13 Creative Writing Portfolio Examples & How to Create Yours
Get inspired with 13 stunning creative writing examples & learn how to create your own portfolio website quickly and easily.
Just as you need inspiration for writing, it also helps with putting together your writing portfolio. We’re here to provide that boost of inspiration for you today: with 13 creative writing portfolio examples to show.
They’re portfolio sites from different kinds of creative writers: some do poetry, some scriptwriting, some journalism… One thing is for sure though: you’ll leave with ideas, excitement, and a clear vision of how to make your ideas come to life in your own portfolio.
13 creative writing portfolio examples & why they’re excellent
1. Hannah Rogers
Hannah is a versatile creative writer and editor, currently sailing with Firmenich. After finishing her degree in English and Creative Writing, she perfected her skills, now offering copywriting, concept content creation, editing, and more.
She makes her profession clear at first glance, with a super straightforward, three-word tagline at the top of her homepage, followed by logos of the three most important businesses she works for. Right underneath she elaborates on her expertise in creative writing, brand storytelling, and editing.
With another section of compelling copy, she leads the visitors into her writing projects. In her projects, she links out to things she worked on, putting her role (e.g. writer, creative lead, producer) in the project title.
The portfolio flows well, it’s clear at every step where you need to look, and she showcases her expertise wonderfully.
Hannah created her writer website using Copyfolio, and the “Typewriter” template.
2. Larissa Vasquez
Larissa set the mood for her writing portfolio with a white, beige, and brown color scheme. She used a photo of scraps of paper on the top —very fitting for a writer. Choosing a photo of herself with similar colors, then creating custom beige and brown project thumbnails really pulled it all together.
Layout-wise she kept things simple. On her homepage, she added a short introduction, then dove right into her writing samples. This makes it easy for everyone to read her pieces and see her writing skills shine. And if you want to learn more about her, you can always click on her Bio page.
Larissa built her page using Copyfolio and the old “Billboard” template.
3. Andrea Arcia
Andrea used a constantly changing, but cohesive layout to keep you interested and engaged, even with a lot of text on the page.
She started out with three projects in a portfolio grid but then went on to use columns to display text, adding images every second block. This is a great way if you want to introduce projects or showcase longer stories or poems without overwhelming your visitors.
4. Esa Haddad
Esa’s portfolio beautifully shows how a creative writer can do more than just that. He’s also a communications professional, doing technical and academic writing next to his creative and poetic endeavors.
With a black background and white text, this site definitely stands out from the others. Having such a canvas makes it easy for bolder headlines and images to pop, leading the eyes nicely along the page.
Apart from showcasing his poetry, Esa shares his passion for data analysis and research, revealing a professional with many talents. If you’re interested in getting in touch, you can easily click the LinkedIn icon to visit his profile or navigate to the contact page to find out more.
5. Janea Melido
Janea is an undergraduate student reporter, who created a simple but stylish writing portfolio for her journalism work. Her portfolio is quite straightforward: after her profile image and tagline she goes straight onto her projects.
There she shows a nice variety of projects that are still all within the same niche: breaking news, profiles, and staff opinion pieces. She also paid careful attention to designing her project thumbnails: they’re all black and white images, with the title of the piece on top, and a nice white frame around them all.
The cohesive look, straightforward structure, and variety of project selection are what make this creative writing portfolio great. She used Copyfolio’s “Journal” template and “Skyscraper” color palette to create her page.
6. Melissa Wade
Melissa wears many hats: she’s an Amazon best-selling author, content creator, brand ambassador, and more.
Right at the start, she grabs readers’ attention by talking not about herself per se —but about what she can provide them. The things you’d typically write in that tagline, describing what it is exactly that you do, she wrote on a nicely designed banner instead. Alongside more pictures of her and her book.
Using pictures with harmonizing colors, like the pink in her blouse, in the background of the banner, and on the colorful wall, helped her create a professional look and stylish design.
Her projects and creative writing samples are showcased after this last “nice to meet you” section —but with her powerful copywriting, we wouldn’t be surprised if people were sold before they get to that point.
This lovely portfolio website was built with Copyfolio, using the “Agenda” template.
7. Magd Elzahed
With the black-and-white top section and typewriter-like serif fonts, the page of Magd has a totally different mood to it. And although she doesn’t label herself as a specific kind of writer, it’s clear that her aim is “to bring your ideas to life through the power of language.”
Following her introduction section, she highlights four of her top projects. Each has:
- an on-brand picture to illustrate it,
- a clear title with the name of the client,
- a short description of what the project was about,
- and a call-to-action button.
Clicking on the buttons takes you to a page going into more details on what exactly the project entailed, what her task was, and how the final results turned out. These pages are also available through the thumbnail images underneath the highlighted projects.
Taking a quick look at her menu, you’ll see all the other pieces of information are available on additional pages: you can read about her journey, services, references, and more.
Magd made her creative writing portfolio with Copyfolio, using the “Typewriter” template.
8. Lara Ramirez
Lara built a fun and creative writing portfolio using Copyfolio’s “Journal” template.
She changed the default colors and fonts, and designed unique thumbnails that match them. See how she chose just a handful of colors, all matching her site’s palette, and only used them throughout the site? Follow her lead to ensure a cohesive look for your own creative writing portfolio too!
She even used a similar design template for her profile picture: placed a cut-out picture of her and her dog on colorful blobs and leaves with a transparent background. Using these shapes and the transparency creates an unusual look that immediately catches your attention.
