30 Fresh and Inspirational Portfolios With A Twist
It may be the economical slowdown, the climate change, or even a random boost of creativity, but the competition between graphic studios is huge right now. Today, more than ever, you really need to show something special on your website to be noticed. So we made a selection of 30 portfolios that describe a studio or a freelancer with a unique personality. Please notice that you certainly need more than a nice “look” to make the design stand out; in particular, usability and accessibility are issues that need to be carefully considered when creating your next portfolio design.
You can learn more about beautiful and effective web design in our upcoming Smashing Book ($23.90 – available worldwide). Pre-order now and save 20% off the price!
Flash Based-Designs
Ola Interactive Agency
A fun and straightforward website, with small videos running in the back to illustrate some of the company values, like creativity, speed and coolness! There’s a speaker on the left to kill the music.
Your Majesty
Nice and clean website with more than one way to explore the portfolio, excellent branding, and a smooth dark color scheme.
EnjoyThis
The minimal design and a sleek touch of Flash are the strong points of this one. Browsing trough the works seems so natural.
Valerie Phillips
This is huge. Literally!
Ben Thomas
A simple and effective left aligned website, with a stylish motion effect that works great with the dynamic visuals in the portfolio.
Studio Output
This one is for the average portfolio what Vimeo is for YouTube: a minimal yet powerful alternative, an almost buttonless experience.
Lyndon Wade
A classic dark styled background with a thumbnail menu and awesome transition effects are all you need for a killer portfolio. Oh, and some pictures from one of the top 15 photographers in America.
Cardon Design
A simple and innovative way to show the portfolio, in a dictionary way. Great works also!
Kenjiro Harigai
One of the most complex websites in our selection, it features a visual menu with a lens effect, a text menu with the names of the works, and some amazing motion effects.
I Shot Him
This one is all about the story: with just a few vintage illustrations and some creative lines they really deliver "a design novelty".
Unique browsing system
Websites that let you scan the portfolio trough original and fresh techniques.
Orange Label
This is a one-page journey, a dive in the studio’s achievements, beginning with a strong graphic & profile, then some works and finally a feedback form.
Counter Fill
Exploring this portfolio is like falling from the roof of a tall building and stopping by a few times to look on the window. Click to see why.
X3 Studios
The excellent use of AJAX makes browsing this website such a smooth experience that you get the feeling you never left the homepage. Which is true!
Lucas Hirata
Very good use of thumbnails and light.
Work at Play
Maybe the most dynamic non-Flash website of the selection. Great uses of colors, transparency and AJAX.
Zaum & Brown
Finally a grid based portfolio with a fluid layout. Don’t know if Brown comes from the color of the background, but that certainly works well also.
Creative People
The background is so important here! This amazing photo manipulation steals the show but introduce us properly in the studio atmosphere.
Design by Slint
This prolific studio from Singapore also has a grid-based fluid portfolio, where they show the works in a blog style way.
Dave Hill
The best proof that great photography doesn’t really need sophisticated design to stand out. Elegant and smooth.
Any Which Way
Nothing fancy seems to be happening here at the first sight, but this website has a great navigation system: a mirror-like menu that stands as a fantastic alternative for the way over-used "carousel".
Special elements
Portfolios that use at least one remarkable element (widget, color scheme, game) to create an immersive adventure.
Crispin Porter + Boguski
Basically this website aggregates a YouTube video for a given campaign, the live news feed about it, Twitter bits, and blog pieces. It sure is the most social-ready portfolio of the selection.
Great Works
An excellent example of three colors website: sleek, smooth, and effective!
Home de Caramel
Another fullscreener, Home de Caramel features a double menu, just a few words and huge images. Makes sense.
Trust The KDU
The vintage design and the sepia tone of the photos work extremely well together and make a great portfolio.
Carsonified
Strong colors and striking, simple illustrations make from the new Carsonified website an instant classic.
Poccuo
Very clean and dynamic website with a powerful Twitter integration and a nice simple way to show the creative work.
BKWLD
Clean design + Good navigation + Great works = Winner Portfolio
Elliot Jay Stocks
Another classic, the portfolio of Elliot teaches us the importance of a huge footer, actually as big as the body. Break the barriers, think big!
Mojave Interactive
Social media is very important business for Mojave, so they have compiled a few different channels in the homepage.
Merix Studio
Full intreactivity map with clients and resources, amazing idea!
Mick
August 5th, 2009 4:34 amWOW!! Some great stuff here – inspiring as always – keep up the good work SM!!
hellen
August 5th, 2009 4:35 amwow, very inspirational selection, thank you guys!! X3 & Ola are amazing!
