20 Best New Portfolios, September 2019

Wdd Logo.
September 09, 2019
20 Best New Portfolios, September 2019.

Every month we roundup the best portfolios launched by agencies, freelance designers, and other creative professionals, into one easy-to-digest collection. And now we come to September. The kids are off to school (the poor dears), the teachers are off to school (the poor dears), and you’re free to spend some time thinking about the most important holiday of the year. You’ve got to get ready for it emotionally, spiritually, and financially. That’s right, I’m talking about Halloween. But before you get the pumpkin spice out of the cupboard, why not have a look at these fancy new portfolios? Enjoy. Note: I’m judging these sites by how good they look to me. If they’re creative and original, or classic but really well-done, it’s all good to me. Sometimes, UX and accessibility suffer. For example, many of these sites depend on JavaScript to display their content at all; this is a Bad Idea™, kids. If you find an idea you like and want to adapt to your own site, remember to implement it responsibly.

Braden Hamm

Braden Hamm’s portfolio

is a wonderful reminder that typography is everything, layout hardly matters, and what are we even doing with our lives? Well, I’m mostly kidding, but the type design in this particular portfolio is generally fantastic. I’d also like to mention the general use of white space, it’s great. Platform: Static Site 01-braden

LGND

LGND

uses simple, yet stylish type, calm colors, and excellent contrast to make a corporate-friendly design that isn’t boring at all. It even feels a little futuristic” without going full sci-fi, and that’s impressive on its own. I don’t know whether it’s because corporate design is legitimately better, or just that I’ve turned 30, but this sort of design is growing on me. Platform: WordPress 02-lgnd

Say

Say’s agency site

keeps it simple, going for that sort of artsy, sans-serif minimalism, and I just like it. I like the minimalism, the understated way they use color, and I even like the way you can sort of paint” on the home page. I don’t like the custom cursors nearly as much (especially when it’s hard to tell which part of your cursor does the actual clicking), but otherwise it’s a pleasant site to browse. Platform: Craft CMS 03-say

Daniel Blom

Daniel Blom’s portfolio

has everything a photography /​filmography site needs! Pictures flying all around (only when you first load the site), a masonry layout, and more superminimalism (a word I just made up)! No but really, after a few concessions to the Flash designer in all of us, it’s a simple and straightforward experience for the most part. I do like that you can change the backgound color of the site while you browse, though. Platform: WordPress 04-daniel

Revolve Studio

Revolve Studio’s site

stands out because it was written in ASP​.NET. You hardly expect to see that outside of a corporate site. It’s also a highly presentation-like site, with even a lot of the content being laid out as it might be in a PowerPoint. It also… doesn’t show any work. The site itself more or less is the portfolio piece, with loads of animation, careful attention to type, and even an example of what they can do with augmented reality design. There’s even audio, but only if you turn it on. And yet, it doesn’t feel crowded. That’s an achievement. Platform: Custom CMS (I think) 05-revolve

Fabio Fantolino

Fabio Fantolino’s portfolio

might literally be what happens when a grid-obsessed animator gets too into PowerPoint. But really, it’s a gorgeous site in its own way, smoothly animated, and I love that color scheme, simple as it is. Platform: Static Site 06-fabio

Thibaud Allie

Thibaud Allies’ portfolio

is one part print design, and 99 parts definitely designed by an art director. Everything from the giant text to the placement of the images is artsy as heck, but still fairly usable. Platform: Static Site 07-thibaud

Clickpivot

Clickpivot

a one-page website with what is basically a buzzword for a name, and that works, I think. I mean, look at that layout, that type. This is the one-page website that every corporate website aspires to be. All hyperbole aside, it truly is a pretty site. Platform: Static Site 08-clickpivot

Ransom

Ransom

is artsy, asymmetrical, and almost post-minimalist in its aesthetic. It’s an approach we’ve seen before, but it wouldn’t be on this list unless it was laid out with love, and you can see the attention to detail in this design. Platform: WordPress 09-random

Constance Burke

Constance Burke

is a fashion designer, and her illustrations and sketches make up a large part of her site’s overall look and feel. Besides that, there’s a bit of a paper-dress-up-doll aesthetic going on, which both fits the industry she works in, and provides a unique feel to the site. Dress all of that up (pun intended) in a site layout and aesthetic that is well-designed, but intentionally understated, and you get a snazzy portfolio. Platform: Static Site 10-constance

Wild

Wild

makes use of grid-focused design, some rather slick animation, and a touch of background video here and there to spice things up. The overall result is sleek, professional, and a pleasure to browse. Platform: Custom CMS 11-wild

Hochburg

Hochburg’s portfolio

mostly sticks to a dark, type-focused aesthetic for most of its normal pages, and switches off to a bright and image-heavy design for the actual portfolio pieces. Light or dark, though, it looks good. Also, they have their own merch shop, which is kind of a power move for any design studio. Platform: Contao CMS 12-hochburg

