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Top 3* WordPress Portfolio Themes
Posted in: Blog, Wordpress by admin on May 13, 2009 | Viewed 2,160 times.
Well, I have decided to do a post on my top 3 WordPress portfolio themes. As designers we often find ourselves needing to show clients our talents and latest works but we’re so busy doing work, and hopefully making money, that we often don’t have time to setup a portfolio website from scratch. My goal is to give you a good list of portfolio themes that will help get you up and running quickly without a lot of extra tweaking and without putting a big dent in your checking account.
First of all let me give you a quick list of what I think are must haves for a good portfolio theme.
- Featured post section on homepage
- Portfolio section with sub categories
- Blog section with sub categories
- Portfolio listings should have a thumbnail and short text description
Here are some items I think aren’t make or break items but are good to have.
- Twitter integration
- Ad space
- Contact email form
- Good looking comments
- PSD files for editing site graphics
I know that some of these can be taken care of with plug-ins but then you have to hunt down what plug-ins you need then worry with styling them to fit your theme etc… Just more work. So with that being said lets get to the round up.
Number 4 (*Bonus)
Yourfolio (Theme Forest) Price: $25
Pros:
- Simple, clean, minimal look
- Good contrasting colors
- Home page featured post section
- Flickr integration
- Portfolio section with subcategories
- Large thumbnails for portfolio posts
- Good looking comments section
- Blog section with subcategories
- Site search
- Multiple color schemes
Cons:
- No email contact form
- No adspace
- No other special integration (Twitter, etc…)
- Doesn’t say that PSDs are included
Conclusion
All of the cons can be easily fixed with a few simple plug-ins. Overall this is a good theme to start with if you like a simple, minimal look. And with just a few quick tweaks you’ll be up and running with a good portfolio site in no time. This theme also has a great price of only $25. See the demo here.
Number 3
Sleekslide (Theme Forest) Price: $30
Pros:
- Simple, clean, minimal look
- Very cool featured post section (must see!)
- Portfolio section with subcategories
- Large thumbnails for portfolio posts
- Blog section with subcategories
- Site search
- Multiple color schemes
- Jquery dropdown navigation
- Contact email form with Ajax
- PSDs included
Cons:
- No adspace
- No other special integration (Twitter, etc…)
Conclusion
Very little cons at all. Another fairly minimal theme with some Jquery spice makes it standout from the rest. SleekSlide is also the number one selling WordPress theme on Theme Forest with over 400 purchases. See the demo here.
Number 2
Ambiguous (Theme Forest) Price: $30
Pros:
- Clean look, good colors
- Nice featured post section
- Portfolio section with subcategories
- Large thumbnails for portfolio posts
- Blog section
- Site search
- Multiple color schemes
- Contact email form with Ajax
- Twitter Integration
- PSDs included
Cons:
- No adspace
Conclusion
Virtually no cons. This theme features an About Me widget in the sidebar which is kind of nice. Also there’s some good use of icons throughout. The Twitter integration is also a good bonus. I didn’t see sub categories for the Blog but that could just be because it’s a demo. View the demo here.
Number 1
Bluelight (Theme Forest) Price: $25
Pros:
- Clean look, good colors and graphics
- Home page featured slider and services ad blocks
- Nice featured post section for the portfolio
- Portfolio section with subcategories
- Thumbnails for portfolio posts
- Blog section with sub categories
- Services section with sub categories
- Site search
- Multiple color schemes
- Twitter Integration
- Google Analitics integration
- Loads of theme options on the back end
- PSDs included
Cons:
- No adspace
- No contact email form
Conclusion
Virtually no cons. This theme also features an About Me widget in the sidebar which is nice. Also there’s some good use of icons throughout. The Twitter integration is there too. I really like the header graphics. I’ve been playing with this theme for almost a week now and haven’t had to touch the CSS file one time. There’s also a good bit of theme tweaking you can do from the options page once you log into your this theme which makes it a breeze to edit without a lot of extra coding. The documentation that came with the theme is very thorough and complete.
