As a creative professional in the digital era, you would need an online space where you can showcase all your best works for potential clients to see. The best way to do this are through graphic design websites. Your portfolio is one of the most effective ways to market your work and display your talent for all the world to see.
Treat your graphic designer website portfolio as if it were your online agent. When done right, it can be a powerful tool in attracting a steady stream of projects, and therefore income, for your design business. Since graphic design relies heavily on visuals to get the message across, it is important that the fonts you use and the images you choose to include in your graphic design website are all cohesive to your brand.
What Are the Elements in Great Graphic Designer Websites?
- Your Best Work - First and foremost, the most important element in graphic design websites is the work you are the most proud of. First impressions count, and what your client first sees can be the deciding factor on whether they will choose to hire you. Make sure to keep your website fresh by updating your portfolio often. Also remember to take good photographs of your work and choose high definition images as opposed to blurry and hard to see ones.
- About Me Page - Other than your work, clients want to know who it is they’re working with. Setting up an “About Me” page is the best way to connect with your clients. You can include details about your formal education or even the challenges you’ve faced and how you overcame them.
- Contact Details - You would want readers and potential clients to be able to reach out to you easily. You may do this by leaving your contact number, email, or even integrate your social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin within your site. A good website builder for graphic designers, like Strikingly, will allow your to do so with ease.
- Branding - Decorate your website according to your personal brand. If you want your site to be like your online agent, then everything that you use from the typography to the color scheme will be representing you.
Beautiful, functional, and effective graphic design websites can only be created with the right kind of tools. We know, we know… building an online portfolio can take so much of your time. That’s why we’re here to help. Listed below are a few tools used in building graphic design websites are some graphic design examples used by Strikingly (the best one out there). Using this will surely help you get your website up and running in no time.
3 Tools Used in Building Graphic Design Websites
- Behance
Behance is a popular graphic design portfolio builder. After it was bought by Adobe and incorporated into the Creative Cloud in 2012, Behance has become a favorite tool for sharing finished designs and even those that users are currently working on straight from Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. The service itself is free and does not require a Creative Cloud subscription to sign up. However, the only caveat is you share branding with Behance and Adobe when you build an online portfolio from this platform, and you’re competing for attention with millions of other creatives on this platform. Design-wise, Behance may also be too simplistic for graphic designers. It features a limited selection of layouts and themes although you can use a third party application to customize your website if you are more adept in programming.
- Fabrik
As a tool for creating graphic design portfolio websites, Fabrik promises to help you get your site up in minutes. It’s drag and drop user interface and variety of responsive templates make it a strong platform for graphic design websites. You can also switch to different themes anytime without affecting your projects and galleries. Fabrik also has integrations with Vimeo, Soundcloud and Youtube among other apps. The downside? This service isn’t free. Pricing starts at £6.75 per month but they do offer a 14 day free trial so you can test the platform out. Graphic design websites are provided with a free onfabrik.com address but you have the option to link your own domain name.
- Strikingly
Here’s an interesting idea: why not create your own unique graphic design websites through a site builder instead of those specifically for graphic design websites? Strikingly is not considered a specialized graphic design portfolio builder as it has a wider market: it can create different types of websites for various needs. However, you still get the best features of portfolio builders with the additional benefit of having an actual website that will surely stand out above the rest of your competition.
Unlike portfolio websites where your page can get diluted by all the other similar portfolios, you will have a space of your own on Strikingly’s platform. You get more control in terms of building traffic to your site and marketing your content, and in the world of graphic design websites and stiff competition, you would want as much people to visit your website as much as possible. And speaking of marketing, the platform also offers SEO tools and social share capabilities so you can get the word out easily whenever you come out with new projects or works.
The best news? Strikingly offers 14-day free trials for those who want to start graphic design website today.
3 Graphic Design Portfolio Examples That Use Strikingly
- Alex Ruiz
Alex Ruiz is a concept artist who started his art career at a young age of nineteen. To date, he has already worked on numerous popular properties such as James Cameron’s Avatar, Aliens, Halo, Eragon, Family Guy, The Simpsons, McFarlane Toys, and many more. What makes his website portfolio outstanding is how the images he chose zeroes in on his best work and lets viewers know his specialty niche. With one glance you can identify that his illustrations range from dark and disturbing to fantastical sci-fi.
Alex then proceeds to create a separate page for his online shop where you can buy some of his artwork in print. This is a great tactic for graphic designers to do since the best time people would want to buy your product is usually after viewing your work. Another thing to take note of is that Alex Ruiz offers tutorials for those who are inspired by his illustrations. In this, he offers you lessons about inking brushes, tutorials about futuristic architecture, and even a mini-course for drawing the face.
- Amarel
Amarel’s website portfolio goes straight to the point on what he does. He states a brief introduction for the types of services he offers and then proceeds to show his work for potential clients. Amarel is a jack of all trades when it comes to design. Aside from designing logos, he also designs custom websites and prints his artwork on canvas. He also does some craftwork and joins exhibits to display his work for all to see.
- Sim Mau
As you can see, there are already hundreds of satisfied customers who chose to build their graphic design websites on Strikingly. The good news is, you will find that scaling up is also easy on Strikingly because you get all the tools you need to create a full-featured website - including ecommerce functionalities so you can sell and receive payments for your work online. Strikingly also features a growing list of website templates that you can access even on a free account.
Building graphic design websites on this platform is also made simple by the user-friendly site editor and Strikingly app store. The gallery section allows you to showcase your best projects. But you aren’t limited to that as Strikingly offers other features that you can customize to your liking. What’s more is that the website you will build is also mobile-friendly and you don’t need even web development or coding experience to get your website up. All you need is your creativity, a bit of content and the best visuals of your projects and you’re all set.
