Top Art Portfolio Examples + How to Create Your Own

An art portfolio website is one of the most important marketing tools for artists. An artist portfolio is an easy and impactful way to showcase your work and help you build an audience.

For students, a student art portfolio can be a requirement for art school courses and internship applications. And for professionals, it can help secure commissions, sales, and clients.

In this article, we'll teach you how to build an impressive art portfolio and show you art portfolio examples that will inspire you to build your own.

How to make an art portfolio

An art portfolio is as unique as the artist that creates it. From choosing your theme and deciding on your aesthetic, you can create a digital art portfolio that reflects your work and impresses your audience.

In the art portfolio examples you'll find in this article, you'll get to see how a variety of artists have built very different portfolios that each showcase their talents and their style in original ways.

That being said, most art portfolios will include the following:

Art Samples

The most important element of your art portfolio website are art examples.

You'll want to make sure that you include art examples that exemplify your work, are high-quality, and are as recent as possible. Your portfolio is where you want people to find the best examples of what you do, so aim for quality over quantity. In addition, keep your portfolio fresh by updating your portfolio art often with new art samples and projects.

Art samples can be organized on your site in a variety of ways. You may choose to include all of your portfolio art on a single Gallery page. You can divide your art samples onto separate pages depending on medium, industry or project. You can also put them into separate sections on the same page or create a scrolling gallery.

Play around with design elements and templates until you create a design that is visually impactful and easy to navigate.

About Me

An About Me page or section is a chance to share with your art portfolio viewers information about your professional and educational background, your creative process, and what matters to you as an artist.

If you are using your portfolio as part of a job search, you may also choose to link or embed your CV to your site. This adds more detailed information for potential employers and clients.

Contact Information

It's important that potential customers, clients, or employers can get in contact with you by providing contact information on your art portfolio website and making it easy to find.

Make sure you've got a contact form page and/or that you include your email address in your About Me section.

You can also link your social media via social media buttons added to your art portfolio. Examples of where to place them include in your header, footer or Nav bar.

How to design your art portfolio

In the art portfolio examples below, you'll see many different ways an artist portfolio can be designed. You'll need to spend some time playing around with different design elements and aesthetics on your site to find what reflects your art style, but here's a few things to consider:

Theme or template

This refers to the overall design of your portfolio. Most art portfolio web builders like Journo Portfolio include drop and drag editors that make it easy to put together a website with pre-designed templates.

Each template or theme has its own elements and pages that are already included and simply need you to upload files or create text to complete them. This means you don't need pre-existing web design skills to figure out how to make an art portfolio.

Customization

The best website builders allow a range of customization to each pre-built theme. This includes the ability to change color themes and fonts, so you can choose an aesthetic that compliments your portfolio art examples.

It should also support the addition or deletion of individual elements like headers and footers, sections, and specific blocks within each section.

Top Art Portfolio Examples

From graphic designers to watercolor artists, tattoo artists to animators, the following is a great selection of art portfolio examples to illustrate innovative ways to exhibit your art samples and zhuzh your digital portfolio.

Ayanna Listenbee

Ayanna is a visual artist, designer and photographer. With a background in fashion design, she's recently expanded from wearable art to painting and photography.

Ayanna divides her photography and art onto separate gallery pages. This allows each to stand on their own and also creates a beautiful visual grid with complementing elements.

When hovering over her art samples, the title of the piece is revealed. You can also click on an art sample to see a full-screen version or to scroll through all of her samples on a full screen.

When selecting a photography sample, you can maximize the photo for a close look at details.

Stephanie Dryer

Stephanie is an Oregon-based artist and graphic designer. Her work encompasses commercial design, animation, and life drawing.

She showcases several graphic design mock case studies for product design, including examples of an online vintage shop and a card deck. This is a great technique for creating an art portfolio for beginners who may not have many commercial commissions completed yet.

Ollie Payne

Ollie is a scenic charge artist currently pursuing a degree in Technical Theater at Texas State University. They oversee the painting of stage, film and television scenery.

Ollie's portfolio landing page starts with a brief About Me section and then includes a selection of projects. They've included design boards, painted set pieces, and photos of completed stage scenery projects.

This art portfolio example showcases varied projects at different stages of completion, which can be an excellent way to construct an art portfolio website.

Isabel Mendes

Isabel Mendes creates digital art for sale. She also takes commissions for unique digital art pieces.

Her digital art examples are displayed in a grid format on her landing page. She includes pricing and whether or not each piece is available for sale or by commission. This lets her use her art portfolio as a sales tool in addition to a digital portfolio.

