4 Awesome Portfolio Design Trends

Being a huge design affectionado, I like to bookmark all design portfolios I come across. I noticed that a few trends have emerged over the last 12 months while going through my bookmarks. Most designers have started using innovative design patterns that have emerged in the recent years. The use of lightbox, for instance, has become universal.

Let’s have a look the latest and the hottest techniques designers use for their own online portfolio.

1. The carousel

Everybody loves the carousel Javascript effect. Since its inception, it has quickly become the most popular choice amonst designers for showcasing their work. Here are few examples of cool implementation of the carousel.

Rob Young shows off his design work inside a Macbook Pro. Click on the screen and you are up for a surprise. Stunning and very original.

Viktor Jarnheimer uses an iMac carousel

Zarne Dravitzki showcases his work in a cool grunge photo-frame

Chris Sharp uses a simple and elegant way to showcase this recent work.

Rob Palmer’s portfolio in a cloud is clean, simple and simply stunning.

2. Grid with Lightbox

This is perhaps the most common portfolio design technique. But some designers have taken it to the next level by adding that extra bit of style. Here are a few world-class portfolios:

Unnamed European designer who goes by the alias SofaSurfer.

Loïc Dupasquier uses cool onhover effects to make his portfolio look very cool.

Very well known designer Chris Spooner showcases his work in a sort of vanilla lightbox style but it is still worth a mention.

3. Cover Flow

Originated from Apple’s iTunes, the Cover Flow has been ported to the web with Javascript and Flash. A lot of designers have adopted this style. While some use Flash, others go with Javascript.

Corvus Design Studio uses a dynamically loading Flash to showcase their work

Excellent portfolio of Thomas Prior who uses Javascript instead. You have to drag the button at the bottom to scroll. I think it is ingenious and very original.

4. Accordion

Accordions are commonly used in webdesign but only a handful of portfolios are designed using this technique.

Lisa Moseley of Crush+Lovely uses a smooth accordion to showcase her work.

Marius Roosendaal’s portfolio is one of my favourites. This is an outstanding piece of work.

Jackrabbit team showcases their print and web design work in a nice sliding accordion box.

Brazilian designer Fernando Kruger uses similar style as Roosendaal to show off his creative web design portfolio.

Call them deviant, call them creative

Although the last one is not a “trend”, I thought it was good enough to get a mention. Do you have any suggestions or have you come across a well designed portfolio that fall into any of the categories above?