Inspiration: Awesome Dark Portfolio Sites
These days, a portfolio is a must. What we have here is a list of dark portfolio websites that are split up into common groups that most portfolios fall in. The last group will be for those experimental dark layouts, where the designer tries something different.
Rotating Image/Static Featured Image
We’ll start out with perhaps the most popular forms of portfolio design. This is the jQuery rotating image. The great thing about this kind of portfolio is that you can show a lot of work, with minimal space, saving room for other information.
Also falling into this group is the static featured image. While similar to the rotating image, it may not be quite as effective as the rotating image because of the lack of animation and interaction. On the plus side, a static featured image could also be used as a teaser to get people to look at the rest of your work.
antonpeck.com
bressane.com
intuitivedesigns.net
jayhollywood.com.au
jilion.com
neutroncreations.com
oysterdesign.co.uk
projectkoreck.com
rocknsites.com
Tagline/Bio
With this kind of portfolio, the viewer goes to the website and sees exactly what the website is about or who the designer is. If what you are offering or your tagline peaks their interest, they will look around your website. It usually helps and makes it more effective if the tagline is paired with another one of these styles of portfolio website, unless the typography can stand on its own as a visual element.
alt-design.net
bythepond.co.uk
chanellehenry.com
wedesignwise.com
joshhemsley.com
justincline.com
liftux.com
markjmaloney.com
moxiesozo.comindex.php
phynk.net
radiiate.com
rareview.com
studio7designs.com
tonychester.com
visualgroove.net
Text/Feature Image
What makes this kind of portfolio website effective is that the viewer gets a little information about the website, as well as a sampling of what the portfolio has to offer.
ba21.us
harryjh.com
nosleepforsheep.com
sawyerhollenshead.com
slovaczech.com
thingsthatarebrown.com
Portfolio Grid
This type of website gets to the point like the tagline/bio and text/image, except the viewer gets bombarded (in a good way) with the designer’s work. This keeps the interest of the viewer, because they don’t have to look around the actual portfolio pieces.
XEROX CODEdesign-dps.com
jannek.fi
jonahl.com
onvo.co.uk
phantomcandy.com
phunkn.com
thehousemedia.com
Non-Portfolio Image Large Header
This website basically shows the viewer what the designer can do without actually showing specific examples. A stand-out photo manipulation/illustration/photo catches the eye and gets the point across.
arsum.com
bogdanteodorescu.com
loscoloresolvidados.com
ronniewright.co.uk
subhaus.org
weightshift.com
Blog Style
This is a great way to provide viewers a more personal feel, which gives the website a lot more personality. It also gives the website a more current feel (if it is updated regularly), giving the viewer a reason to come back.
billytamplin.com
dougneiner.com
demainjarrete.stpo.fr
ismaelburciaga.com
Other
These websites don’t have the traditional layout that we saw above. Lets look at these one at a time to see why they are so different.
badabingdesign.nl
The portfolio part of this website has a slide show much like rotated image designs, but this one is flipped so they scroll vertically, with the project description to the left. This website gives a new look to a common layout.
constantinpotorac.com
Although the two-column layout isn’t uncommon, it’s not usually used like this in portfolio designs. A bio on the left and portfolio on the right takes a combination of the grid and tagline/bio portfolio, and gives it a new twist.
duplos.org
I almost put this website in the tagline/bio category, however, since the tagline looks like a part of the illustration, and doesn’t really say too much, I decided to put it here instead. There isn’t really much on the home part of the website, so you have to explore to learn more.
gomedia.us
This website, too, almost went into the tagline/bio section, but I felt that the portfolio image on the right had just as much importance. The idea of putting information in columns rather than rows gives equal importance to each section, rather than having a common website where there is a row-based hierarchy of the most important to the least.
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Very nice collection, congratulations to all the authors/designers/developers.
As the title says, AWESOME
Thanks.
Thanks for the kind mention!
Awesome collections of website very inspirational….great web designer and developers…
Awesome collection, good work fellas
A big thanks for the mention guys – great collection too! It’s weird seeing my site pop-up unexpectedly on a site that I regularly check out. Have a good weekend.
