Artist Art Portfolio Websites | Tips and Examples

Since your art portfolio website will often be someone’s first introduction to your work, you need to make a strong and memorable impression. You might be tempted to include every piece of art you’ve done to show versatility, but it’s in your best interest to exclude any work that isn’t your best. You want your viewers to want to see more, not to feel overwhelmed by a website that is too busy or distracts from the work itself.

Before you make your own art portfolio, you may want to have a look at some of your favorite artist’s websites to get some inspiration. Pay attention to how other artists approach things like their About Me and gallery pages. Make note of what works and what doesn’t, and use that information to inform the design choices you make when creating your own artist portfolio.

It can be challenging to decide on a layout for your art portfolio website, especially if you work in a variety of mediums or styles. The last thing you want is for your site to be overwhelming to visitors, so try separating your work into medium, and then have sections within that for individual projects or themes to make it easy to navigate.

If you’re a photographer capturing large images with a lot of detail, like landscape photos or fine art photography, you might want to choose a website template that allows you to show your photos uncropped. This can be achieved by using a vertical scroll portfolio template that accommodates full width images. For landscape photos, consider grouping them into categories like location, theme, or date.

A great way to make your artwork stand out is by showcasing how it looks in real life. One way that you can achieve this is by creating photo mockups of your art on the wall of a home or museum or even as a mural on the side of a building. Just make sure that you’re clear about these images being mockups, especially if you’re playing with the scale of your art. You could also do a photoshoot with your art to create a memorable artist photo for your artist bio or About Me page.

If you’re a digital artist, why not get creative with your online portfolio website? You want your portfolio to stand out, and it doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s websites. If you’re a video game art designer, you could introduce elements to your portfolio that are reminiscent of old school video games or connect to the games you’ve designed. If you’re a digital illustrator, consider hand drawing some custom elements and creating your own logo design.

If you specialize in animation, what better way to make your portfolio stand out than by animating some features on your artist website? In addition to simply showcasing your animation work on your gallery pages, you could introduce custom elements throughout your website that speak to your abilities. Make sure your color scheme and website template are also designed with your unique animation style in mind.

With so many different kinds of art out there, there is no one size fits all approach for creating an art portfolio. What works for showcasing small drawings or digital work may not work as well for something large scale like a mural. In addition to photos of your finished murals, you could change it up by showing some behind the scenes process videos, which will also help give your website visitors a sense of the scale.

As a fine artist, it’s important for you to demonstrate to your potential collectors how much hard work, time, and expertise you devote to each of your artworks. Consider including some timelapse videos of you creating and photos from behind the scenes in your art studio. You could even provide some insight into your process and chosen subject matter by writing captions for each of your images.

If you work in UX/UI or website design, you could use your skills to showcase what you do in more ways than one. In addition to case studies in your gallery, you can customize user experience by changing the amount of white or negative space and adjusting the size, design, and readability of the text. These are just a couple of ideas of how you can apply best practices you’ve picked up on through your experience in website design.