West Studio

West Studio’s portfolio site

is all about the imagery, and can you blame them? Their concept art isn’t just their product, it’s astoundingly beautiful. If their work wasn’t great, no amount of smooth, dark layouts and bold typefaces would make much difference… though they have that too. The way they integrated their art into the design takes the site to a whole new level, though. Platform: Custom CMS 13-west

This Works

This Works

uses skewed elements and splashes of high contrast to spruce up a design that would otherwise be borderline brutalist. And hey, anyone who can make monospaced body text work is fine by me. Platform: Static Site 14-this

Shamim Shafiee

I love almost everything about Shamim Shafiee’s portfolio: the colors, the layout, the type, it’s all good. But what truly makes this whole thing stand out, is that cut-out picture of the man himself, standing proud and tall on the home page (and the Who Am I?” screen, incidentally). I mean, he just looks so determined, so confident. He’s the designer for you, and he’s just waiting for you to figure that out, I’ve been a designer for over a decade, and I wouldn’t dare put myself on my site like that. This sort of thing might normally looks cheesy and sooo 90s, it’s working here. It’s all about the attitude. Platform: WordPress 15-shamim

Giacomo Mottin

Giacomo Mottin’s portfolio

kind of mixes some presentation-style design at the outset, with some classic fancy minimalism. It’s dark, it’s sleek, and it looks as fashionable as you’d expect from, well… Italy. Platform: Static Site 16-giacomo

Wesley Van T Hart

And somehow this portfolio looks even more minimalist than the other sites that I’ve already called superminimalist”. Oh well. In any case, the type is gorgeous, and the almost excessive use of empty space gives the whole design a feeling of elegance. Platform: Static Site 17-wesley

Haus

Haus

is all about them graphics. It’s not often I go on about how much I love a site’s graphics — and the rest of the site is pretty solid, I’m going to shout-out their typography in particular — but Haus is doing things I’ve never seen before. Take the home page, to start with: it looks like they have a constantly shifting amorphous 3D object floating around, and it’s textured with a constantly-shifting set of kaleidoscope patterns. It’s downright hypnotic, which may not be great for usability, but I can’t take my eyes off it. Platform: Custom CMS 18-haus

Aimee Sy

Aimee Sy’s portfolio

embraces pastels, a print-inspired layout, and… iframes with zoomed-out websites in them? I can’t recall if it’s the first time I’ve ever seen that approach, but it’s certainly striking either way. The sites are semi-usable and browseable (another word I just made up according to my spellcheck). Overall, while this portfolio is mostly built from familiar elements, the final product feels quite distinct. Platform: Cargo, Backdrop 19-aimee

Feed

Feed

delivers another simple, minimalist site that does what it says on the tin. As their name suggests, they do seem to prefer a style of layout that looks a bit like a feed”, and they make liberal use of lazy-loading to create an effect that looks like infinite scrolling (but actually isn’t). It’s a great way to sort of lead people further in to the design and available content. Platform: Craft CMS 20-feed

WDD Staff

WDD staff are proud to be able to bring you this daily blog about web design and development. If there’s something you think we should be talking about let us know @DesignerDepot.

Read Next

Are Simple Websites Better For Business?

As web design technologies raise the bar on what it is possible to achieve on a realistic budget, there’s a rising deba…

Apple Opts for AR over VR at WWDC

An Apple VR headset has been one of the most widely-rumored devices of the last few years, and it was finally settled a…

Exciting New Tools for Designers, June 2023

We’re halfway through 2023 already, and the number of incredible apps, tools, and resources for designers is mounting.

3 Essential Design Trends, June 2023

This month we are focusing on three trends within a bigger website design trend – different navigation menu styles and …

15 Best New Fonts, May 2023

The choices you make when selecting a typeface have more impact on your design than almost any other decision, so it’s …

10+ Best Tools & Resources for Web Designers and Agencies (2023 updated)

Having the ability to envision a tastefully designed website (i.e., the role creativity plays) is important. But being …

20 Best New Websites, May 2023

This month, there are tons of great new agency websites to get excited about. 3D animated prisms are a popular theme, a…

How to Find the Right White Label Website Builder for Your Agency

Web design agencies face a lot of obstacles in closing the deal with new clients. One of the most common ones is the ar…

Exciting New Tools For Designers, May 2023

There are hundreds of new tools for designers and developers released each month. We sift through them all to bring you…

3 Essential Design Trends, May 2023

All three of the website design trends here mimic something bigger going on in the tech space, from a desire to have mo…

10 Best AI Tools for Web Designers (2023)

It’s time to stop worrying if AI is going to take your job and instead start using AI to expand the services you can of…

10 Best Marketing Agency Websites (Examples, Inspo, and Templates!)

Marketers are skilled in developing strategies, producing visual assets, writing text with high impact, and optimizing …