In a digital marketplace, your personal website is also your "personal brand." It's your "business card" of sorts; this is what clients see for the first time, and a large part of their decision to hire (or not) you depends on said personal website.
In a professional capacity, your personal website is essentially your online portfolio or "resume website" (or resumé website). When they scroll through it, potential clients should be able to get a clear and accurate understanding of your skills, depth/breadth of expertise, and existing accomplishments.
But a great personal portfolio website is not made in a day. It’s made in a couple of days (if you're using Authory; more on that later). It’s also made up of the best practices you can extract from looking at the best personal websites out there.
Basically, do what the experts do, but do them better.
In this article, I'll take you through 12 incredible personal website examples. Each of these sites has been created and is used and maintained by some of the best professionals in their domain. These people are living the professional success that most of us desire, so their portfolios are the ones we should be taking our cues from.
Let's get started!
• As a career professional working today, you know that you need a personal portfolio website. It is, after all, your professional face to potential clients and employers. It’s how the right people find you, fall in love with your skills/work, and hire you.
• But not every portfolio can get that reaction out of a client. In an extremely competitive digital marketplace, your online portfolio will be overlooked if it doesn't stand out.
• Don't worry; all is not lost (yet). You'll know exactly how to make your personal portfolio website stand out by looking at the 12 examples in this article.
• Perhaps your position requires a visually stunning site like Robby Leonardi or Davide Perozzi (see below). Or, perhaps you're a celebrated reviewer and feature writer like Elvie Mae Parian (again, see below), so your portfolio should focus on showcasing multiple work samples in a clean, easy-to-navigate UI. Either way, whatever your domain, you'll find inspiration in this list.
• Also, if you're wondering how to create a portfolio like Evie's, we've got you covered. Consider Authory, a dedicated portfolio-building platform that automatically imports all your bylined work, saves it forever, and self-updates your portfolio so you can focus on more important things... like making money.
12 Personal website examples to get your creative juices flowing
When working on your portfolio site design, think about the elements your future clients should be able to find. Ask yourself – what is the purpose of your portfolio? Do you want to sell your services, are you looking for a job and want to be hired, or is it a website about you? The main focus of your portfolio site should be catching visitor’s attention, and the following elements will help you do that.
There’s no downside. Having your own website can only increase your online visibility and help you attract more clients. With the easy-to-use website-building tools you have access to today, there’s really no excuse not to have one of your own.
Darian Rosebrook — minimal design inspiration
This is a great example of a one-page website serving as a portfolio. Now, I wouldn't recommend this if you're just starting out in your career, because you'll notice that Darian Rosebrook doesn't feature any work samples. Generally, this means that he is a very well-established professional (and he is, as a Lead Product Designer) who is using his portfolio for thought leadership and finding interesting collaborations.
Nonetheless, I included this landing page because, at a certain stage of your career, you will get to this place. Don't forget to take note of Darian's minimalist aesthetic approach. If you're ever in doubt about your website design, go black and white. It's classy, classic and infallible.
P.S.: Don't miss the call to action at the bottom of the text. That is a nice touch.
The Craftaholic Witch — a unique personal brand
When you create a personal website, it must, to some measure, reflect who you are. This is especially true if you're in creative circles, like Muhaiminah Faiz, a.k.a. The Craftaholic Witch.
Faiz is a mom, a content manager (DIY and craft blogs), a jewelry designer, a creator, and a blogger. She uses this website to express her creative and "craft-y" ideas. The vibrant, youthful layout is immediately apparent to site visitors and you get a quick introduction to the creator's mind — she's wildly imaginative and her eye is for all things bright and joyful.
Rubens Cantuni — incredible website design
When you're a veteran design lead like Rubens Cantuni, your personal site is a gorgeous visual carnival. The color scheme and dynamic elements (shifting lines, carousels with color, and an adorably wonky avatar) prove, at first sight, that Rubens is more than capable of putting his money where his mouth is.
