Create and Host a Professional Online Portfolio In 30 Minutes or Less

Online portfolios have always been a creative playground for showing off your talent as a developer. Your standard resume consists of black 12-point font with a few headers; why not wow the crowd? In many ways, an online portfolio is a more accessible resume, too. Don’t have a paper copy? PDF? Sharing who you are can be as simple as sending a link.

Online Portfolio Design

1. Templates

HTML5 UP! is a great resource to get you up and running. As a developer myself, coming up with a design on the spot can difficult. This website gives you modern, responsive templates that you can craft into your own.

2. Assets / Stock

  • Unsplash is a fantastic site to find free, high-quality stock photos with no watermark
  • The classic: Google Images. I like to search “[subject] transparent” to find simple-to-use overlays

3. Get Creative!

Below are a few portfolios that I thought broke the mold a little with their creativity. Although some of them are quite advanced, I think they serve as a great example of what a portfolio can be by utilising various UI libraries and frameworks.

Online Portfolio (Free) Hosting

  • GitHub Pages allows you to host a simple web app for free using a standard account. The biggest caveat here is that your website’s url is restricted to the format [username].github.io. Other than that, your portfolio can live here indefinitely at no cost.
  • Netlify is another service that allows free hosting. They do have a pricing model, but for personal projects the (free) starter package is more than enough. Here your domain is a little less limited to the format [website].netlify.app.

Getting Started on Your Professional Online Portfolio

I hope these basic tools will give you the foundation to create an awesome online portfolio! Whether you end up spending 30 minutes or 30 hours, getting started is always the hardest step. If this article was helpful to you, feel free to comment below with a link!