25+ of the Best Personal Websites for Design Inspiration
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A personal website is a great way to share your unique voice and perspective with the world. Maybe you’re a musician who wants to showcase your work or a photographer who wants to build a portfolio.
Perhaps you’re a writer who wants to share your stories with the world or an artist who wants to build an online presence and connect with potential customers.
Unlike social media platforms, a personal website gives you complete control over the design and content of your site. And, there are many different design styles to choose from, so you can create a site that perfectly represents you.
Showcase of Personal Websites
With a personal website, you can showcase your work, build your brand, and connect with potential clients or employers. The sky’s the limit when it comes to your site’s design, so you can really let your personality shine through.
Not sure where to start? To help you get inspired, we scoured the web for some of the best personal website examples we could find. From minimalist portfolios to detailed personal blogs, there’s sure to be a style that catches your eye. So take a look and get inspired!
Ty Johnson
Here’s an example of a simple-looking website that lets the work speak for itself. Ty Johson is a creative director, music documentarian, and photographer. At first, his website looks quite basic. There’s a very straightforward color scheme with just black lettering on a white background. But as you scroll down the page, you find the most interesting part of this site is all in his impressive body of work. When you have a portfolio that looks like this one, you don’t need all the bells and whistles.
Val Head
Val Head is a speaker, author, and design advocate at Adobe. She specializes in UX and UI animation. This is her personal website for promoting her speaking engagements, books, newsletter, and her personal blog.
She says web animation is “kind of my thing” but curiously, there’s no animation to be found on her personal website. That said, you’ll notice a wildly different color scheme than the last example. Val’s site is very colorful, with a deep purple background and pink and purple links.
Purple is a great color choice if you want to portray yourself as “the best of the best.” and if you check out her resume, Val has the chops to back that up.
Dennis Field
Designer and Brand Specialist, Dennis Field’s personal site reads like an interactive resume. The black and white color scheme is simple, yet effective with pops of orange to draw attention where it matters.
His website offers tons of information. You’ll leave knowing exactly what he’s done, where he did it, and who he did it with. There are some personal websites that are very minimalistic, offering up just the bare necessities. This site is not one of those. Dennis puts it all out there and then some, but that’s the point of personal sites — to show the world who you are and what you do.
Elliot Jay Stocks
Elliot Jay Stocks is a designer and musician who writes and does speaking engagements with a focus on typography. With a personal story that’s so deeply rooted in fonts and typography, it should come as no surprise that his website is heavily designed with typography as the main feature. Remember, it’s important that your personal site reflects who you are, and that’s exactly what this website does.
Stella Guan
Stella Guan is a design professional, educator, and speaker. Her website does a great job of telling her unique personal story. Her About page especially has a very personal touch, with family photos and her life story, told in her own words.
Video on the home page drives home the fact that she does speaking engagements. And, the bold orange color scheme is bright and cheerful but also represents communication — a perfect choice for someone who teaches.
Amanda Rach Lee
You can’t help but smile the moment you look at Amanda Rach Lee’s website, with the fun and cheerful heart doodle illustrations on her home page. The site even says “this is a place for people who love to doodle, have fun, and be creative in their everyday lives,” and her site instantly reflects that.
Amanda got her start on YouTube at the age of 14, and that’s still where she does most of her work. This website simply serves as a place to contact her and find out more about her, so you’ll find lots of social media links here, basic info, a photo gallery, and a shop. The most important thing to note is that the branding is consistent across all of her channels.
Amy Boyd
Amy Boyd is a copywriter and this website serves as a sort of online portfolio-slash-online resume to showcase her best work. She’s written copy for previous clients and top brands like Nike, Samsung, and United Way and has some examples on her site. But she’s also got a hilarious link to “weirder copy that didn’t make the cut.” This is another great example of showcasing your personality on your website. There’s also a contact form for potential future clients to get in touch.
Simon Harmer
Simon Harmer’s website is the epitome of minimalistic design — white background, black sans-serif text, no images, illustrations, or graphics. It seems odd coming from a design agency founder, illustrator, and person who is paid to give speeches about design. But there is beauty in simplicity. And, once you explore the site further and get a look at Simon’s illustrations, you find that his work has a similar, minimalistic feel to it, often black and white with only a single splash of color.
Scott Brown
This personal site example is for Scott Brown, an audio & video artist from New Zealand. Visiting Scott’s website takes you immediately to an online portfolio of his work. There’s no appetizer here — he gets straight to the meat and potatoes!
I would imagine Scott isn’t a fan of small talk in person either, and that’s perfectly okay. It’s your website and you are free to design it however you want! You’ll find navigation links in the upper right corner that will take you to various social media links, music channels, and online stores. Plus, you’ll find the contact details to get in touch.
Amy Lima
The next personal site for your inspiration belongs to digital product and user experience designer Amy Lima. One great personal touch she added to her site was a link to her own Spotify playlist. Music is very personal, and letting people in on what you listen to is one way to really let them get to know you. Don’t you agree?
You may have noticed that a lot of these websites have opted for an orange color scheme. Lighter shades, like the peach background on this site, symbolize communication and compassion. That’s a great match for Amy who, if you look into her About section, says she is ethically minded and believes in the transformative power of design.
Ninia Azzopardi
Ninia Azzopardi is a marketing consultant and digital marketing strategist. Her website serves as a digital business card to help her reach potential clients. There’s also a link to her blog, where she writes about digital marketing, Malta, international business, and more.
She’s worked with some big-name previous clients and was sure to include their logos on her site. Her website is clean, simple, but extremely effective.
Andy Rutledge
Here’s a personal site for UX and content designer, and writer, Andy Rutledge. Surely you know by now how important it is to let your personality show (since we’ve mentioned it over and over again) and Andy did it with a line of text that says “I’m from Texas, y’all.”