Along with actual design work, Rubens also leads design strategy and has been doing it well enough that he has won multiple awards. He leads a remote team, spread over different time zones, to deliver work to some very well-known clients — Apple, Nike, Foot Locker, Hasbro, Adobe, Huawei, and more.
Elvie Mae Parian — visual artist and copywriter
Elvie is a visual artist and content and copywriter. She critiques all the good geek stuff — animation, comics, video games, etc.
Her bylines can be found on The Nerds of Color, Video Game Choo Choo, Women Write About Comics, and many more. She has also been featured on Critical Distance.
She works at a transmedia entertainment company based in Brooklyn, New York City, and is working to advance her skills and accomplishments in tabletop game design.
Erica Noonan — a no-nonsense editor with the right skills
Erica Noonan is a content developer and editor who has worked with numerous news outlets, statewide advocacy organizations, and IT corporations. She is a seasoned writer, editor, and project manager who works with teams of writers and designers.
Erica is particularly skilled at collaborating with various stakeholders to meet editorial goals. To quote her Authory portfolio,
Applies critical thinking, sound judgment and discretion to all situations in various settings.
Her areas of expertise are editorial content strategy, managing the editorial process, speechwriting, executive communication, and conflict resolution.
Meraleigh Queener — digital marketer in the music business
Meraleigh Queener is a digital marketer working with musical artists in the domains of digital marketing, publicity, journalism, and brand development. She is a fixture in the music industry, having graduated from a renowned music industry program.
Her work includes published stories for Dean Lewis. She has created and utilized tailored content to drive campaigns for clients like Kali Ranks, Coolio, Chuck Harmony, and Claude Kelly — 4-time Grammy-Award Nominees.
Evie Nagy — content guru for musicians & more
Evie Nagy is a business, culture, and music writer and editor. Her work has been published in Best Music Writing 2010.
Evie calls herself a:
Leader for all things content + editorial, digital strategy + marketing, corporate + brand communications, and voice/narrative for companies with strong missions and creative people.
On her LinkedIn, she mentions that she carries "15 years of experience in content, editorial, thought leadership, UX, social, brand voice, and communications." She has worked as a journalist and editor for Fast Company, Rolling Stone, Billboard, and many more. She has also led and developed content and editorial teams for tech companies such as Slack and Rippling.
As of this article's publication, she works as a freelance/contract writer, editor, and content strategist for multiple companies and publications in the tech, business, and culture domains.
Davide Perozzi — asymmetry done right
Davide Perozzi is a creative developer and DevOps engineer based in Karlsruhe. The "creative" really shows through on his personal website, given that it is a delightful riot of clunky elements, a circle cursor, and careful usage of deliberate asymmetry.
Creating a site like this requires more than the basic knowledge of web design and portfolio design. One glance at this UI and its corresponding UX, and you know that Davide is a master of his craft.
However, such meticulous attention to visual awesomeness is only required when you, the portfolio owner, are working within a visual-first industry — artist, graphic designer, web designer, UX designer, etc. You'll also need to use a tool like Squarespace or Carbonmade unless you're skilled enough to code the visual template (unique layouts, logo, etc) you want your portfolio to showcase.
Robby Leonardi — a video game? a resume? both?
Robby Leonardi has created one of the most interesting personal portfolio websites you will ever come across, and I guarantee it. The entire site is inspired by the images, colors, and dynamics of those 90s-inspired video games.
From the homepage, you "launch" one of his three websites, dedicated to an interactive resume, a design portfolio, and an illustration portfolio. Once the website launches, you scroll through from the POV of the main character of a video game. The visuals are unbelievably fun — the actual challenge is to stop scrolling.
Anyone looking to hire someone in Robby's chosen field won't even need to read through his resume and work samples to know that he is worth every penny he charges. It is apparent from the first click.
David Dobbs — great writing in a nutshell
David Dobbs doesn't say much in his website's "About" section. He writes articles and essays on science, medicine, and culture for The New York Times, NY Times Book Review, Atlantic, WIRED, et alia. He has also written the #1 Kindle single My Mother’s Lover and books containing impassioned arguments about forests, fish, and Darwin’s reefs.
