
Illustrator and visual artist, Mariano Pascual offers visitors a fully interactive experience when showcasing his artwork in his personal portfolio.
The fun, retro theme offers a throwback to earlier days of computing, while sounds and animation keep visitors impressed and entertained.
Portfolio Website Examples: Adding Animated Menus to Establish Charisma
Menu animation gives your website a sleek, modern feel that softens transitions between sections within your portfolio.
Adding this element elevates the professionalism exuded by your site.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: Rally Interactive
Rally Interactive’s portfolio website opens straight to a responsive scrolling menu of use cases.
The colored geometric graphic design elements float on screen, giving a calming and futuristic feel.
Reactive to mouse touchpoints, these animated menu elements fly around the screen when clicked.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #2: Ben Mingo
Branding expert, Ben Mingo, uses animation for more lively navigation between projects.
Animated elements include rippling images, along with color-changing titles and responsive ‘drag’ navigation.
Portfolio Website Examples: Use Games To Keep Visitors Engaged
Gamification is a top way to influence behavior online.
Introducing games to your portfolio not only shows impressive web design, but it also hooks in your visitors and keeps them on the line.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #1: Bruno Simon
This stunning display of immersive interactive design lets the visitor drive a digital car around a treasure map of Bruno Simon’s creative design portfolio website.
Not only is the game addictive (you can knock down letters!), it’s a demonstrative way of showing the designer’s skills.
Portfolio Example of this Strategy #2: Erik Bernacchi
Also featuring a retro computing theme, Erik Bernacchi offers his web design portfolio as a desktop file alongside a series of interactive microgames.
While demonstrating Bernnachi’s capacity as a designer, the games also encourage engagement and invite further click-throughs.
Conclusion
If you’re putting together a portfolio website, creativity is key in 2020.
Harnessing interactive elements and responsive design, online portfolio websites are immersing users in a multi-sensory experience to both stand out and increase engagement.
Support the storytelling nature of your use cases with multimedia presentation of projects, complemented by sleek web design elements that guide visitors through your creative portfolio.
Remember that your online portfolio serves to exemplify your skills. For web designers and digital creatives, a portfolio website offers you a stellar opportunity to show off your design finesse.
