A highly successful 21st-century brand avails itself of the myriad of opportunities to help it thrive in a fast-paced, digitized, and competitive world.
As a business or personal brand looking to grow and expand beyond limits, the internet is an excellent place to show off your work and your craft.
How do you achieve that?
You should have a portfolio website. A portfolio website provides professional information about your work and the services that you offer to visitors. Suppose you are thinking of widening your reach and showcasing your work to a larger audience. In that case, what you should start thinking about is “How can I build my portfolio.” Well, it's simple! You can make use of many personal free portfolio websites builders such as the free Adobe Portfolio website, Strikingly Portfolio, and many other portfolio building websites.
What is Adobe Portfolio?
Are you a budding artist, designer, or photographer? Are your design skills not top-notch enough, but you desire to build an enviable portfolio that showcases your creative skills and talents? Then, Adobe Portfolio is at your rescue. Adobe Portfolio is one of the many packages that Adobe Cloud subscribers can enjoy and access without paying a dime. That is to say, and if you have subscribed to the annual membership of Adobe, this is just one of the many packages you get to utilize. It comes with a wide array of optimized elegant themes for visual artists like graphic designers, photographers, and illustrators. It links to Adobe Lightroom using collections. There are various adobe portfolio examples online for you to check out.
Alternative Products to Adobe Portfolio
Adobe Portfolio is undoubtedly a great tool to build an amazing portfolio website for your brand, but it sure has its downsides and limitations. For example, you can't optimize the service without paying a subscription fee. It is only free for those who have subscribed to the Adobe portfolio membership premium fee.
Besides, there's also the problem of general flexibility. There are so many templates to choose from, and they are not very customizable. There's a limit to the number of customized designs you can explore outside of the Adobe Portfolio themes.
If you are a highly creative person looking to explore more designs from other websites that give you the option of choosing from a wide array of design templates, then don't miss this next information.
There are quite a several effective alternative portfolio-building websites to Adobe portfolio that let you build your own collection and showcase your work in a beautiful picturesque style. Here are some of them:
- Strikingly
Image from Strikingly
We understand the distraughtness of getting to miss out on numerous opportunities just because there is no platform to showcase your work or website to find your projects easily. As a matter of fact, that's the barrier Strikingly is trying to break for everyone who desires to maximize virtual opportunities.
Strikingly is an easy-to-navigate user website that allows visitors to create their own websites with little or no experience, and it can be for free. Yes, you read right. Maybe you can now bid goodbye to pay a pricey sum before you can build your own website. Cool, isn't it? You might be thinking, "why to make something this valuable free?" I know it's incredible, but it's true.
Although, just because it is free doesn't make it less valuable or effective.
Strikingly lets you build your own portfolio websites in few easy-to-follow steps. You don't even have to be a pro designer to recreate your designs or bring your creativity to life. It comes with different themes and templates that have been tailored to meet the needs of various brands and professions. Similarly, users can choose from a wide range of customizable website designs to showcase their works and display their projects.
If you want to have access to premium features from Strikingly, you need to subscribe to the plan - it’s highly affordable, regardless of your budget.
Image from Strikingly
- Wix
Wix is fast evolving and innovating. It is a portfolio-building website that more millennials seem to have a penchant for. Although it can be used by just anyone who chooses to build their own portfolio, it is best optimized by designers. It is free to use, but premium service offers more access, storage, and bandwidth. They have many premium offers available at varying prices.
- Weebly
Weebly is also one of the top choices to build a portfolio. It comes with a myriad of choices that makes it a popular solution for designs and online selling. The platform is easy to navigate and offers different packages for its users. The basic package is free, while the business package comes with a fee.
- SquareSpace
SquareSpace is another popular portfolio website builder that allows individuals and businesses to create portfolio websites with little or no experience. The portfolio website builder has a free trial version that you can try out but with limited features.