Sid Kohli — sports journalism par excellence
Sid Kohli is a London-based TV Sports Producer and Presenter. He started in 2013, as a TV Presenter for ESPN-Star Sports, presenting live coverage of the FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil.
He has worked on the BBC's flagship Sportsday news program, as well as with the BBC Sport Live Events team. He also presents football and cricket for Star Sports and ESPN Cricinfo.
This multi-platform sports journalist has worked for CNN International, BT Sport, IMG, and Sky Sports News. He is also a regular event host and panel moderator for SportsPro, Broadcast Sport, and the FIST Global Series.
He was selected by the Sport Industry Group as one of the ‘30 under 30’ NextGen Leaders in the UK for 2020. The same year, he was picked by UEFA as one of the first delegates for the UEFA CFM program.
Nick Selby — ex-NYPD intelligence expert
Nick Selby is an information and physical security professional. He offers information security, disaster, and cyber incident-readiness assessments at Fuzz Technology.
From 2021 to 2023, Nick was the VP of the Software Assurance Practice at Trail of Bits (he was also the voice and executive producer of its podcast). From 2019 to 2021, he was the Chief Security Officer at Paxos Trust Company.
From 2018 to 2020, Nick was the Director of Cyber Intelligence and Investigations at the NYPD Intelligence Bureau, where "he helped the department understand how it investigates online, and how Cyber-Enabled crime affects New Yorkers."
In 2005, Nick started the information security practice at the industry analyst firm 451 Research, (now S&P Global Market Intelligence), where he stayed till 2009 as 451’s Vice President of Research Operations.
Can Authory help you create an incredible personal portfolio website?
Yes, absolutely.
In fact, you can see some Authory portfolios in the list above — Nick Selby, David Dobbs, Sid Kohli, Evie Nagy, and more.
Authory is a dedicated portfolio-building platform that allows users to create a professional, future-forward work portfolio in a few minutes.
The tool aggregates everything you've ever written or recorded and generates a beautiful portfolio page so you can showcase, share, and save your life's work. All you have to do is enter the URL of every website where your work exists (with a byline). Authory will extract a copy of every single piece (text, audio, video, social media posts) authored/created by you.
While multiple features let Authory stand out significantly among portfolio makers, I'll be quickly discussing the primary ones. For more details, just click on the video above.
A self-updating portfolio (no need to keep adding new work manually)
I already mentioned how Authory will automatically import a copy of every bylined piece from every site into its database. What I didn't mention is that Authory will keep updating your portfolio with newly published bylines from the same URLs.
So, let's say you've entered the URL for The New York Times, and Authory has imported all your existing articles on that site on Jan 1st, 2024. Additionally, the tool will continue to automatically import all pieces on the site with your byline, even after Jan 1st.
In other words, you don't have to keep updating your portfolio. Authory does that for you. You also get an email notification every time Authory adds a new content item to its servers.
Automated backups (never lose your content, ever)
All the content that Authory imports from different sources is saved permanently. You'll never have to worry about losing any of your published work. Even if the original website goes defunct for any reason, you'll always have a copy safely stored on Authory's server.
All backups are in the original format — text and/or media. No screenshots. This is super important because it lets you search through your content database, making it a valuable research tool.
You can also:
- search through both your portfolio and your content database to find articles/audio/videos based on keywords.
- create a custom domain with a click.
- look at in-built analytics for real numbers on content performance (engagement, readership) across the web and popular social media sites every 30 days.
- create newsletters with a couple of clicks. After setup, Authory will automatically send your newly published content to subscribers.
- display your Authory portfolio on other sites with widgets
- get a responsive & SEO (search engine optimization)-aligned portfolio that will show up on every search engine (with the right keywords).
The best way to figure out Authory is to take our 14-day free trial, create your own personal portfolio website, and see how much of a difference it makes to your professional life. Why not give it a shot?