While his home page is a very simple black background with white text, there’s no lack of beautiful color and gradients as you scroll the site. Each change of color represents a different project. This site focuses on projects, books, and written articles and doesn’t include an About page. You see, it’s your site and you don’t have to tell us your life story if you don’t want to.
Helena Bowen
Helena Bowen is a speechwriter and coach and this is her fantastic personal site. One glance at her home page, and you immediately know she’s a pro because of the stats listed across the bottom of the page. This is very well done! How could you take this idea and use it for your own site?
Helena chose a simple black and white color scheme with pops of bright magenta pink for her call-to-action buttons — right where it matters most. She’s also loaded her site with client testimonials, which is a very nice touch. Social proof in the form of high praise reviews and testimonials is some of the best marketing you can have.
Jon Phillips
Jon Phillips’ website is basically a one-page design digital business card. It’s got a very simple design — black background, white text, white script logo, black and white image, and social media links. There’s not much here, but it’s got everything you need to know and links if you want to find out more. Your own site can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.
Thijs Pausma
Here’s a personal site for Thijs Pausma, a graphic designer and photographer. This website features very basic content — you’ll only find his photography portfolio and a simple About page followed by social media links and an email address. There’s no graphic design portfolio on this site — just beautiful images.
Dr. Orestis Georgiou
Where the last two examples were simple and basic in both content and design, this site is quite the opposite. Researcher, inventor, speaker, and author, Dr. Orestis Georgiou’s website is jam-packed with information about who he is, what he’s done, and what he can do for you. This site does a great job of organizing a lot of details in an easy-to-understand way.
He’s done a lot of impressive things and the site does a perfect job of summarizing them in a visually attractive way.
Andrew McCarthy
You have to see this site to really appreciate it. It looks really simple, but it’s coded in a way that you can scroll infinitely on the page and the graphic in the middle of the page changes as you scroll. (I bet he’s got amazing pageviews and a really low bounce rate!).
There’s not a whole lot of info here, but you get everything you need — contact info, a link to a pretty extensive portfolio of his work, a link to his design studio, a link to his magazine, and a link to a YouTube video of skateboarding. Personality plus.
Diegovz
This website is for Diego VZ, the Director of Product Design at Rappi. This site features a blog, a portfolio of projects from his work at Rappi and also some of his older projects, his online resume, contact info, and the story of how he got to where he is now. One thing that makes this site unique to him is that he made it available in both English and Español.
Andreas Beugger
This beautifully designed website belongs to Andreas Beugger, a UX/UI designer, graphic designer, and photographer. As you scroll through the website, you will see examples of his work and explanations of his design process. Finally, you’ll end up at a direct link to his email and links to social media pages if you’d like to contact him for more information.
Jessica Hische
Next up is Jessica Hische’s website. She’s a lettering artist and author. This website showcases her work, which includes illustrations, logo designs, labels, album covers, book covers, advertising, editorial, and more. She also does public speaking and teaching engagements and uses this site to market those services.
Additionally, Jessica has a store on her site to sell her books, prints, art, cards, and stationery. This is an impressive, well-organized site that does a great job of keeping Jessica’s brand at the forefront.
Adam Hartwig
Right off the bat, you can tell Adam is a fun guy and a breath of fresh air. His site is creative and colorful, but it’s still professional. It has movement and animation, but it’s not overwhelming or childish.
Adam Hartwig is a design technologist who specializes in UI and UX, illustration, and interactive experiences. His site is easy to navigate, well organized, and features an impressive portfolio of work.
Nico de Soto
Personal sites don’t just have to be reserved for digital designers and photographers. Nico de Soto is an award-winning master bartender! He does beverage consulting, bartender masterclasses, pop-up events, and brand activations. The site features beautiful photography of cocktails and great portraits of Nico that definitely showcase his personality.
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is a psychologist, author, and entrepreneur. He often makes television appearances and is hired for speaking engagements on the topics of psychology, leadership, and innovation. It does an impeccable job of taking an impressive amount of education and experience and summarizing it all into an easy-to-digest website that showcases his personal brand.
Ed Nacional
The Creative Director of Commerce at The New York Times, Ed Nacional has a personal site to show off his work, past and present. Prior to working with the Times, he was a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, so he’s got a large design portfolio. There’s very little text on his site, it’s almost completely image-based.
John Henry
John Henry is a web developer, designer, and photographer. His website is one of my favorites from this entire roundup, not only because I found it visually interesting, but I also enjoyed the variety of content in his articles. I actually bookmarked this site to come back and read his blog later.
Blog articles on your personal site should be SEO optimized to draw traffic to your site, but you should also write content that shows your personality, keeps visitors interested, and lets them know who you are.
Rhiannon Navin
Here’s the personal site for Rhiannon Navin, author of the novel, Only Child. The site not only gives visitors insight into the author, but more than that, it serves as a sales page for her novel. You’re able to contact Rhiannon, her publicist, her agent, subscribe to her newsletter, and follow her on social media.
Final Thoughts on Personal Websites
Personal websites have become increasingly popular in recent years. And it’s easy to see why — they’re a way to share your interests, talents, and experience with the world and a platform to market yourself, your products, and services.
While the reason you build a personal site may vary, there are some common elements that all successful websites share. First, they should be well-designed. It should be easy to navigate and make a good first impression. Next, it should reflect your unique personality. Design it with colors and fonts that you love, and don’t be afraid to experiment. Use personal photos and videos to add a personal touch. Lastly, websites should be updated regularly with fresh content like blog posts, new projects, or portfolio entries.
By following these tips and using the examples in this article for inspiration, you’ll be sure to create a personal website that’s both professional and uniquely “you.”
