7 Best HTML Website Templates for Creative Portfolios

In the gig economy of today, marketing yourself as a freelance writer, designer, photographer, or any other sort of creative is not only vital for success, but necessary for securing consistent work.

Unlike days gone by, when agencies would host meetings and produce samples through more tangible mediums and presentations, the digital world allows for greater flexibility. In fact, you can virtually engage with a prospective client and produce proposals without ever having to meet in person.

Individuals can now self-publish and share samples of their work online through self-created websites. These one-stop shops are perfect for boasting experience, displaying finished pieces, and showcasing personality to potential hiring managers. And through WordPress, creating an online portfolio is now easier than ever with easily customizable functionality, themes, and templates made available for use.

Before deciding upon your website’s appearance, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with relevant terminology. One area of confusion for most is the idea of a website template versus a website theme.

A WordPress theme encompasses a website’s complete front-end design. This means it encompasses all of the files that are associated with the website’s graphical design, such as colors, fonts, headers, footers, and sidebars. Changing the theme of a WordPress site will modify the way the site is displayed but it won’t change the underlying core programming of WordPress itself.

While some people will refer to a website’s design as its ‘template’. According to WordPress, the template is a single file that dictates an area of a web page generated by the theme. In this sense, templates are essentially building blocks that make up the web page as a whole. Typically then, you’ll see a template for the content of a website, sidebars, the header of a web page, and so on.

When building out a website for your creative portfolio, you want the end result to be a reflection of you and the work you’re most passionate about. This is why putting in the time to research the ins and outs of available templates is especially important.

Here are 7 of the best HTML templates for creative portfolios to consider:

Patti is a versatile template perfect for web agencies, digital studios, freelancers, and photographers, the Patti template is clean, modern, and minimalist in design. It is offered with five different layouts to correspond with whatever your portfolio project needs may be. Customer reviews applaud the outstanding customer support, design, and code quality.

Additional features include:

The Foundry template is both versatile and high-performing as an HTML portfolio template. Featuring clean and responsive design with well-designed code, it’s perfect for building both multi-page and one-page sites. Don’t take our word for it though—over 9,000 users have purchased the theme and rated it 5 stars for design quality.

Additional features include:

Massive is a Bootstrap-based, multipurpose theme, powered by Gulp and SCSS. It serves as the perfect choice for creating multiple sites around corporate needs, creative design, photography, agencies, and more.

Included with the template:

Air is a lightweight and minimalist portfolio layout suited for agency, photography, freelance functions, and more. It is also compatible with Bootstrap 3.x and provides an unlimited number of listing layout options around type, columns, and spacing.

Other key features include:

With over 150 unique blocks in Variant Page Builder and 110 pre-built pages, Pillar is a reusable and multipurpose template that allows for the building of all sorts of variations. It includes over 160 sections for multi-page or one-page static HTML websites and landing pages and offers 20 uniquely designed and styled home page options.

Additionally features:

Awesome Ideas is a clean multi-page and multipurpose template that is perfect for professionals, businesses, freelancers, designers, developers, illustrators, photographers, and creative agencies alike. The template includes a shop page feature, as well as pages for service detail, portfolio detail, and team details.

In addition, this creative portfolio template features:

If you’re an artist, creative, and/or designer, Impacto is the perfect portfolio option for you! This template includes a sidebar for easier navigation, which sets itself apart from its other one-page site counterparts.

It also boasts a number of desirable features, including:

You put your heart and soul into your creative work. Make sure the same amount of effort and detail goes into crafting the perfect website for showcasing who you are as a creative professional.

These 7 HTML website templates for creative portfolios are the building blocks to developing a website you can be proud of. If you want even more flexibility, head on over to Envato Elements.