An illustration portfolio website as loud as your style, and how to build it
On this page
- What an illustration website has to do
- The pages that earn their place
- The portfolio, sorted by client or style
- Color that follows the work
- Sketches, process and animated work
- Licensing, the shop and the links
- What changes with what you draw
- Templates made for illustrators
- The plan that fits
- Build it this afternoon
- Keep it current
An illustrator's website is opened by people in a hurry with a specific need: an art director with a brief due Friday, a publisher looking for a picture-book voice, a studio hiring a character designer, a brand that wants a pattern. They are matching a style to a job, and the site has to make the match easy: the work large, sorted the way they search, in colors that are yours, with the licensing line and the shop link one scroll away. This is the FolioPage guide for illustrators of every kind - editorial, children's book, character and concept, comic and graphic novel, botanical, scientific and medical, fashion and food, pattern and surface, lettering, storyboard, animation, pixel and map, and tattoo design - on what such a site has to do, how the portfolio sorts by client or style, what the design editor gives you, licensing and shop links, the templates built for it, the plan that fits, and how to have it live this afternoon.
What an illustration website has to do
The visitor's questions, in the order they ask them: is this the style I need, can they do the thing my brief needs (characters, spot art, a full spread, a pattern repeat), have they worked with clients like me, and how do I commission or license it. The four jobs follow:
- Show the style in the first screen, large, in the colors the work is made in. An art director decides on style before reading a word.
- Sort the work the way it is bought: by client kind (editorial, publishing, advertising, packaging) or by kind of work (characters, spots, covers, patterns), so a brief finds its match in one click.
- Prove the client history: the logos or the names, the published pieces with the publication credited.
- Make commissioning and licensing easy: a contact form or an address, a line about how you work and what you license, and the link to the shop for prints and products.
A site that does these four things gets the email. One that opens with an animated intro asks a person on a deadline to wait, and they will not.
The pages that earn their place
| Page | The visitor's question | What goes on it |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Is this the style? | The work, large, in a grid or a wall; your name and what you draw in one line; the way in |
| Work | Can they do what my brief needs? | The portfolio index, filterable by client kind or kind of work |
| A project page | What did the finished piece look like in place? | The piece large, the sketches if you show process, the client and the publication, the next project |
| About | Who is this, and how do they work? | A portrait or a self-portrait, four sentences, the clients, where you are, what you are taking on |
| Licensing or Shop | Can I buy or license it? | How licensing works with you, and the links to the print shop and the products |
| Contact | How do I commission? | An address or a form, your agent if you have one, your availability |
Most illustrators run this on one page with the projects behind it. Illustrators with books, comics or a long client list want several pages, and three of the templates for this category are built that way.
The portfolio, sorted by client or style
In the Portfolio app each project is an item: a cover, a gallery of the piece and its variations or process, a description with the brief and the credit, custom fields for the facts (client, publication, year, medium, usage), and a category. The categories are yours: Editorial, Books, Advertising, Packaging, Personal; or Characters, Spots, Covers, Patterns. The index shows every project in one grid and filters by category without leaving the page; each project has its own page with the gallery in a lightbox and links to the next and previous.
Featured projects get a flag, so the best twelve can lead the index while the archive stays behind them. Thirty index layouts and twenty-four project layouts are available. The Free plan holds ten projects and three categories, Pro a hundred and fifty, Max as many as you have drawn.
Color that follows the work
Illustrators have the strongest case for the design editor. The palette - the page background, the text, the headings, the accent on buttons, the surfaces - is set once for the whole site, from a preset or by hand, with a live preview; the fonts for body, headings and navigation likewise, from a catalog of more than two hundred families. A site for a pastel children's book illustrator and a site for a black-ink comic artist come out of the same editor looking nothing alike.
When one page needs its own ground, every section carries its own background color or image, text colors and spacing, so a dark project can sit in a light site and a pattern can run edge to edge.
Sketches, process and animated work
- Process lives on the project page: the roughs, the color studies and the final in one gallery, in order, so an art director sees how you get there.
- GIF works on every plan, so a looping animation or an animated sticker sits in a gallery like any image. Video files (MP4, WebM) upload on the Max plan for animators and motion pieces.
- A blog for work in progress, on the Max plan: posts with galleries, categories and search, for the sketchbook pages and the news an illustrator's followers come back for.
Licensing, the shop and the links
Three things an illustrator's site has to carry that a design portfolio does not:
- A licensing line. How you license, what is included, what is not, who to write to. The section library has a licensing section built for this, or a plain text section does the job.
- The shop link. FolioPage has no checkout of its own; the site is where the work is seen and the print shop, the sticker store or the publisher's page is one link away. A button, a shop section or the Links page carries it.