J.C Harmon
August 5th, 2009 4:35 amim really tired of seeing the carsonified site everywhere… its ugly as hell.
Stefan
August 5th, 2009 4:45 amHow can you not list Eric Johanssons portfolio in such a list?
anjum nawab
August 5th, 2009 4:57 amwow gr8 list thanks
analogikan
August 5th, 2009 4:57 amhello, niece,
pop
August 5th, 2009 5:13 amBrilliant! Thanks mate!
Guillaume Pelletier
August 5th, 2009 5:37 amI love the showcase!
A rather scary observation I had to make was how frequently the Graublau Web typeface is being used in conjunction with the @font-face property. Although it is a very remarkable font (and well-suited for the purpose), I can see it become overused quite rapidly. Not that its usage is bad at all; I’m just sayin’.
Russ
August 5th, 2009 6:05 amDave Hill Photography is what image based portfolio design is all about… don’t distract them with a lot of extra stuff… focus on the work…. very well done.
Hands down, my favorite of the batch for Portfolio design. — R
L.e.
August 5th, 2009 6:48 amThe Smashing Magazine logo really needs a redesign…
Sarah
August 5th, 2009 7:53 amNice stuff. Being very print-minded, it’s great to see good taste and design that works well visually with print that can also be implemented in Web (i.e. good typography and images).
sasha
August 5th, 2009 8:03 amSmashing magazine logo looks awesome.I do not understand whay they need to redesing logo.This logo is unique and is great.
cutcopypaste
August 5th, 2009 8:05 amwow a lot of these sites flash navigations is breaking for me.. that doesn’t look good on these high end designers… unless it’s just that they don’t work in firefox lol
Fil
August 5th, 2009 8:10 amsome portfolio are really nice. I prefer those how use any flash.
Sean McCambridge
August 5th, 2009 8:19 amSome nice sites. Some very underwhelming sites. How do they get featured here? You guys make me wonder sometimes….
kixvix
August 5th, 2009 9:48 amWow, I enjoyed this list very much! Thanks for sharing :)
Mohawk
August 5th, 2009 10:29 amThat Ben Thomas one I’m pretty sure I’ve seen on Flash Den… I don’t know if he just used the idea or bought it, because if that’s the case… Then that’s technically not his work.
S_Beckman
August 5th, 2009 10:56 amI’ve liked a man with a squirrel
Jourdan
August 5th, 2009 10:57 amGreat article! I like the collection!
Thijs
August 5th, 2009 11:16 amwhat a nice list, really inspiring !
David A
August 5th, 2009 11:32 amI clicked on this link hoping to see fresh and inspirational. Instead I get one cluttered mess after another, with three or four exceptions. When the author calls Your Majesty “nice and clean,” I can only think of Mr. Hand, asking “What are you—on DOPE?”
KS
August 5th, 2009 1:29 pmThe Good is a company with a Flash-based site that is really unique.
Jesse Korzan
August 5th, 2009 1:50 pmThanks for the mention!
@workatplay
Jewen Soyterkijns
August 5th, 2009 2:46 pmAre you advertising on your own site?
Unleashed - Portland Web Design
August 5th, 2009 3:47 pmOh, that Orange Label site is killer.
jadedgeek
August 5th, 2009 3:51 pmBetween Ola Interactive and Dave Hill I’m suffering from a serious inspirational overload – stunning work. Hats off to all!!
Balazs
August 5th, 2009 4:04 pmAnother great one is Red Interactive Agency
Stevie
August 5th, 2009 6:52 pmStefan (August 5th, 2009, 4:45 am)
How can you not list Link [ericj.se] in such a list?
======================
Because that website sucks and its annoying.
DenyDeyn
August 5th, 2009 10:10 pmohh! this’s my first post on SM
finally i found a great site with usefull inspiration link
mark3
August 6th, 2009 1:15 amThe link to Any Which Way is broken. Points to ‘work.html’, should point to ‘work.php’ instead.
Nice collection, Smashing!
yoxx
August 6th, 2009 2:17 ami like orange label…
Jessi
August 6th, 2009 2:20 amOrange Label reminds me of “The Simpsons”.
Roberto Blake
August 6th, 2009 3:08 amSome of these were very impressive, some of these were horrible in terms of usability and some of them as another reader commented were very underwhelming. My own site isn’t the flashiest but I did focus a lot on usability, clean validating XHTML and CSS. I think that you have to start with that and making a site “Child Proof” and then move on.
