PORTFOLIO ADVICE FOR NEW DESIGNERS

Recent design graduates and others first getting into graphic design tend to make common and avoidable mistakes with the work they're presenting in their portfolios as well as the way they're presenting it. These mistakes hurt their chances of getting interviews and ultimately getting hired. Here are some methods to help remedy this situation.

This overview isn't intended for experienced designers who are already working in the field and have real world projects to put in their portfolio. Instead, it's aimed at those looking for their first full time design role and who are presenting a mix of student work, conceptual work for fictional clients done outside of school, and real world freelance projects.

It also isn't meant for people who are using their online portfolio to get freelance clients. Finding a full time graphic design position and freelance work are very different goals and combining both elements into a single website will confuse your audience by diluting your message (which for those seeking a full time role should be “consider hiring me for your open design position”), lessening the likelihood of getting interviewed if not completely taking you out of the running. If you're doing freelance work as a designer or illustrator, and/or selling designed products, create separate platforms for those ventures – additional websites, PDFs, or social media accounts.

To maximize your chance of being hired into a full time role, focus on the type of projects and deliverables (printed pieces, website, packaging, signage, etc.) that hiring managers at companies and agencies are most commonly looking for and lessen or eliminate the kind of work that isn't needed as often by those organizations. Examples of those kinds of pieces are standalone illustrations, album covers, posters, and graphic t-shirts – especially those created for fictional clients. In many cases, too much focus on those types of fictional projects damages the designer's chances of being interviewed, no matter how well done the pieces are.

Instead, include projects for the kinds of fictional clients that those hiring designers dont’t often in many new designers’ portfolios. There are only so many coffee shops, breweries, and bakeries in the world and most of them don’t hire designers or agencies to create their branding. These kinds of consumer-related businesses that most new designers are aware of and create projects around are not the focus of most organizations that hire full time designers.

Each piece in your portfolio is a chance to impress the hiring manger enough to set up an interview – at which point it's your job, and not your portfolio's, to get you hired. For every piece you present that misses the mark, the chance of this happening goes down significantly. Competition for entry level design jobs is so instense that a few or even one single poorly conceived project can knock you out of the running for a design role. Don't let that happen.

Below are methods on how to set up your portfolio to give yourself the best chance of getting hired for a full time design position.

Platform and Domain

The platform you choose for your portfolio site is important. Spend time researching platforms and testing templates before you commit to one. Going with one of the more commonly used platforms is the safest option.

• suggested platforms:

• pay for your own domain name – avoid free options that require messy URLs such as “name.websitebuilder.com” or “websitebuilder.com/name”

• an ideal domain is “fullname.com” or “firstnamedesign.com” (or something similar to “design” – “creative”, “portfolio”, etc.) – avoid overly long or complicated domain names

• avoid using a name or branding that makes you look like a studio/agency – "Chris Stone Design" is fine but “Primordial Design Studios” won't help a hiring manager see you as an individual designer looking to be hired into a full time position – organizations hire people into positions and not companies

• most hiring managers will view your site on a desktop or laptop, so make sure your layout looks good on those screen sizes over mobile or tablet sizes (though it should still work well on those devices)

• be sure the platform you choose has Adaptive/Responsive layouts for mobile and tablet (most modern platforms and templates will have this)

Layout/Template

Once you've chosen your platform, start thinking about and working on the overall look of your portfolio site. Simplicity, consistency, and usability are key. Make your work and not the portfolio itself the focus. Recruiters and hiring managers are busy and there are always many applicants for any design position. Keep your layout clean and intuitive to give the viewer a smooth, enjoyable experience that requires as few clicks as possible to view your work.

• your name should be in a consistent place on every page – preferably at the top

• menu/navigation should be simple and easy to find and read

• avoid dropdown options from your main menu – there's no reason to add this kind of complexity to a portfolio website

• use a full text menu for desktop users – the “hamburger menu” (three horizontal lines) should only appear on mobile

• choose a simple layout for your website overall and especially for your Work/Portfolio section – a 2- or 3-column grid structure is common

• use one or two tasteful and easy to read typefaces, don't go too small with your font sizes, and use a generous amount of leading (space between lines)

• avoid crowding elements too close to each other or to the borders of the page

• use minimal, consistent color – consider restricting all interactive elements (menu items, links in text, image borders/overlays) to a single color

• avoid complex background patterns or textures

• avoid complex ornamentation around images – drop shadows, distracting borders, etc.