Kathleen Joyce

Kathleen Joyce is an art director at Phoenix International Publications. She specializes in children's illustrations and design for children's theater.

Kathleen's landing page is a bold full-page grid design that creates immediate visual impact. The art samples can be selected for a maximized view.

Separate pages display her graphic design, line work, and fine art. In addition, she uses a scroll display to show off different details of a mural project. This interactive way to show larger projects allows people to see details and examone the full scope of a piece.

Clémentine Latron

Clémentine is a French illustrator, author and translator who works in both French and English. She is currently based in Amsterdam.

She utilizes a minimalist black-and-white aesthetic for her artist portfolio which allows her line illustrations to stand out. 

She's linked her social media with social media buttons, which helps to support her following on Instagram. She's also linked her artist portfolio in her bio on social media, which means that her followers have a way to view her portfolio.

On a separate page, she's chosen a two-column display of her book covers, each of which is embedded with a sales link. This transforms her portfolio into a powerful sales tool.

Bryce Contreras

Bryce is a multi-media art student that specializes in claymation. He designed his portfolio in part to help secure an internship.

Student portfolio examples like Bryce's show how to utilize student art projects to land internships and art jobs. He uses a one-page layout for his gallery and About Me, keeping the focus on his work.

Each art sample can be clicked for a full-page view. He's uploaded art samples and photography or linked them as a pdf, so he's been able to use art samples from Google Docs, Outlook, and other platforms without having to reformat.

Maria Uys

Maria is an artist and designer from Cape Town who has a background in brand-focused commercial design work.

Maria uses the header of her landing page for her logo, which creates an immediate sense of her brand identity. She keeps a grid design throughout the pages of her portfolio, and includes only the best examples of her work for each section. 

She's also linked her CV, which gives her a chance to get into a lot more detail about her extensive professional design experience and education. This is a great way to turn your professional portfolio into an online resume for job searches

Gin-Ginzum

Gin-Ginzum is an independent artist, fashion designer, and tattoo artist currently living in France. 

Her intricate line-and-ink creates stand out on a simple white background. Each image can be selected to open in its own tab, so a viewer can pursue multiple drawings at a time.

She's also used a slide out menu for her About Me space, giving background and education in a format that disappears and doesn't distract from her portfolio art samples.

Laura Carol Castaneda

Laura is a graphic designer and traditional illustrator with an MFA in Animation and Visual Effects.

Every aspect of Laura's portfolio is an example of her work. Her menu buttons on her landing page display her artwork and animation, and she uses a self-portrait for her bio pic on her About Me page.

Her graphic design page in her art portfolio is a case study on a wine label design project she did for a client. She uses sections to walk through her design process from ideation to final project, with art samples included in each section. Including a case study in your art portfolio is an excellent marketing technique for professional artists, as it shows potential clients your skill set at every stage of the design process.

Jackie Lopez

Jackie is a storyboard artist who recently graduated from California State University Northridge. She's currently enrolled at the Concept Design Academy.

Jackie chose a black background for her portfolio. This makes her white storyboard panels really pop. She uses a grid layout for each storyboard, and starts each section with a brief summary of the storyboard. 

Jackie's embedded her resume on her pages so that potential employers have easy access to her details as they check out her portfolio art.

Avery Neufeld

Avery is an artist and graphic designer from Arkansas, currently enrolled in the graphic design program at John Brown University.

Each art sample on his gallery page opens to a window that explains the project. You can then choose to view the design in its own tab for a more detailed look. This is an excellent way to explain your creative process for each piece without taking up a ton of space on each page with text.

Avery also puts his LinkedIn and Instagram accounts front and center, with buttons directly under his profile picture. 

Kristin Brook

Kristin is a Chicago-based watercolor artist. Her art focuses on the natural world with en plein air sketches and photos informing her in-studio work.

She utilizes a scrolling display on her landing display for her latest series, watercolor portraits of sequoia trunks and gives a brief text summary of her inspiration behind the series.

On a separate Gallery page, she showcases a broader range of her work in a different layout. This gives viewers a sense of what kinds of pieces she's done in the past.

Ready to create your own art portfolio?

Now that you've learned what you'll need to include in a digital art portfolio, and you've had a chance to view art portfolio examples from a variety of artists, it's time to gather together your art samples and create your own artist portfolio!

To get you started, Journo Portfolio offers a free tier for digital portfolios. This lets you get an artist portfolio up and running in very little time and add features as you go.

Find out more about Journo Portfolio's pricing plans and get started today.