I also have learned that since I”m impatient I like to be able to do as much on the first page of a site as I can without dealing with clutter and confusion. In terms of portfolio sites for graphic designers I think a person should be able to look at the first page and do the following:
Find out who you are, what you do, and what your skills are, have a way to contact you, be able to download a copy of your portfolio or CV, view samples of your work.
Anyway, maybe some of you can look at my website and tell me what you think I should do, or if you feel like it is spot on.
New York Graphic Designer Roberto Blake
James
August 6th, 2009 4:05 amThe “design by Slint” portfolio is a wordpress theme available at :
http://suprb.com
the theme is called grid-a-liscious
thanks :)
Smithy
August 6th, 2009 5:33 amHey Roberto, your portfolio site seems ok, it does just what you say a portfolio should do.
I like the blog page, I am reading the retouching article now.
I really admire the creative ways that you have found to use a clouds texture in many of your designs.
regards,
Smithy
bchild
August 6th, 2009 12:36 pmYet another brilliant post by Smashing Magazine! – Thank you.
Tim Piele
August 6th, 2009 12:56 pmAwesome. I think 2010 will be ripe with creative start-ups, especially here in Seattle and San Francisco. So many creative people are laid off right now and the urge to create is just too strong!
Roberto Blake
August 6th, 2009 2:48 pmThanks Smithy! I try to incorporate the Air Elemental into a lot of my design work as a choice in personal style, as I’m an “Air” sign, I also like to incorporate lighting effects partly because of the influence of painter Thomas Kinkade whose tag line was “painting with light”.
I have another retouching tutorial around the corner, that will probably be done this weekend so stay tuned. Thanks for taking a look at my portfolio site, glad you found it useful!
Joseph Jaber
August 6th, 2009 4:29 pmThe article has a typo. It says, “Design by Slint” when it’s Design by “Silnt”. Just hoping the author sees and fixes it.
Avi
August 7th, 2009 2:28 amNice portfolio selection. I’m not really a fan of gratuitous animation, though, like on the anywhichway site. If I’m browsing a portfolio, I just want to see the work, without anything fancy or distracting inbetween. It doesn’t seem necessary…. (not even going to comment on their logo. OK I have to. What an ugly, ugly typeface.)
Grammar Dork
August 7th, 2009 3:45 amJust a grammatical nitpick: there is no such thing as an “economical slowdown”. “Economical” refers to being frugal or saving money. “Economic” refers to the economy or financial system in general and is the correct word here.
Ilia
August 7th, 2009 6:17 amSome great sites, a lot of inspiration. Thank you.
Hadley Rille
August 8th, 2009 12:32 pmI like the Merix Studio site, but it seems quite similar to this one: http://www.zeppenfeld.com/
chaitrax
August 9th, 2009 9:55 pmvery nice..
Leeah
August 11th, 2009 5:40 pmlove them :) really very inspirational.
john
August 13th, 2009 5:37 amthat is an EXCELLENT and fresh group of portfolios – most I haven’t seen before – as always great work!
Zack Grossbart
August 13th, 2009 1:51 pmThis was an inspirational article. I liked the effect on the Zaum & Brown site so much I created an open source sample Slide Grid. I also wrote an article with instructions about creating your own sliding resizable grid.
Malin Grön
August 17th, 2009 1:07 amFirst thing I saw when I looked at “I Shot Him” and the galley was a copy of my favourite vinyl cover, a record by “The flying machine”. (Here’s a bad picture of the cover; http://vinylrecordsstore.freemyrecords.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/the-flying-machine004.JPG )
How hard can it be to just draw up a design of your own?
Duncan Long
August 17th, 2009 12:51 pmInteresting… yet I was reminded time and again of the “dancing baloney” GIF inserts of the past. And pre-loading would help prevent some of the slow loads that took me back to the days of yore and dial up connections.
Perhaps some designers are too young to remember the “good old days” of the early Internet. Hopefully that won’t become the “new, hip” model for today’s designers. The old saw applies: “just because you can do it…”
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nirmal
March 1st, 2010 10:18 pmgr8 list :)
brand mango
March 17th, 2010 12:21 ampretty good showcase…Some of them are doing really well and some are not up to the marks. Anyway hatts off to these guys :)
Aravind
April 8th, 2010 9:23 pmNice collections thanks
joshua
August 9th, 2010 1:55 amIts a great pleasure reading your post.Its full of information I am looking for and I love to post a comment that “The content of your post is awesome” Great work.