More websites are pushing the boundaries with their designs. It seems that the emerging styles like flat, sketch, animation and minimalist designs are here to stay. Flat, in particular has becoming very popular across all industries. A different iteration of flat design called flat portfolio is starting to be used by sites all over the web. If you want to try a new design and need a fresh dose of design inspiration, here are 25 great examples you can take a look at.
1. Block Level
Block Level uses a quirky portfolio layout that mouses over to reveal a random fact. It’s a playful and unique set up that is very engaging.
2. Piotrs Wierkowski
Flat portfolio is the perfect layout for this page as the design style is used to display an actual portfolio. Anyone can grab a domain name, web hosting service and template to build a site like this very quickly.
3. Residence Mixte
This is a very minimalist approach to using a flat portfolio design. It uses different colored backgrounds to create multiple layers.
4. Mike Kus
This artist site uses colorful flat designs to build his portfolio around. The colors are beautiful and the layout is very straightforward. It simply gets the job done.
5. Kaisersosa
Animations. Check. Flat designs. Check. Minimalist approach. Check. This designer’s website has it all and it lays everything out in large flat portfolio pages.
6. Bradley Hanes
This designer uses the flat portfolio design to show multiple windows of his design projects. It’s a match made in heaven as it allows him to properly showcase his work to potential clients.
7. Thrill Bent
Thrillbent uses flat design with comic strip animation style images and panels. Again, this is something you can do easily in a few hours after you’ve set up your web hosting.
8. Caramel Budgie
This website sets the right tone from the beginning. It starts with a flat hero image design, follows it up with flat design portfolios and ties everything together with well-designed flat 2D icons.
9. Future Fabric
This layout screams flat portfolio. Flat images in offset panels add an artistic presentation to the images.
10. Lisher
This is yet another great example of using flat portfolios to create a unique presentation and help bring in new clients for the designer. In this example, the flat images are organized to create a linear presentation.
11. Danyel Perales
Danyel Perales’ site does a great job in creating an engaging layout for his portfolio. He makes it a point to keep the 3D images flat to stay within the theme.
12. Les McClaine
Les McClaine is an artist that has built a flat comic style portfolio site. It is done on Tumblr, turning each showcase into a blog format.
13. Lorenzo Verzini
This designer uses real photography set in a subtle flat design to showcase his work. On this site, it’s all about the small accents set on a minimalist design.
14. 2nd Floor
2nd Floor uses a minimalistic approach to showcase their work. The portfolio is built around 2 columns with each panel having a unique background colors and bringing up an invitation to learn more on the mouseover.
15. Bob Galmarini
Bob Galmarini uses multiple styles to bring his personal site together. He uses transparency, flat colors and a flat portfolio to create a strong professional looking site.
16. Valosek
Valosek’s site proves that using multiple flat design panels is a great way to present a product or service. It’s a very smart approach that many designers will start to adopt onto their own websites.
17. Roy Barber
This freelancer’s site uses flat portfolio in all the right ways. Here you’ll see great layouts, icons and cascading content as you scroll.
18. Aubrey.me
This website combines flat design with card based design to create attractive looking blurbs. It also uses adequate spacing to make each post stand out.
19. R Leonardi
Many people agree that this is one of the best web designs that they’ve seen. Period. This flat design uses parallax to make it feel like you’re playing a video game. It is incredibly engaging, unique and impressive. It’s absolutely the bleeding edge in the web design industry.
20. Carandache
This website uses high quality photography, flat elements/colors and portfolio style layout to create a unique user experience. What makes this site so respectable is that it’s an eCommerce site. The company decided to forego the traditional eCommerce template and go with an uncommon structure.
21. Thomas Wellmann
This is another great artist site that uses a card based layout to showcase his work. It combines a mix of flat and animated styles which is mainly intrinsic in the art. However, this layout can be used by any site.
22. Etch Apps
This is an amazing flat portfolio layout that keeps on hitting you with panels until the very end. It also has many interactive elements such as hidden content that pops up when you click certain images.
23. Stapleton
This is a very minimalist, wide panel, multi-colored flat design that manages to please your eyes with awesome palettes. The progression in color keeps you engaged as you scroll through the content.
24. Sotrygraaf
This flat design overlaps multiple images and background shapes to create a cool and sleek presentation. The content and images also unfold as you scroll down, adding an interactive element to the site.
25. Electric Mainline
This portfolio site blends in real photography with flat designs to showcase the designer’s work. It also uses transparency which really adds to the look and feel of the entire presentation.
These are some of the best examples of flat portfolio designs you’ll find online. You can clearly see that many of these websites are taking big risks in their designs. If you want to stand out in your market and industry, study what makes these sites work and apply it into your own site.