Model portfolios
Model portfolio website examples,
and the layout a book needs.
A model's website is not a portfolio in the way a designer's is. It is a book: a document someone scans quickly, looking for specific things in a specific order — can I see your face clearly, what do you actually look like unstyled, are your measurements current, and are you bookable. A site that makes any of those hard to find is failing at the only job it has, however good the photographs are.
Below are the four designs a Bunfolio site can use, each shown as a full page, with the kind of book it suits and where it works against you. One of the four is a genuinely bad choice for modelling work and the note says which and why. After that is the part the design cannot fix: what belongs above the fold, the order the galleries go in, and how the images are handled.
These are our own designs shown with sample content, not real models' sites. Our showcase is opt-in, and we would rather say so than imply a roster we do not have.
Four worked examples, and the practice each one suits
Noir
Pure black canvas, coral highlights.
Suits: Most books, and editorial or fashion work in particular
A book is photographs, and a black ground removes everything that competes with the frame — the same reason a portfolio case is black inside. The accent colour appears only on links, and the cards sit on near-black rather than pure black, so a dark image still has a visible edge.
Where it works against you: It styles everything it holds, including the things that are supposed to look unstyled. A digitals set is meant to read as plain — daylight, bare wall, no retouching — and on a black page it can start to look like an editorial shoot, which is the opposite of what the set is for.
More about the Noir designWarm
Soft off-white, warm orange details.
Suits: Models who also present, act or write, and anyone carrying long credits
Serif headings over a generous measure, set for reading. Pick it when the page carries more than images: a credits list, usage notes, a presenting reel and a bio a casting director will read rather than skim.
Where it works against you: It is deliberately quiet, and a book usually needs to hit first. The off-white page is also close in value to a white-background digitals set, so those images can bleed into the page instead of reading as separate frames.
More about the Warm designHalftone
Violet halftone hero, oversized uppercase type.
Suits: Commercial, lifestyle and print-advertising books
The graphic, oversized-capitals treatment reads like a print campaign, which suits a commercial book rather than a moody one. Images sit on a card with a defined edge, so a bright, high-key frame does not dissolve into the page.
Where it works against you: The card behind the work is butter-yellow, and yellow next to skin shifts how a complexion reads. For a beauty or a swim book, where the skin is the product, that is a real cost.
More about the Halftone designSpotlight
Colour-shifting panels, condensed display type.
Suits: Not a book — this is the one to rule out
It is the boldest of the four and it suits an art director or a studio: the page background moves through sage, lilac and lime as you scroll, which gives each section its own room.
Where it works against you: That is exactly wrong for modelling. A client is judging a complexion, and a background that changes colour as the page scrolls changes how skin reads from one frame to the next. Pick it for a creative studio, not for a book.
More about the Spotlight designLooking for the ready-made files rather than the reasoning? The portfolio templates page covers all four in detail, and the full examples gallery is the general version of this page.
What belongs above the fold
The top of the page should answer the two questions that get asked first, and nothing else. One clear headshot, and current measurements. If someone has to scroll to find either, the page has spent its best position on something less useful.
Everything else — the galleries, the credits, the bio — sits below that. A long introduction above the first image is the most common structural mistake, because the people reading are usually working through several candidates and will not read prose before they have seen a face.
- One neutral headshot, large, with the face unobscured and minimal styling.
- Height, bust, waist, hips, dress and shoe size, hair and eye colour, in plain text rather than inside an image, so it can be copied and found.
- Who to contact: the agency if you have one, a professional address if you do not.
- Nothing else. No hero slideshow, no quote, no autoplaying reel.
The order the galleries go in
The convention exists for a reason, and a website that follows it is easier to assess than one that leads with its most dramatic image. Digitals first, because they are the honest baseline and the thing an agency checks before anything else. Headshots next. Then full-length and three-quarter. Then the published or editorial work, if there is any.
Leading with a heavily styled editorial frame inverts that, and it tends to read as hiding the baseline rather than showcasing range. The published work is the reward for someone who has already decided you are plausible — it is not the opening argument.