Another great takeaway from Lara’s portfolio: using mockups, especially in project thumbnails, is an amazing way to elevate your portfolio. They make sure nothing gets cropped from the 1:1 ratio thumbnail, and instantly give the page a professional look.
9. Shweta Shreyarthi
Shweta decided to use a crips white canvas, simple black text, and black and white photos as the base of her site. But to shake it up a little, she’s using an orange accent color, and a pastel but colorful background photo for a few of her sections.
With everything else being monochrome, they really pop, leading your eyes along the page.
On the top of her creative writing portfolio page, she outlines what she does: she’s a creative communicator, using her copywriting and content creation skills in her work. To learn more, you’ll have to start scrolling through the page.
Illustrated with work samples, and supplemented with short explanations, you can explore her work in different categories: social media, executive communications, proposal writing, website copywriting, and more.
In each category she included 2-4 samples for visitors to check: illustrating them with a picture, writing a very brief description (with the client + category), and adding a clear CTA with a link.
A brilliant structure and clear layout, if we do say so ourselves. She created it with Copyfolio.
10. Jessica Duryea
Stylish, but straightforward. These are probably the best words for Jessica’s creative writing portfolio.
She starts with a smaller portrait of herself, followed by her tagline: “I’m Jess. Creative communicator, inspired storyteller, tenacious strategist.” This tells you that she’s a creative writer who’s capable of so much more. You can get more specific details on that if you scroll down to her projects.
She chose three different but harmonizing colors to her project thumbnails, adding the brands’ and the social media platforms’ logos on them for a crystal clear overview. Each leads to a separate project page, with specific samples and more explanation on what she did exactly.
Overall, this writing portfolio example is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and showcases her skills and expertise perfectly. She created it using Copyfolio, and the “Typewriter” template.
11. Deeya Sonalkar
Deeya starts her page with a Hemingway quote: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” A true sign of a creative writer.
She follows it by a portrait and a short introduction talking about her life-long passion for writing. Scrolling down you can then see her various projects: you can see six on this image, but she decided to showcase twelve overall.
For every project she chose a black-and-white thumbnail, keeping her entire site monochrome and moody. These mostly lead to websites and social media profiles she’s worked on, so visitors can see her words live, in action.
This creative writing portfolio website was made with Copyfolio’s “Journal’ template, combined with the “Ink” color palette.
12. Joanna Zhang
As her portfolio website states right away, Joanna is a creative writer and performer. Her one-pager website starts with a serene picture of a lake with some twinkling lights far away.
Underneath, she showcases multiple of her projects, divided into categories. Each category has a title and a circular picture above, so it’s always clear what kind of samples you’re looking at.
Format-wise, Joanna’s samples are mostly PDFs and embedded videos.
She created her site using Copyfolio and the “Billboard” template.
13. Genie Smith
Genie Smith is an author and creative writer, who built a powerful portfolio using Copyfolio.
It’s a great example of creating a portfolio without starting out with your portrait. Or without adding it anywhere, really. Genie uses images for setting the mood: hands in black and white, a typewriter, windows, etc.
Formerly dealing with mental health issues, Genie turned to writing to help her heal herself —and to help others. On her homepage, she shares stories and lyrics, while on another page she has her mental health blog displayed.
How to build your creative writing portfolio based on these examples
Checking out examples and getting ideas is an important first step… But then you’ll have to actually get started. Don’t worry, we’ll help you with the building process: we’ll outline how to create a stunning creative writing portfolio in just 4 easy steps.
1. Choose a platform & create an account
The first and maybe most important choice you’ll have to make is choosing a platform to build your portfolio website on. Our recommendation is Copyfolio, a portfolio website builder that was designed for writers. It’s incredibly fast and easy to use, giving you prompts and all the help you need to create something powerful.
Sign up, choose a template you like, and we’ll wait for you in the editor with a basic starter site setup for you.
2. Set up your homepage
Once you have your starter site, it’s time to properly setup your homepage. You’ll get an automatically generated tagline, but to show your personality, start with rewriting that.
Don’t forget to also upload a picture to this top section —ideally one of yourself, or something that reflects your personal brand.
For a minimalist approach, you can even leave it at that, going straight on to the projects. But if you want, you could add another introduction section, writing a little more about yourself and your expertise.
3. Add your creative writing samples
Once the basics are done, it’s time to add your projects. Creative writing samples give viewers a chance to see your writing skills in action and as such, they’re an essential part of your portfolio. (Need a little help with writing yours? Check out our writing sample templates!)
Make sure you choose thumbnail images for them that all go together color- and design-wise, and add 4-6 of them for a good variety.
4. Write your about and contact pages
Last but not least, turn your attention to your about and contact pages. If you want to have them.
Some writers opt to delete them both and have a one-pager site instead. But even then, you should have at least a section for both on your homepage.
It’s important for people to be able to both get to know you a little better (rapport is important!) and to have a way of getting in touch if your work impressed them.
Once you checked these off the list, you’re done with your site —it’ll be just as amazing, if not better than the writing portfolio examples we reviewed at the beginning.
Create your creative writing portfolio with Copyfolio!
Sounds pretty easy, right? And even if you have questions along the way, the blog and the in-app prompts and guiding questions will be there to give a helping hand. The Copyfolio Team is also always just an email away.
Give it a try, create your creative writing portfolio for free with Copyfolio today!