• transitions and animations on rollover or between pages can work as long as they’re consistent, fast, and don’t distract from the viewer's experience

• avoid parallax or other complicated website layouts (the exception would be if you're more focused on web development and therefore have a reason to show off more advanced techniques that you've coded yourself)

• it doesn't hurt to have your contact info on every page (in addition to the Contact page mentioned below) – some hiring managers will appreciate being able to easily find this information

Pages

It's common for designers setting up their first portfolio site to include too many pages, or to give non-intuitive names to pages. Don't try to break the mold here – keep it simple and logical.

• Work

  • this is the main event so your portfolio site should load to this page, showing thumbnails of your projects

  • a short text introduction ("Chris Stone is a graphic designer from Evanston, Illinois") is common to have above the thumbnails

  • it can be helpful to list the project or client name above or below the thumbnail, or on an overlay when the viewer rolls over the image

  • clicking on each project’s thumbnail should load into a full page with more detailed information on that project

• About

  • a short paragraph or two about the designer – mentioning “looking for my first full-time design position” or similar direct language that makes it clear that the designer is looking for a full time design role can be helpful

  • some mention of location – city, region or country

  • college attended and major if applicable (but not graduation year unless it’s the current year or one year prior)

  • mentioning a general interest or two outside of design is fine as it can be memorable and humanize you, but keep it minimal ("When I'm not designing, I enjoy riding my hoverboard and spending time with my iguanas")

  • download link to Resume (PDF, Word .doc, or both)

  • link to LinkedIn profile – create a LinkedIn profile you don't already have one – this is expected by anyone hiring – have a real profile photo, information on skills and experience that match your resume/CV, and be active on the platform

  • a simple, tasteful photo of the designer is common but not required – this is helpful in making you feel like a real person to the hiring manager)

  • software (optional, especially if it's referenced in individual project descriptions) – this can be a mention in your bio about using specific design software (“I started using Adobe Creative Cloud during my time studying design”), or a short list of the most common software used/required: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign + any others that you've used to create at least one piece – you're not claiming mastery; you're saying you have used that piece of software competently

• Case Studies (these can also be included in the Work/Portfolio section instead of in their own page)

  • ideally include 1-3 of these where you break down your process, talking about the project's initial goals, development, launch, and results

• Contact (this can be its own page or part of the About page)

  • email address (as clickable link)

  • phone number (optional but preferred)

  • Contact Form with name (required field), company (optional), phone number (optional), email address (optional), and multi-line text field (required) – set up to send or forward to your email address and (important!) test your Contact form frequently to make sure emails are actually being forwarded to you – you do not want to miss a message from someone who wants to call you in for an interview, especially if the Contact Form is the only way to reach you (hence listing email address and phone number)

Things to Avoid

• avoid splash/intro pages on your site

• avoid Services - this portfolio is not intended to sell you as a freelancer; the "services" you offer will be mentioned in your project descriptions

• avoid including full sections on Fine Art, Illustration, Hand Lettering, Animation, Writing, Photography, Coding, and anything other than Graphic Design – if desired, build additional websites or PDFs showing those skills and link to them from the About page or send them separately if a hiring manager expresses an interest in a particular skill – but these related areas don't belong on your portfolio site and including them will make you look like someone who really wants to work as an illustrator (for example), but who's willing to settle for a design position. No hiring manager is looking for someone who’s kind of a graphic designer but is really interested in doing illustration full time – they’re looking for dedication to the discipline they’re hiring for. For every open position, there are hundreds of people presenting portfolios of strong design work and only design work. Most design positions don't require much if any illustration – and often there's not enough time to create full illustrations, especially when companies and agencies use stock images services. At best, you may be called in for an interview in spite of having an unrelated section on your portfolio site and not because of it.

• “progress bars” or any visual indication of skill level in different pieces of software are generally not advised to include in a portfolio or resume/CV – they are often seen as the designer assessing their own skill subjectively, limiting their value

• avoid social media icons linking to other platforms (other than LinkedIn) – your portfolio site alone should contain everything that sells you a designer – there's no reason to send the viewer to another platform when you already have them on the platform you own and control (though you should be sending them from your social media accounts to your website)

Work – What to Include

As mentioned above, your site should load to this page because this is what those hiring full time designers have come to see – your work. And if your work doesn't look good, this is as far as they'll get. An experienced designer, art director, or creative director will get a sense of a designer's capabilities within seconds of viewing their work, so even the initial page showing project thumbnails has to be strong.

Keep in mind that if you're looking for an entry level design position, your work will be viewed with your experience level in mind. You're a new grad or someone otherwise looking to get into the design field. You're not competing with the work of designers who have been working in the field for years or decades – you're competing with others at your level of experience. Hiring managers understand where you're coming from and know that they're seeing student/entry level work, much (or maybe all) of it created for fictional clients. And if you're called in for an interview, it will be based on the potential that you show as a designer more than anything else.

