If you don’t want the expense or hassle of creating your own website, these are some of the many easy ways you can get a free online portfolio:
Hosted portfolio websites
There are a number of very good websites where you can create a portfolio and give information about yourself. These sites are very professional looking and user friendly. The main free ones are:
Coroflot
Behance
Carbonmade
(Free package is limited to 5 projects and 35 images)
Update July 09:
deviantArt
New free portfolio service from the largest art community in the world.
Update Oct 09:
Krop Creative Database
Professional hosted portfolio service and resume builder.
(Free service limited to 10 images)
Indexhibit
A web application used to build and maintain combinations of text, image, movie and sound.
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UK websites
If you’re UK based you may also want to look into these two UK specific websites:
Creativepool
View Creatives
Photo management websites
There are a number of good photo management websites around, which you could also use to display images of your work.
Flickr
Probably the most popular and easy to use photo management website. This is also probably the simplist way of getting an online portfolio. However, you’ll need to be aware of their usage guidelines – you’re not supposed to be selling yourself commercially. Use it to display images of work, but not actively promote your services. All you need to do is create an account, then upload your work as you would photos. You can arrange it into categories or projects and add descriptions to each picture. One downside is the lack of ability to add a personal profile, but you can have a short description of yourself.
Hosted blogs
Another neat little method is getting yourself a free blog. You can publish news and photos and put them into categories. If you’re not familiar with what sort of format a blog is I suggest you have a look at some before considering this option. Two popular free blogging platforms are:
WordPress
Blogger
Update Oct 09:
Tumblr
Posterous
File sharing websites
These websites are basically for online storage and sharing of your computer files. You could upload images of your work, sort them into projects or clients, and then give people the link to them – effectively making an online portfolio.
Dropbox
Basic option allows for 2GB free.
So there we are – many different ways to display your work online without expense. All you really need is a little bit of time to set it up and to sort your work. And that’s time well spent in today’s competitive climate.
If anyone knows of other good ways please add them to the comments below and I’ll update this article.
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And for the Belgians there is http://www.creativeskills.be
Great list.
Creatives should also consider the veteran in this space, indexhibit as well as the new and super glossy Krop Portfolio.
Thanks for all these. I think something missing is the great Tumblr platform as a blog hosting service, with its amazing CMS, customisation options and overall a great community..
Thanks Rus – I will look at indexhibit and I agree about Krop, although their free package is limited to 10 images.
Thanks Panos – I agree about Tumblr and had planned to add this to the article soon. I also like Posterous, which is similar.
Thanks for the shout-out Mark! deviantART’s launch of Portfolio has been spectacular. We already have thousands of artists using our Portfolio, only days after launch.
We hope it gives all artists the edge on the college application and the job search!
I think indexhibit is great. It is really tailor made to show visual work and although one can tweek content and look with css etc, it works pretty efficiently straight out of the box. It’s clean and simple and gets the message across and is user friendly.
I think behance.net has helped me the most, although I have tried the others as well. Behance.net is preferred because it is 100% free, pushes your projects to other sites as well (like PhotographyServed.com am others), and you get an add-free version by adding /frame to your behance.net URL.
Also your welcome to join http://www.voodoochilli.net, a smaller but more specialist online portfolio for visual artist. It focuses more on traditional art rather than design but its open to anyone anyway.
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I’ve lately seen some incredible portfolios built on a platform called http://www.ahead.com. Works like a DTP tool so you can layout your work in high res anyway you want and on top of that you can zoom in to it.Sweet.
examples
http://www.grey-kbh.com
http://www.bjoernvig.com
What is the thinnest book in the world?
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really usefull thanks
Also, a new artist portfolio that you might not know about – ispyart.com it doesnt charge you a penny and its completely free
And for the Dutch there is http://www.vybez.nl. ;-)
We launched the 100% codingfree portfolio service – ALLYOU. It offers you great custom design possibilities and it has a very easy usability. The hole page editing can be done directly in the Frontend-View!
Please check it out: http://www.allyou.net
ALLYOU – web yourself!
Hello guys, I just want to say that http://www.electrofolio.com released FREE ACCOUNTS! yay! And is working in amazing Features for PRO users…
Nice list! Would be great to see another update! I’d like to mention http://www.brushd.com as another great choice for a creative portfolio builder because unlike many of the other sites, it has an onsite blog that automatically styles your Twitter, Tumblr, Deviantart, Flickr, and more to look like blog posts. That gives potential clients even more reason to visit your site regularly and check out your fresh content!
Thanks Nat – we’re considering a full update to this post soon.
I really think Crevado – http://crevado.com deserves a mention here. So far it’s the most professional free online portfolio website that I have found.
I recently signed up to the paid version as it includes password protected galleries and also HD video support.
I also think Crevado – http://crevado.com deserves a mention here. You can get a stunning free online portfolio up and running in a matter of minutes.
What about http://www.electrofolio.com they offer super clean free online portfolios.
Well I use the system and I am pretty happy with it!
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I use http://www.allyou.net and it is by far the nicest designed portfolio tool! And very easy to use, all editing happens in the front-end.
now, if you want a portfolio editable on ipad, you have http://www.tabfolio.me, it offers a lot of functionnality even downloadable qr code to promote yourself and an offline version to have always with you your pictures to show
Definitely check out Sliding Boxes http://www.slidingboxes.com. One of the cleanest portfolio sites out there by far!