- The Links page. Every profile, the shop, the newsletter, the agent, the PDF portfolio, in one column on your own address, for the link in every social bio.
Commission inquiries arrive through a contact form with spam protection on the Pro and Max plans, 1,000 a month on Pro and 5,000 on Max; on the Free plan the contact page carries an email address.
What changes with what you draw
| If you are a | Lead with | Sort by | The section that matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Children's book illustrator | A spread, full width | Book or age group | The project pages, book by book |
| Editorial illustrator | Six spots in a grid | Publication | Client credits on every piece |
| Character designer | A character sheet | Project | Galleries with turnarounds |
| Concept artist | One environment, large | Project or studio | Galleries, process included |
| Comic or graphic novel artist | A page, readable | Title | The project pages, chapter by chapter |
| Botanical, scientific or medical illustrator | One plate, precise | Subject | The project pages with the commissioning body credited |
| Fashion illustrator | A figure, in motion | Client | The links page and the shop |
| Pattern and surface designer | A repeat, edge to edge | Collection | Licensing |
| Lettering artist | One word, large | Client | Licensing and the shop |
| Storyboard artist | A sequence | Production | Galleries in order |
| Animator | A still, with the loop behind it | Format | GIFs and video on Max |
| Pixel artist | The work at 100 percent | Project | Galleries, unscaled |
| Map or food illustrator | One piece, full | Client | Licensing and the shop |
| Tattoo designer | Healed work | Style | The links page and the booking form |
Each of these deserves its own guide, and they will follow in the Guides section, one at a time.
Templates made for illustrators
Seven FolioPage templates were built for this category, four one-page sites and three with several pages. Three of them show the range:
Preview any of them live on desktop and on a phone; the design editor makes the palette yours in a session.
Illustration portfolio templates
The full set is on the Illustration templates page.
The plan that fits
- Free builds the site and holds the first projects: ten of them, three categories, fifty files, GIFs included, the design editor in full, a folio.page address. No card, no time limit.
- Pro, $12 a month or $108 a year, is the working illustrator's plan: a hundred projects, a thousand files and 2 GB, images to 4,000 pixels, a domain you own, no branding, the commission form, custom CSS for the last details, and password-protected pages for work under embargo.
- Max, $24 a month or $216 a year, adds video, 8,000-pixel images, 10 GB, unlimited projects, and the Blog app for the sketchbook.
Animators and illustrators who blog go to Max; everyone else moves to Pro for the domain and the form. The pricing page has the full comparison.
Build it this afternoon
The order that works, assuming the work is exported.
Choose twelve pieces and name the categories
The work you want more of, in the kinds a brief would name: three to five categories.
Export the work
2,000 to 4,000 pixels on the long edge, JPEG or PNG; GIF for loops. One folder per project.
Pick a template by ground, then set your colors
Light or dark, grid or wall, one page or several. Click Use this template, then open the design editor and set the palette and the fonts before touching content.
Build the projects
Cover, gallery, the brief and the credit, the facts as custom fields, a category. Flag the best as featured.
Write the About page and the licensing line
Four sentences and a self-portrait; then how you license and where the shop is.
Set up the links page and the contact page
The shop, the profiles, the newsletter, the agent; then the address or the form, and your availability.
Check on a phone and publish
Set the SEO titles, open three projects on a phone, publish, and put the address in every bio.
The longer version, with the schedule by the hour, is the guide on how to build a portfolio website in a day.
Keep it current
- Add the piece when it is published, with the credit. Art directors look for recent, published work.
- Re-flag the featured twelve each season. The index should open on the work you want next.
- Keep the licensing line true. Rates and terms change; the page should say what you will actually agree to.
Can I upload GIFs or animated work?
GIF works on every plan and sits in a gallery like any image. Video files (MP4, WebM) upload on the Max plan.
Will the colors I pick apply to the whole site?
Yes. The design editor sets the palette and the fonts site-wide with a live preview, and each section can override its own background, text colors and spacing when a page needs an exception.
Can I sort my work by client and by style at the same time?
Categories are one list per site, so pick the axis a brief would search by, and use featured flags and the project facts for the other. Most illustrators sort by kind of work and credit the client on each piece.
Can I sell prints through the site?
Not directly: FolioPage has no checkout. A button, a shop section or the Links page points to your print shop or store, and the contact form handles commissions.
Can I show a project before it is published?
On Pro and Max, yes: a password-protected page, hidden from search engines, sent to the client with a link and a password.
Put the work where a brief can find it.
Pick an illustration template, set your colors, and publish the portfolio on a free address this afternoon.
Start freeOther fields have their own page in the Made for section, and every general how-to lives in Guides.