With that being said, include:

• no less than 5 projects

• no more than 12 projects

• only your absolute best work – review all pieces already created and fix any errors, redesigning from scratch or creating new pieces if needed. Nothing goes in without a critical reassessment. Rebuild any piece in your portfolio that you're not completely happy with. Be hard on yourself. You're not the designer now – you're the editor. Be as objective and critical as possible to the designer's work.

• structure everything as a project and not as a standalone piece. Projects tell a whole story ("I designed this logo/banner/advertisement for this client and then adapted it to be a billboard, video intro, product package, etc.") while standalone pieces are just fragments ("I made this logo", "I made this sign"). Each project should have at least three deliverables – for example a logo design, product packaging featuring the logo, and a social media post or online ad for the product. This shows the designer's breadth of skills, flexibility and attention to detail, and this this kind of adaptive production work is what many new design positions require. Taking a hiring manager through the story of a project is much more compelling than having them view a collection of standalone pieces. An exception can be a "logo folio" – a collection of individual logos standing in as one project. Though it can be helpful to adapt the best of those logos into full conceptual projects.

• each project should include a short text description that briefly describes the client as well as the different deliverables created for the project. If the client is real, find ways to mention this in the text – “Branding and direct mail campaign created for Higgins Movers, a moving company that has served the Seattle region for over thirty years”.

• avoid non-design pieces unless they are truly integrated into a project – for example, no standalone illustration or photos – those kinds of pieces must be used as part of a larger project, and they can't feel like a minimal project built just to showcase the illustration or photo (like an album cover, t-shirt, or poster with one large image and a small logo and line of text added to make it feel like a real project)

• include at least one case study for a project – show process sketches, unused early designs, and development to final pieces – your text should describe the client (even if fictional), their industry, their competitors, products/services offered by them, customers/audience, goals of the project ("the client wanted to increase their email subscriber base by 20%"), challenges in creating the project, and if possible, the outcome ("at the completion of the campaign, the client's email subscribers increased by 23%")

• fictional clients can be cited simply as “concept for”, as in “concept for a laundry delivery service” – more can be explained during an eventual interview, but most hiring managers will realize this term indicates the client isn’t a real world organization, especially when hiring for junior design positions. And if they want to know more about it, they'll ask during an interview.

• have 2-3 other people test and proofread your full website before sending it out to hiring managers or posting it to any social media platform – especially on LinkedIn. Wait until you've posted all your information and have proofread everything yourself before bringing others in.

• avoid overloading your portfolio with too much of one type of client, application (brochure, signage, packaging, etc.), or style – showing a hiring manager your ability to adapt to the needs of different types of clients and projects is a key in getting hired

• avoid rebranding existing companies – especially large, household name entities – focus on fictional entities instead

• thumbnails tend to work best when they're filled with a color that's different from the site’s background color. A thumbnail showing a logo on a white background will blend into a site with a white background, making it feel like it’s floating rather than being part of the grid of thumbnails – so set the logo on a different colored background, modifying its colors if necessary (for example, change black in the logo to white if you're putting it on a black background).

• for branding projects, avoid designing an icon for a logo first, then building a name around it – for example, combining an image of a bear with an image of a mug in a visually clever way and naming the business “Bear Coffee” – to an experienced designer, it will be obvious that the solution came before the problem, which is not how real world projects work

• use sites like https://dailylogochallenge.com, https://goodbrief.io, https://www.briefbox.me, and https://fakeclients.com to develop projects for fictional clients

• avoid linking to external websites – keep visitors on your site. If they want to verify a real world client project, they can search on their own (but they probably won't)

• make sure any piece you show fits completely onscreen in both desktop and mobile without the viewer needing to scroll – an exception is showing a larger, scrollable version after the smaller version has already appeared, so that the viewer can see a more detailed view of the piece

• consider adding horizontal bars filled with color/texture behind some images in each project that span the width of the page – this can break up the flow of the page as the viewer scrolls, and can avoid the look of images floating on the page (especially smaller images)

Suggested Industries and Deliverables

It can be helpful to differentiate your portfolio by including projects featuring the kind of industries and deliverables that businesses actually need, and are not often found in the portfolios of designers entering the field. View the article linked below for a comprehensive list of those elements:

Suggested Industries and Deliverables for Fictional Projects

Suggested Industries and Deliverables

Below is a set of layout templates that can be used as reference for developing a portfolio website:

https://tinyurl.com/ms226zbw

Our field is one that many aspire to be part of even before they're old enough to know the term "graphic design," which creates a slew of people who are always looking for their entry point. Because of this, there's no room for new designers to just do "good enough" work, especially when applying for that first full time design role. Following the methods outlined above will help new designers who are building their first portfolio website, or who are updating an existing portfolio to increase their chances of being hired for a design position.