Hiroshi – Architecture and Interior Design Theme

The portfolio gets you onto the shortlist, the about page gets you hired

It is the hard thing to believe and it is what happens. All the effort on a practice website goes into the projects, and rightly so, because without work to show there is no conversation. But the portfolio does one specific and limited job: it convinces the visitor that you can do it.

The decision to call gets made afterwards, and it gets made somewhere else. Past a certain budget, the client is not hiring a practice: they are hiring people they will speak to every week for two years. They want to know who you are, how many of you there are, how you work, what you care about and whether they will get on with you.

Which is why in creative services the team page is usually the second most visited and almost always the worst looked after. Hiroshi is a contemporary theme for creative businesses, and that is the part not to neglect while building it.

What it contributes

• A contemporary aesthetic, restrained and with the image as the protagonist.
• Portfolio structure for presenting architecture and interior design projects.
• Practice pages: services, team, contact.
• A broad approach: it works equally for other creative businesses that trade on imagery.

What to put on that page for it to work

None of this needs special design, and all of it changes the outcome.

Real faces and names. Photographs of the people, not silhouettes or icons. If there are two of you, say there are two: for many clients that is an advantage rather than a shortcoming, because it means they will speak to whoever draws.

How you work, in steps. What happens after the first call, when the first sketch appears, how many revisions are included, how invoicing works. The client who has never hired an architect is afraid of that process, and explaining it removes more objections than showing one more building.

What budgets you work with. Even if it is a range or a minimum. It saves meetings that were going nowhere, for them and for you.

A telephone number. A contact form is a barrier for somebody with a stalled site and no time.

Requirements

It needs WordPress. The demo images carry their own licence and have to be replaced, which here you are going to do anyway because the portfolio is your own work.

And the underlying requirement, which is not technical: decent photography of what has been built. In a restrained theme, the image carries all the weight.

Alternatives in the catalogue

Within architecture, Brok is the most focused and brings project pages with technical data, and Ollis is more multipurpose, with demos covering everything from the practice to the furniture shop.

If the weight of your work is in interior design and you also sell or specify pieces, Interico is designed from there and allows for the furniture side.

If you prefer not tying yourself to a theme and would rather build the design on Elementor, Nordicus is a set of minimalist templates for the same sector, imported over whatever you already have.

And for presenting the work with movement without depending on a developer, Motion.page builds scroll animations from a visual editor. Over architectural photography the effect shows considerably.

Frequently asked questions

Is it only for architecture?
It is designed for creative businesses generally, with architecture and interior design as the main use.

Can I use the demo photographs?
No. They carry their own licence and have to be replaced with yours.

How many projects should be published?
Few, and well explained. Volume convinces nobody in this sector.

Which page gets most neglected?
The team page, and it is usually the second most visited on the whole site.

Is it worth publishing prices?
A range or a minimum, yes. It filters out enquiries that were never going anywhere.

Does it need a page builder?
It brings its own structure. If you prefer Elementor, there are templates for the same sector.