Portfolio WordPress Themes 2013: Trends
Portfolio themes have always been highly influenced by the technical platforms the content is viewed on. Among the different theme categories, portfolios are probably the quickest to reflect new technological capabilities available. It is just fitting to consider what’s up around the corner at the end of 2012 as far as the Internet is concerned and how this will affect portfolio themes.
The main internet trend for 2013 and 2014 is the main streaming of mobile as an internet access device. It is strongly believed that smartphones and tablets will overtake desktops as the access device of choice. A lot of the conversions are expected to happen in developing countries where 3g is still the norm. A simple observation is to check what devices internet users use to upload content. More often than not it is through a handheld device, an iPhone, Android, or smartphone. To the user, it is all about convenience and accessibility. Designers and developers need to take note of this and need to consider creating themes that can handle images and multimedia content under these constraints.
The mobile effort should be done without sacrificing an emerging and equally important 4g LTE market. Designers should be cognizant of a significant growth of mobile and desktop users subscribing to internet connections much faster than a couple of years ago. Thus the access of devices to websites must be smart enough to be able to meet the seemingly opposite needs of these market segments. In a way, it is an expansion of responsive design into the backend of the website.
The emergence of new display technology such as Retina would be something to consider. Designers must be able to take multimedia content generated from any device and exploit the full capabilities of these next generation displays. Again, this should also be done in tandem with expected rapid growth in low capability areas.
Social media integration can not take a back burner as people are finding more and more ways to use this technology. Developers should take notice of the capabilities of Instagram or Pinterest and figure out how to incorporate such features into their themes. Their popularity is an indicator of sorts as to what people are viewing and how they are viewing it. It would be a pity to have a very beautiful portfolio website with very little traffic and only a handful of people enjoying it. Lastly, there is still much room to develop seamless integration with different resources available on the cloud – more exploration on how this can be utilized, maximized, and integrated into the ultimate WordPress portfolio theme.
We can’t wait to see what will emerge in 2013. Exciting times up ahead!
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“Developers should take notice of the capabilities of Instagram or Pinterest and figure out how to incorporate such features into their themes.” – True, they will become more and more popular..