Suggestions for free WordPress themes for portfolio ?

alexk

I was wondering if anyone has a good suggestion of a wordpress theme for portfolios? Something clean and simple like artsation's themes? I'm also open to paying for a good theme

PixelMasher

I would just use artstation to be honest, way more benefits than a random portfolio site.

alexk

It seems like that's what everyone else is telling me too

If anyone else stumbles onto this thread, I actually found a WordPress plugin called Elementor and if you use their Elementor canvas, it acts as a visual wordpress page builder. Allowing you to make the style of page you want

Jonas Ronnegard

Yeah I really see no reason to really use anything else than Artstation at the moment, I look for people from time to time and even before I see the actual page I sigh a bit when I see that they are not using artstation, I guess it's mostly because it's faster to have a similar layout to move around in, especially if you have to go through a ton of them.

YF_Sticks

From what I heard from podcasts with recruiters and industry veterans, just use Artstation (like all the people above mentioned). Everyone knows it. It looks very good and clean and it's easy to manage.

carvuliero

I found it odd normally ppl don't agree on anything but for some reason everyone is mad about artstation

Whats all that worship about a portfolio site ? There is literally ton of post here in which everyone is spamming the same thing forget it make yourself an artstation

Is it just the most popular at the moment just like cghub was before that and cgsociety before that , I cant really see anything special about artstation , I personally liked cghub a lot more to be honest artstation is bad copy of cghub

Is just lazy artist don't want to bother making their own website , and if there is someone who still want to be different is immediately spammed with dont bother go to artstation

Concentrating power in one spot has never created anything good , just check last few thousand years of history

JordonBritz

@carvuliero Not that there's really anything wrong with a personal site, but I think it has more to do with the benefits of artstation as opposed to artists being lazy. With artstation, your work is often viewed more and it's much more easily accessible. Not to mention recruiters are more used to the layout, so it makes going through your work that much easier if a company is looking at your work for a position.

If you're looking for a job you really want as much exposure and attention to your work as possible, especially if you're trying to break into the industry. I think artstation provides that and then some.

Biomag

Recruiters prefer it, art directors prefer it, other artists prefer it,... so let's not go with it and instead do something else!


Artstation is cheap, brings exposure, is simple, is known, people can find you through a quick search even if they don't know your proper name - and if the site is down, everybody knows its not about you messing something up, so they probably will come back and check later.

But everybody should do what he / she prefers. Though keep in mind you will be measured on the quality and accessibility that comes with artstation. If your solution is slower, cumbersome to use, has a bad layout or anything else negative it will be put on you and your application and no excuse will stick it to the site. Looking at application process being a process of looking for reasons to eliminate people you should be really aware of what risks you are willing to take to do your own thing.

PixelMasher

@carvuliero
 I've posted this quite a few times so sorry for those who have seen it before, but I wrote an article that delves deeper into the why behind using ArtStation. TL;DR...it's the social media platform for artists, and if you dont have some sort of social presence in 2018 you are pretty much shooting yourself in the foot. 
https://www.polygon-academy.com/why-your-portfolio-needs-to-be-on-artstation/

carvuliero

Thank you all for the wealth of knowlage !

Do I have to post frequently new stuff or get pro option to benefit from all of the above [Attention + Exposure = Opportunity] ?

PixelMasher

I wouldnt say having a pro account isn't essential, however it does have some good features that can help grow the attention/exposure part, such as the blogging features where you can share your process or thoughts with other artists and that can help you be seen as an expert in your field.

posting your wips and more often will of course give you more opportunities to be in peoples feeds and hit that trending page, it's just more at bats to take a swing, but if something doesnt hit, there is no reason why you can't delete it or re-post it later. Quality will always rise to the top and get attention, it just takes time and most of the time results are not linear, but more of an exponential curve, like 2 years of building an audience of fans and then that momentum will have you hitting the trending page and getting thousands of eyeballs on your work each time you post. its just putting in the time and all those swings at bat.

big caveat though: don't let the amount of likes you get determine your self worth or what you think you should be producing. If guns are the hot thing right now, dont feel you have to make them to get exposure if you actually hate the process of making them. if you output stuff you enjoy making, it will show in the quality and that will have people taking notice over time.

JordanN

Artstation is preferred, but there's nothing stopping you from having more than one website to post your art. 

I have an Artstation account, but I've also signed up with a Japanese website. I actually like the latter, since I get to reach out to another audience overseas.

Both are free, so it's not like I'm losing money from doing this. I once bought my own domain and it's actually suppose to expire this year. I don't feel like renewing it because its purpose has been served by the two other websites I joined. I could see myself going back if I decided to do something ambitious, but for portfolio work, a personal domain is not needed. 

carvuliero

@PixelMasher thank you that all information good to know and probably will save me from a lot of try and errors

I can totally understand what you saying , personally not interested in whats trendy today and forgotten tomorrow

@J@JordanN That's sounds like a very smart move would you mind sharing the name of Japanese website

I guess artstation could cover all the images ,videos tutorial and what not, but what about physical object like 3d prints , wouldn't a dedicated site be more appropriate for such matters

JordanN

carvuliero said:

@J@JordanN That's sounds like a very smart move would you mind sharing the name of Japanese website

Pixiv 
https://www.pixiv.net/

My account: https://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=19140250

PixelMasher

carvuliero said:

@PixelMasher thank you that all information good to know and probably will save me from a lot of try and errors

I can totally understand what you saying , personally not interested in whats trendy today and forgotten tomorrow

@J@JordanN That's sounds like a very smart move would you mind sharing the name of Japanese website

I guess artstation could cover all the images ,videos tutorial and what not, but what about physical object like 3d prints , wouldn't a dedicated site be more appropriate for such matters

no worries like i said in the article, artstation has only recently started to really monetize their business model so they are just getting started, I don't see them going anywhere in the next 5-10 years.

as for 3d prints, do you mean selling them? cause artstation has a gumroad like seller function for pro accounts as well, or you could use gumroad. if you are talking about showing pics of your 3d printed stuff, there are tons of people doing that in their portfolio on arstation, check out this guys dope collection of 3d guns and some he printed, its super cool! If you are really going large scale commercial 3d printing as a service, then yea your own site might be ideal, but i would still have a company portfolio of gorgeously photographed results on both artstation and instagram.

guys, you should all probably also have a professional instagram that is dedicated to your artwork, it would serve as a backup and also a way to expand and build your audience on another platform. because 1000% instagram isn't going anywhere either. just go where peoples attention is.