Amazing list! I’ve seen a lot of these before on other inspiration sites, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re great. Does anyone else feel as if the bokeh design is a little overused? It’s pretty, but I’m growing a bit tired of it. Also, I stumbled over a dark portfolio site at http://benstockdesign.com. He should’ve definitely made this list! Regardless, all of these sites are very inspirational! Cheers!
Thank you so much for including us in this inspirational round up – we truly appreciate it!!!
Thank you,
RocknSites
Things that are brown… not a name I’d choose
Good selection.
very nice. It’s hard to convince people that “dark” web sites aren’t always sad, moody, or “just for portfolios”, this is a great collection.
I have to say I’m a huge fan of dark themed website layouts. I especially like rocknsites.com and jannek.fi from the list above, something I love to emulate.
Love these, great collection!
I have to say I love the dark web designs even though my is light.
Awesome list! I always loved dark websites!
The site listed above
badabingdesign.nl
http://www.badabingdesign.nl/
functions exactly like Bryan Watson’s site.
http://www.bryanwatson.ca/
Is that like a common slider now?
These both appear to use the Wordfolio theme from themeforest
http://themeforest.net/item/wordfolio/full_screen_preview/38723
Good collection and awesome design. GOOD work!
Awesome list! I found plenty of inspiration for my new portfolio.
One quick tidbit, the “BadaBing Designs” portfolio is/looks exactly like the “Wordfolio” theme by Akay.
Nice stuff ^^ i also have a dark portfolio here is a screeny
http://img40.yfrog.com/img40/9917/portfolio2s.jpg
nice! very great collection… thanks!
Great collection!
My design studio also have a dark portfolio…
here’s the english version (we’re portuguese): http://www.ladocriativo.com/en/
Hope you like it
Great collection. Thanks.
Some great dark portfolios up there, I’ve also got a dark portfolio which i recently launched.
nice
i love dark site
I guess mine wasn’t either dark enough or leased early enough for this great list.
some nice examples in the list
Truly an inspiring collection of sites.
jayhollywood.com.au has like the best jQuery slider I’ve ever seen!
http://www.studio7designs.com/ is fantastic…I am inspired!
awesome!
Thanx for the mention guys!
Excellent collection of dark portfolios.
Great showcase, with many websites that do not get showcased so often.
There are some great examples in this portfolio, and some very nice and innovative layout ideas. Clearly a dark website can highlight the usage of brighter colours and allow these to stand off the page and enhance it. With the right balance this creates a very professional effect, allowing key areas to be highlighted.
I particularly like the “Rareview” website as this makes excellent usage of a colourful and bright Flash animation. This really captures your attention and gives the site a central focus point.
Maybe some future tutorials on how similar sites like these can be created in Photoshop would be useful, as this would highlight the techniques used and how these can be incorporated into other designs.
Beautiful collection. I love all the designs.
Great post for inspiration and to see some new techniques. Here’s another great dark themed portfolio site: http://www.ksangphoto.com
Great collection of portfolio sites. thanks for putting it together!
Hi Tyler,
this is such an long & amazing list that each website listed here is different as compare to other!!!
great efforts!!!!
Thanks for the mention!
Thanks for including one of my sites on this list, much appreciated
Look at that traffic! What are those thousands of people doing on my website?
Where did they come from?
Ahhh… it’s nettuts! Thanks for mention, dude!
Wow, some really incredible designs. So inspiring.
Thanks for sharing.
And a very Darke portfolio site: http://www.jrd-design.co.uk
Great collection of websites, very good for inspiration.
Incredible designs thank you for sharing such inspiring designs.
FYI, the design-dps.com screenshot is outdated (which is too bad, because its a little too dark now).
Cheers,
Spades
Thanks for including me on the list! Great inspiration, nettuts. As always.
This is an amazing list you’ve compiled. Some of these are literally jaw-dropping. Thank you
some of them are really great thanks
Brilliant selection, thanks for the inspiration for future web designs