As we've said time and time again, having your own portfolio website is the perfect way for you to bring in new audiences and sell your art (and stickers) online. Your online portfolio should be the place for you to share new work, cultivate relationships with other artists and art gallery owners, and show off your graphic design skills.
Owning a WordPress website is an easy, low cost way to have an online portfolio. This comprehensive guide to paid and free WordPress themes for artists will guide you as you explore the best WordPress themes for you and your situation.
Without further adieu, let's dive into it and find the best WordPress themes for your artistic project!
Best WordPress Theme For Artists (Paid)
It's simple, it's goofy, and it's opinionated: We love the Eldon theme for artists and their portfolios from ThemeForest.
Perks of the Eldon WordPress Theme For Artists
It comes in both white and black, and has really nice contrast littered throughout the WordPress theme. Your potential customers will come away feeling like they know you and your art just a little bit better.
All of the graphic assets seen in the preview come with the website, but of course, you should design your own as soon as you can. This WordPress theme really stands out in a sea of Web 3.0 themes that focus on big splashy headers and smooth call to action buttons.
Cons of the Eldon Portfolio WordPress Theme
If you're big into customization, you might struggle to get the opinionation out of this theme. Your portfolio pages will always scream with graphic detail; so if you're looking for a mature or laid back theme, you might want to pick one of many other portfolio layouts out there.
Best WordPress Theme For Artists (Free WordPress Theme)
I actually love WordPress.org's theme selection, and that shows in my choice here. In terms of WordPress themes for artists, I really think that the “Awesome Portfolio” layouts do the job. It's got great contrast, it seems easy to use, and I love free stuff.
Perks of the Awesome Portfolio Theme
This portfolio layout features a WordPress site that seems modern, with elegant typography and a creative theme flexible enough to please most artists and creatives.
Downfalls of the Awesome Portfolio Theme
Customization options are limited compared to paid options, but that's to be expected. All in all, this is a fantastic WordPress theme, and it's free to boot.
Most Stylish WordPress Theme For Artists
The Portfolio Magazine theme puts your art first. In terms of WordPress themes for artists, this one is really going to work if you have art as the primary purpose of your website. It might not work quite as well if you need an e-commerce or online store up front.
Perks of the Portfolio Magazine WordPress Theme For Artists
Bonus points again, because it's free. It'll help you build your personal brand online by putting your art first. It's definitely one of the blog layouts that is heavy on images, so keep that in mind. You'll want to optimize your art images to show in the masonry grid on the front page.
Customizing in this Artist WordPress Theme
You should be able to create a child theme to make deeper customization, but the customization options aren't bad, all things considered.
Best Visual Page Builder For WordPress Themes
Page Builders are where WordPress themes for artists really shine nowadays. You're only going to get so far with a free or paid WordPress theme, and eventually, you're going to run into issues. One weird recurring issue that I have with custom themes is total lack of Google fonts support. I always have to install a third party plugin for Google fonts to get everything exactly how I want it.
But that's not true for my choice for visual page builder. I've joined the Oxygen family, and I hope that you will too. Oxygen Builder is a no-code friendly, simple WordPress theme customizer for just about anyone with a brain. Oxygen's founder has some great walkthrough options, and the knowledge you pick up there can transfer to whatever artist WordPress theme you decide to build.
Other Page Builder Options For Your WordPress Themes
Some people like Divi, Elementor page builder, or even smaller page builders like WPBakery page builder plugin. Some of these tools were really great a few years ago, but when WordPress got its big Gutenberg upgrade, they've really fallen by the wayside.
Yes, all of these other page builders are Drag and Drop page builder tools, but that's where their usefulness ends. With so many of these page builders, it comes down to site bloat and page builder compatibility.
Your homepage layouts might look amazing, but they're also going to drop your site load time dramatically. You'll find yourself fidgeting over and over again with the same page elements across your blog pages. You'll build page templates that end up only applying to one blog page.
Oxygen Builder takes the repeating out of your work load. It's a drag and drop page builder that is intuitive, comes with a few templates to get your creative juices flowing, and has a great support network, too.
Other Free WordPress Themes For Artists
WordPress.org is going to be the best place for you to find the free WordPress theme that you've been looking for. All of the best free WordPress themes are going to be at WordPress.org because WP.org isn't trying to sell you anything.
Sure, there might be some features that are paid for the free WordPress theme you choose; but most free themes you find offsite are going to be buggy, free trials, or very limited. Your best source for free WordPress themes is really at the home of WordPress itself.
Best MultiPurpose WordPress Theme For Artists
If you're just looking for a good multipurpose WordPress theme, let me introduce you to GeneratePress. It is available as a free WordPress theme in their theme gallery; or you can upgrade to get lifetime access to their Premium plugin.
I rate GeneratePress as among the best free WordPress themes out there for any purpose, whether it's a small business website or just a place where you ramble a lot. It's clean, it loads fast, and it's easy to customize. Its customization options are right up front, and GeneratePress did great as WordPress transitioned into Gutenberg. Ultimately, GP is my second choice, right behind OxygenBuilder.
Before you go…
If you're looking at themes, but you haven't even chosen a web host yet, you're in the right place! As a professional web designer for over 15 years, I've got the special hookup on all things web.
If you're looking to design a single, fast, easy website, NameCheap's managed WordPress hosting is for you.
If you'll probably design more than a few websites in a year, then you should take a hard look at Cloudways, which makes cloud management of a server incredibly easy.
Hope that helps! Leave your favorite theme in the comments below!
