WPFolio – Free Wordpress Portfolio Theme

wpfolio wordpress theme Whenever I find a useful free resource for artists online, I want to let everyone know about it. Such is the case with WPFolio, a free theme for Wordpress created for artists and designed by artists. What I like about WPFolio is that artists at any level of experience can easily create their own web portfolio with WPFolio.

Instructions and guides for easily installing the theme are provided at the WPFolio website. Tutorials include finding hosting, installing Wordpress, posting, creating pages, making a blog, changing fonts, and much more. The site also includes plenty of examples of websites using the free WPFolio Wordpress theme.

I know many artists who use Wordpress for their art blog. But, the WPFolio theme doesn’t appear to be a blog at all – but a fully functioning portfolio website, with an optional blog.

Here are some of the many features of WPFolio:

WPFolio Features

Allows displaying of very large images – up to 900px wide. A large image of artwork is great for the home page of your portfolio site.
Minimal design which emphasizes the art! An art website is analogous to a pedestal or blank gallery wall. The pedestal or wall is supposed to be unnoticeable – the same goes for the design of a website. ART should be the central focus.
Easy to use navigation. We all know how important navigation is for a portfolio website. It will help visitors get from one place to another, and back again.
SEO friendly. SEO features are built in to make the website easily indexed and found by Google searching. Plus, you can make use of the many Wordpress plugins for SEO, such as ALL in One SEO Pack.
Contains an optional section for an art blog. The blog includes all the features of a typical blog, including dating, commenting, tags, widgets, etc.
Javascript enabled dropdown menus. Menus allow easy categorization of website pages.
Optional three column footer for widgets.
Create pages with thumbnail images. These can link to pages with larger images and more information about that particular artwork.
Archive view. This is a unique view of older blog posts.
Special formatted styles for artist resume. This makes it easy to create your resume page, without going through the hassle of formatting it yourself.
Can be customized anytime.
Included: Sample child theme.
Widgets can be added to the sidebar. Add widgets, such as social networking profiles, site search or a group of links.
Rss feed included in theme, so that visitors may subscribe.
Easily customized fonts and colors. These can be adjusted for headline, body, background, foreground, and more.
Date artwork so that it can be searched or listed chronologically.
Comments can be enabled or disabled at each artwork page. This can be useful for feedback on individual artworks.
Ability to add video.
Support and instructions for complete setup are found at the WPFolio Wiki.