8 Inspiring Design Portfolios

There are lots and lots and lots of Freelance Graphic Designers out there, and they are all competing with each other for business so they can pay for gas to their VW Bus or Honda CB750. Not to mention the larger design companies who spend what most designers make in a year on advertising alone. One of the most important things to get ahead in the trade is a good portfolio website or page that shows your skills quickly and clearly.

I have been preparing to set up my own Portfolio, and figured I should share some of the most inspiring Design Portfolios I’ve seen, and what I like and dislike about them. Hope you get high quality fuel for your creativity out of this list! Keep in mind this isn’t only “freelance” portfolios but also some small design company websites. If one guy can do what 4 do thats even more impressive!

1. Cast Iron Design Company

One of my favorite things about this website is the various hover reactions. The menu has a very smooth and tasteful highlight when you mouse over it, and nearly every logo on the “portfolio” page fades from black and white to a nice color logo, and some add in extra design elements. The quality of everything on this site is extremely high, and shows that the creators take pride in their work.

2. Hi Hayk Design Portfolio

This is another nice design portfolio! Good use of flat colors and scrolling actions. Also some nice movement on hover. One of my favorite things about this page is the interactive slider in the work section. It features a macbook with an interactive scrolling page on it, very cool!

3. Superawesome

This a very simple and clean website, with very good text use. It is very clear with minimal animation. This would appeal to anybody looking for that style, but if I were looking for something different and I knew nothing of this company I wouldn’t hire them based on their website. Just my first impression!

4. Sallee Design

Yet another great looking Design Portfolio! This has a few nice little scrolling actions, and it’s responsive to arrow keys, which potentially could be a large selling point. I like the color choices, plus the interactive logo is cool. I mean really, who doesn’t like hipster glasses and moustaches?

5. Form Troopers

Form Troopers has a very nice one page portfolio setup! The reason I like it is because it doesn’t feel like a one page site. Whenever you click on an project it pulls up to the top and displays an embedded Vimeo video. Very nice looking site, but one thing that bugs me is when you hover over an image it quickly goes to a solid color. I would still like to see the image with my mouse over it, but thats just me. Also, I can see somebody who is less computer literate not knowing they should click an project image to load the showreel. A little play button would be nice, but it would throw off the look.

6. Colour Pixel

So many colors! Maybe a few too many for my taste, but I like the relation to the site name “Colour Pixel” with the squares and bright colors. Though a little garish, the various colors would appeal to somebody who wants an attention grabbing and bright design. My least favorite thing about this site is that on larger screens it is left-justified, this may not be intentional, but either way it throws me off a little.

7. Small Studio

These guys are Australian, so it’s hard for them to be un-cool. This is a nicely designed site, complete with interactive pages and great product displays and photography. The only thing I would have like to have seen would be an indicator that the site has a side scrolling setup. A lot of people probably don’t ever get to see the coolest parts of this website.

8. Alexarts

I really like the whole idea of this page. The tilt shifted cityscape picture combined with the bouncing text bubbles is really cool. The only thing I would have liked to have seen would be faster load times and the design carried a little more into the portfolio section.

There you go! 8 Inspiring Design Portfolios! Hopefully you got as much High-Octane design fuel out of this little list as I did making it! Keep in mind that my comments about the pros and cons are strictly observatory, and I really like all these websites. If I didn’t they wouldn’t be on this list!

Whats your favorite?

-AJ