Within each gallery, keep the crops consistent. A set where every frame is cropped differently reads as a collection of lucky photographs rather than a set, and inconsistency is the thing a book is least able to afford.
Stats belong in text, not in a picture
Measurements set into a graphic are the most common avoidable fault on a model's website. Nobody can copy them into a submission, they do not resize on a phone, a screen reader cannot read them, and search cannot see them at all. The information that most needs to be extractable is the one piece people most often make unextractable.
They also go stale. Text takes a minute to correct; an image needs the file remade, which is why out-of-date measurements usually turn out to be sitting inside a graphic. Accuracy is not cosmetic — a client who books from wrong numbers has a fitting problem on the day.
Image handling: the page has to be fast and plain
Two things matter more on a book than on any other kind of portfolio. The first is weight: these are full-bleed photographs, often twenty or more, frequently viewed on a phone between castings. Straight off a photographer's export they can be several megabytes each, and a gallery of those is a page that gets abandoned before the first frame appears.
The second is restraint. Retouching that smooths skin, narrows a waist or changes a jawline is the most reliable way to be dropped when someone meets you, because the comparison is immediate. The web version should match what you look like in the room.
What not to put on a public page
A model's site is public in a way a designer's is not, and the risk is different. A few things are worth deciding deliberately before publishing rather than afterwards.
- No home address, and no town small enough to function as one. A region is enough for casting purposes.
- A professional email rather than a personal one, and a phone number only if you are freelance and comfortable with it.
- No date of birth if you are under eighteen — an age range, and a parent or guardian as the contact.
- Keep the images stripped of location metadata. Many phones and cameras embed coordinates by default.
Mistakes that quietly cost castings
None of these are about the photographs. All of them are more common than bad photographs.
- No digitals at all. A book of styled images and no plain set is the fastest way to look unrepresented.
- Measurements with no date, or none that match the ones on your agency profile.
- A gallery that cannot be navigated on a phone, which is where most of this gets looked at.
- A contact route that goes nowhere — a form that fails silently is worse than an address.
Read next
- Model Portfolio Website: Building a Book That Books Work
what goes in the book: digitals, stats, credits and scam awareness
- Makeup Artist Portfolio: The Photograph Is the Product
the adjacent craft, where the photograph is the product
- Portfolio Images: Choosing the Thumbnail That Gets a Project Opened
choosing the frame that gets a gallery opened
- How to Build a Photography Portfolio Website
editing and sequencing a set of photographs
Questions artists ask
What should a model portfolio website show first?
One clear headshot and your current measurements, both without scrolling. After that, galleries in the conventional order: digitals, headshots, full-length and three-quarter, then any published work. Leading with a dramatic editorial frame tends to read as hiding the baseline rather than showing range.
How many images should be on a model portfolio website?
Enough to cover each category without repeating within it — a digitals set, two headshots, a few full-length frames and whatever published work exists. Weight and consistency set the limit rather than a number: twenty frames matched in crop and treatment assess better than forty that are not.
Can I put my measurements in a designed graphic?
It is better not to. Text can be copied into a submission, resizes on a phone, is readable by a screen reader and is visible to search; an image is none of those. It also goes stale, because correcting text takes a minute and remaking a file does not, which is why out-of-date stats usually turn out to be inside a graphic.
Should the photographs on my site be retouched?
Colour and exposure, yes. Anything that changes your face or body, no. The comparison happens the moment someone meets you, and it goes badly for the book rather than for you. The web version should match what you look like in the room — which is also why the plain digitals set carries so much weight.
Which of the four designs should a model avoid?
Spotlight. Its page background shifts through sage, lilac and lime as you scroll, so skin reads differently from one frame to the next — and a client looking at a book is judging a complexion. Noir suits most books; Warm suits a page carrying long credits or a presenting reel; Halftone suits commercial work, though its yellow card is a poor surround for beauty or swim.
Get started
The portfolio worth studying most
is your own.
Pick one of the four designs, put ten pieces in it with real captions, and you have the thing none of the platforms give you: one address you control, which can be sent to a gallery and found in search. It is free, and it stays free on your own subdomain.