How to Create an Art Portfolio Website Using WordPress CMS?

Posted on December 7th, 2017

An art portfolio website is essential for an artist, community/group of artists, fans of art, or a business firm to display, share and sell their art and work to the public. The website should be looking great and stylish in order to accomplish this. In the past, building an art portfolio website was a very difficult task. You had to hire a developer to build a custom website and it can be very expensive. This may not be an option available to everyone, especially to Freelancers.

You can now create your own custom websites as a number of suitable open-source content management systems(CMS) are available out there. You can make use of any CMS if you are an artist who is hoping to present your artwork more professionally or uniquely. In this article, I am going to focus on how to create your own art portfolio website using WordPress CMS. WordPress is a powerful and reliable open-source content management system which I believe is suitable for affordable art portfolio websites. More than 30% of websites are now built on the WordPress content management system.

 

Create an Art Portfolio Website

I believe you have an active domain and using our Standard Web Hosting Plan or Managed WordPress Hosting Plan. Creating your custom art portfolio website using WordPress is very easy by following the steps described in this article.

 

WordPress Install

We offer cPanel control panel on our webhosting plans – both Standard and Managed WordPress Hosting Plans. The cPanel gives you simple and user-friendly interface to manage your websites associated with your webhosting account. Please note that you must have cPanel access to perform the steps described in this article. If you don’t know your cPanel username and password, don’t worry, please check your welcome email first. You can contact our Support Team via live chat or support ticket if you haven’t received the credentials yet.

1) You need to login to your cPanel control panel first. You can access cPanel from your portal at https://my.interserver.net.

Portal Home >> Webhosting account >> Click on “Login to cPanel” under info table on the left-hand side. Password authentication is not necessary for cPanel logins from your portal.

You can also access cPanel using URL: http://yourdomainname.com/cpanel or http://yourdomainname:2082 and enter your cPanel username and password in the proper fields.

 

2) After successful login scroll down to “SOFTWARE” field and click on “Softaculous Apps Installer”. The Softaculous Apps Installer is a useful tool to install necessary scripts like WordPress with a single click.

 

3) You should be able to see WordPress under “Top Scripts”. Move the mouse over WordPress tab and you should be able to see “install” option, click on it.

 

4) You should be able to see an installation window for WordPress. Fill in all the fields properly and then click on install. Now when you visit your domain you should be able to follow the WordPress installation instructions on-screen and connect to your database. For more details please refer https://www.interserver.net/tips/kb/install-wordpress-using-softaculous-in-cpanel/

 

5) You have now installed WordPress using Softaculous App Installer in cPanel. You can now login to WordPress Admin Dashboard using the username and password which you have previously set. You can now manage your WordPress website from this Dashboard.

 

Choosing a Theme

WordPress provides thousands of themes both free and premium. But most of them are demo version and you would need to upgrade it to the premium version to unlock all features. You need to purchase a convenient WordPress theme(premium) that suits your website and install it on your website. I have made some researches and found that free versions of art portfolio themes lack compatibility and may cause issues as time goes. Also, most of the features would be locked away from using. I suggest you purchase a good art portfolio theme which suits you better with your ideas. You may start searching for suitable themes at these theme developers.

ThemeForest – https://themeforest.net/category/wordpress/creative?ref=wiredcanvas

Themify – https://themify.me/

Graph Paper Press – https://graphpaperpress.com/wordpress-themes/portfolio/

ThemeZilla –  http://www.themezilla.com/themes/

The below-described themes are recommended art portfolio themes which can

 

Emily – $59

Emily is a clean, elegant and beautiful theme designed mainly for photographers. It is a stylish option for an art portfolio website with unlimited number of galleries. This theme also suits people who have less confidence in WordPress since it is responsive and has extensive documentation.

 

Freelo – $59

If you are a freelancer, designer or a kind of creative personality freelo WordPress theme is the suitable one. It provides a fresh, modern and funky design which will help you get a stand-alone signature for your website from all the boring portfolios out there.

 

Meteor – $49

Meteor is a well-designed beautiful WordPress theme suitable mainly for artists, arts and crafts and portfolio websites. It allows you to choose different layout styles for your posts. It allows you to display paintings, illustrations, photos, videos and more.

 

Nico – $44

Nico WordPress theme is a well-designed art portfolio theme which includes a filterable portfolio with a grid layout. It helps you to display your work beautifully.

 

There are a lot more WordPress themes available for purchase and you could search for beautiful themes from top theme developers  listed above.

 

WordPress Portfolio Plugins

  • Portfolio Gallery – Photo Gallery
  • Gallery – Photo Gallery – Image Gallery
  • Portfolio
  • WP Design Portfolio
  • Centered or left-aligned layout
  • Homepage options
  • Customizable slider
  • Aeolus Creative Portfolio
  • Envira Gallery
  • NextGen Gallery

 

Switch WordPress Theme

You have now selected/purchased a beautiful theme and the new theme should be switched with the current one. The new WordPress installation comes with a default theme. You need to switch this default theme to new theme which you have just purchased to customize your WordPress website.

 

1) Visit http://yourdomainname.com/wp-admin and enter the administrator username and password which you have previously set. You have now logged into WordPress Dashboard as Admin user.

 

2) You can now install the selected theme from WordPress Admin Dashboard. Installing and activating a new theme would switch it with your default theme. Please refer our KB for a detailed description regarding theme installation https://www.interserver.net/tips/kb/how-to-install-a-theme-on-your-wordpress-blog/.

Your WordPress website is now installed with the selected theme and you can start customizing and manage plugins. Please refer https://www.interserver.net/tips/kb/how-to-install-plugins-in-wordpress/ for more details regarding plugin install.

 

If you need any further help please do reach our support department.

 

 

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