what kind of web hosting do i need as a designer?

[Jake]

A little confusing Wordpress.com is the free hosted slightly limited version of te industry standard Wordpress blog platform, wordpress.org is the source of the open source code and a myriad of themes and plugins that you would typically use on a paid host, most people start with an "unlimited" shared server account for about $8/mo where you can add more sites at the cost of about $1 a month more for each additional domain name. You may add more customizing plugins to Wordpress on a paid server and are not at the mercy of a free host that can delete your account on a whim. Some entry level hosts are more "wordpres friendly" than others, those CMS platforms consume more processor power than simpler static sites and can be a bit too slow on some cheap servers. There may be no industry standard for "business class hosting" typically you get more traffic capacity and a bot better support.
Google's Blogger.com is the biggest free blog host, it has no paid upgrades and few editorial restrictions. To get a feel for their style you might look through examples with a Google search for:
site:blogspot.com intitle:design
This search only shows those too cheap to use a custom domain name which makes you look more professional and allows you to relocate to another server without starting over from scratch, though Blogger is a proprietary system that doesn't allow for easy transfer of content or learned skills to a different server.

Blog platforms might be good for you because no real programming is required and they have some degree of flexibility, there are certainly other free gallery flavored social sites like tumblr.com that might suite you.