Having an online architecture or design portfolio is a must in today’s fast-moving, digital world. It is a critical tool in being able to attract potential employers in a tight job market, an excellent way to stay organized as you add new projects to your resume, and a great way to be able to reflect on your body of work and look for ways to grow. The bottom line is, whether you are a seasoned design veteran or a fresh-out-of-architecture-school newbie, having an online portfolio that you can easily keep updated and leverage throughout your professional journey is invaluable.
If you aren’t interested in learning how to build your own website or you simply don’t have the time, there are several options out there to help you get your portfolio online in a format that will be both easy to share and keep it looking great. Here are 4 of the top portfolio hosting sites for architecture and design professionals on the web. All of them are free and all of them are quite easy to use.
Archinect (https://archinect.com)
Archinect was started by Paul Petrunia way back in 1997 to “establish a more connected community of architects, students, designers, and fans of the designed environment.” It has grown a lot since then and has become a vibrant online hub for all things architecture and design. Aside from offering users a great way to feature their online portfolio and resume in their profile, Archinect boasts a useful collection of forums, news feeds, job postings, and more. The vast majority of the site is free (except for employers posting jobs), easy to use, and highly focused on the world of Architecture.
Coroflot (https://coroflot.com)
Coroflot hosts one of the largest collections of professional design portfolios anywhere online featuring over 150,000 new projects published every month. Like Archinect, it was also launched in 1997, but the Coroflot community is home to a much wider scope of designers ranging from Architecture and Interior Design professionals to those from the world of Graphic Design, 3D Modeling, Industrial Design, Fashion, Gaming, and more. Beyond being a great place to host your portfolio, Coroflot also has an active job board and a user driven salary resource designed to help you get greater insights on the market when you are heading into a salary negotiation.
Behance (https://behance.net)
Behance is a high quality and popular (over 60 million project views in the past 30 days alone) portfolio site brought to you by the team at Adobe. The site prides itself on being more than just a free tool for designers and artists to host an online portfolio by giving users tools to connect with the Adobe Creative Cloud, metrics on the traffic that visits their projects, job postings, and a lot more. One of the coolest features allows users that want to take their online portfolio to the next level, to power a customized premium website with their Behance profile using ProSite.
Carbonmade (https://carbonmade.com)
Carbonmade stands out among the selection of other portfolio hosting sites in this post because it gives users the ability to create an online portfolio that feels a lot more like a customized website rather than a profile page. As Carbonmade closes in on nearly a million profiles, it is continually rolling out new site design templates, tools, and options for users like their recent Dropbox integration and the ability to upload pdf files. If you are looking for an easy to use option that provides a higher level of customization, then Carbonmade is most certainly your jam when it comes to creating an online portfolio.
Now that you have had to a chance to check out some of the best portfolio hosting sites on the web it’s time for you to show us your work! Post a link to your portfolio in the comments below.