Image from SquareSpace
If you want to access more Pro features, you need to subscribe to the SquareSpace pricing plan. These come in various forms, as seen in the image below:
- SmugMug
SmugMug allows you to upload, share, showcase and sell your images. It is also a go-to option for designers to customize their portfolio and make it look as 'original' and 'tweakable' as they desire. You can import your own fonts, brand images, and even logos. It also has a password protection policy that helps keep your information safe.
Pros of using Strikingly
In case you are wondering why you should use Strikingly to build your website, here are some advantages of using Strikingly to build your portfolio website
- No prior design skills needed
You don't have to worry about not being a professional designer or artist. Even with little or zero design skills, you can get right to it and build a portfolio like a pro. The process is uncomplicated and quite simple.
- It is free
Most times, value comes with a fee. But at Strikingly, we offer value at almost no cost. However, just because it is free doesn't mean it is not highly valuable. Our main goal is to demystify the hurdles associated with building a brand online and help even more brands expand.
- Numerous Templates
There are different customizable templates you can choose from and work on. They help unleash your creativity and bring your own personalized, branded designs to life.
- You can access more with pro
Even though you don't necessarily have to pay to design on Strikingly, you can access more by subscribing to our premium package for a token. Our pro package lets you access innumerable and inexhaustible portfolio templates available on our site. It is a choice, not a compulsion.
- It is incredibly easy to sign up
We save you the cumbersome process associated with registering on some websites. Signing up on Strikingly is in a few steps that only last a couple of minutes. Your email, username, and password are all you need to be on board.
Building a website portfolio is important, especially if you want to build a successful visual industry career. The world is moving quickly, and only those that can maximize relevant technology can keep up with speed. We know it's competitive, but you can begin on a very impressive note with the right tools. Let's help you create a website portfolio at Strikingly. Let's help you launch your career to the next phase.
Samples of Strikingly Portfolio Examples
You shouldn’t just take our words as the saying goes, “Seeing is believing.” Here are some of the wonderful collections that were designed using the Strikingly website.
Image Taken from Justfingdemo Website
Image Taken from Jacob Tomas site
![Jullianne Feir Website](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/A7DW5bAjNGO8exkJ_K_zIvwBpcWAWCn56niQmeyHV984q0P9-f3qJ83UdWIS10JbdP9TPYJHmdBv6ZaTLqjTzcGb1Jesq6Qe3nlXfUlkWg0VUQP9zmYCqsNENALsbnK8eYoAxi4 "Jullianne Feir Website" =624x284)
Image Taken from Julianne Feir Website
How to Create a Portfolio Website on Strikingly?
Building a portfolio website is no longer rocket science or such a Herculean task that only a few spectacle-wearing, tech-savvy and highly-recommended individuals can do. Not to downplay the need for a professional, but you don't really need a professional to build your own portfolio website these days.
Times are changing, yeah. This one too!
You don't have to worry about how you will start or when it's going to happen. Anyone can create a portfolio website on Strikingly. All you need to do is to log in to the Strikingly website and get started.
If you are new, you need to create your own account. This is simply because you have to sign in to access all the amazing packages on the platform. You know how these things work, right? Exactly!
All you need is to create a username, provide an email address and choose a personalized username. Voilà, you are here. This is what the registration interface looks like.
Image from Strikingly
Once you have successfully registered your account on the site, you are on your way to exploring limitless opportunities to design your dream portfolio website.
There are numerous website templates that you can choose from and work creatively on to give you a true representation of your project.
Image from Strikingly
Once you choose your preferred portfolio template, you can proceed to edit the template to fit your taste.
Image from Strikingly
With the Strikingly editor feature, you can customize the template however you want. You can design your homepage to look stunning. Interestingly, you can also add a background image to make your homepage look more attractive to your potential clients.
Additionally, you can also add a Contact Us page so that potential clients and customers can find a way to reach out if they need your service.
You can also proceed to the "add new section" menu to explore more options to add to your collections. Remember that you can unlock more amazing offers by opting for our premium version. With our pro package, you can access more amazing packages. There are tons of galleries and different templates that you can choose from that perfectly suit your needs.
Ready to take your career or profession to the next level? Start using Strikingly today!
