The Best Architecture Portfolios: 12 Examples to Inspire
Whether you’re studying architecture or applying for a role at your dream practice, it pays to take the time to put together a beautifully-designed portfolio.
Here, discover 12 of the very best architecture portfolios for your inspiration, as well as a handy InDesign template kit to help you create a stylish portfolio in a fraction of the time.
When it comes to print or web format, traditional print is still the industry-standard, but more architects are showcasing digital portfolios that allow them to connect with viewers instantly and incorporate interactive content such as video and UX elements.
Scroll down for our edit of the best architect portfolios, from artfully minimal styles to unique and design-forward layouts that linger in the memory.
Print Portfolios
Printed portfolios, consisting of a series of simple sheets or bound into a book, are still a standard portfolio format for architecture students and interviewees. Established studios also often produce their own printed portfolios, which can be used as a client brochure…or simply as a treasured keepsake. Below, discover inspirational examples of printed portfolios that feature a range of layouts and styles.
1. Angélica María Ruiz Forero
An architect from Bogotá, Colombia, Angélica María Ruiz Forero uses illustration to create immersive, beautifully presented visuals of her projects. Allowing detailed plans to fill whole spreads, and with a quirky embossed cover, this portfolio design balances architectural imagery with an illustrative approach.
2. Lilla Turi
Budapest-based illustrator Lilla Turi lends her colorful and atmospheric style to this portfolio magazine for a Motion Center Design in Budapest, designed by architect Akos Onodi Szabo.
Architecture portfolios are often lacking in color, with minimal neutral tones favoured instead. This portfolio design shows how colour can give life to illustrated visuals. Paired with minimally-presented plans and diagrams, it’s the perfect balancing act.
3. Architecture Template Kit: InDesignSkills
InDesignSkills’ new Architecture Template Kit contains a complete range of Adobe InDesign templates for architects and architecture students.
Created by our team of in-house designers in consultation with architectural practices, the kit includes two portfolio template options, for comprehensive portfolios or condensed versions for attaching to emails.
The layouts have a versatile and stylish design, allowing you to easily incorporate your own images and text. Take a look at the portfolio previews below, and find more details here.
4. Spasoje Radomilovic
A graphic approach in this architecture portfolio combines impactful typography and a stark black and white palette. This portfolio, which belongs to Spasoje Radomilovic, an architect based in Frankfurt, Germany, also uses a range of image types, from photography to isometric plans, to create a strong narrative throughout each project.
5. Rebecca Gaffiero
Soothing colour accents of buff, grey and khaki provide the earthy backdrop to the work of Rebecca Gaffiero, an interior and product designer from Malta. The warm tones of the 3D renders are echoed in the soft, rounded typography and carefully-considered diagrams.
Rebecca’s layouts are often divided into three, with each element—whether photograph, render or plan—combining to create a complete account of the project.
6. Ruxin Xie
While dark backgrounds might not be the obvious choice for portfolio layouts, this contrasting portfolio design from Ruxin Xie might persuade you to move to the dark side.
Monochrome pages in subtle shades of olive and grey are followed by dark spreads, which feature chalk-white plans for dramatic impact. A visually interesting way to present plan-heavy portfolios.
7. Handoyo Lawiguna
Presented as a keepsake mini-book, the architecture portfolio of Handoyo Lawiguna is quietly beautiful. Pairing building visuals in a flat illustrated style with Swiss-inspired typography, the result is a portfolio that’s sure to be treasured for years to come.
8. Giovanni Franzini
Architectural photographer Giovanni Franzini uses rounded image frames and selective pops of colour to complement his elegant images of facades and architectural details. Serif typography adds to the refined and sophisticated style of the layouts, while a warm pink backdrop makes a refreshing alternative to paper white.
Portfolio Websites
The advantage of portfolio websites is that they can be instantly accessed with the click of a link. Convenient for sending over email, digital portfolios also have the capacity to have more interactivity, such as videos, animated illustrations or user-friendly hover effects. The portfolio websites below demonstrate how beautifully projects can be presented on-screen.
9. Kanstantsin Remez
Cool, calm and collected would be suitable adjectives to describe the online portfolio of Kanstantsin Remez, an architect and interior designer living in Minsk. Full-colour portrait photography sits alongside ultra-minimal webfonts on expansive layouts. This portfolio site is an artful exercise in less-is-more.
10. Norm Architects
With a website created by UX designer Denis Stekhin, Norm Architects are an established practice with a wide range of projects. In the case of numerous projects, online portfolios can help to create a sense of order and calm, categorising related projects together and allocating multiple images to each scrollable page.
Despite its overall minimal appearance, the website design uses layered photos and different image dimensions to create visual interest. The occasional pop of bold orange, which highlights key statistics and dimensions, adds extra creative flair to portfolio pages.
11. Saunders Architecture
The full-screen photography used on the website of Saunders Architecture helps to immerse the viewer completely in the Canadian Studio’s often nature-focussed projects. Dark-toned images emphasise the cosiness of cabin-inspired designs, while light backgrounds on project pages help to give an airy and expansive feel to photography shot in daylight hours.
The website was created by digital designer Kirill Dubrovsky.
12. Kevin Krautgartner
A typographic approach is taken by UI/UX designer Karina Opanasyuk for the website of award-winning architecture and landscape photographer Kevin Krautgartner. Kevin’s photographs often focus on the intricate textures and colours of landscapes and buildings, with the black-and-white palette chosen for the website allowing the images to shine. Scrollable pages are filled with two columns of images, varying in size to bring interest to the layout.
Present and Brand Beautifully with the Architecture Template Kit for Adobe InDesign
InDesignSkills’ new Architecture Template Kit contains a complete range of InDesign templates for architects, practices and architecture students.
Included in the Architecture Template Kit are 4 presentation boards, full portfolio with 40 pro-designed pages, introductory portfolio template, 5 business card templates and 4 letterhead options for Adobe InDesign, sized to a wide range of US, European, UK and Australian standard sizes.