Building a Portfolio for Your Design Career

If you're ready to embark on a career as a designer, you'll need a strong portfolio to showcase your abilities. A design portfolio is your virtual resume, so it needs to present you and your employable skills in the best possible light.

To help you get there, we're sharing some of our top tips for how to create a design portfolio.

1. Include Your Best Work

Your instinct might be to include everything you've made, but you'll need to exercise a bit more restraint. A portfolio is a visual professional résumé, and it should only contain your best work. Think of the expression "kill your darlings"; you may need to cut work that has high emotional value to you in order to best convey who you are now.

Also, you don’t need to limit your portfolio to work you've created professionally. Depending on where you are in your career, you might include work you did in college, side projects, hobbies, or volunteer or pro bono work. (Even though you weren't paid, the work still demonstrates your skill and passion.)

As you choose what should be in your design portfolio, consider whether the job you're targeting requires generalized or specialized skills. Then, adapt your portfolio to that job. While generalizing demonstrates a wide range of valuable skills, specializing your portfolio can position you as a highly competitive candidate for the specific role you are applying for. As always, stick to your best work when you make your design portfolio.

Other things to include in your portfolio include:

• Case studies: Case studies are an excellent way to show the breadth of your skillset. A beautiful picture of a finished design is great, but explaining your process, which includes how you solved problems, worked through client requests, and researched the industry, is better. Adding elements like prototypes, failed designs, wireframes, flow charts, and other visuals will strengthen your case study.

• Client reviews: If your clients have given you glowing recommendations, put them in your portfolio. Happy customers speak to your ability to meet client demands and company goals.

• Awards: Accolades from your peers and professionals in the field speak very loudly when someone is scrolling through your portfolio. For any design awards or design competitions that you’ve won or placed in, remember to feature the logo of the awards program on the page with the project that got recognized.

• Contact information: A simple call to action at the bottom of your page makes it easy for potential employers to get in touch. You'll want to include your email and phone number, as well as your LinkedIn or other social media accounts in your portfolio. Note: Do not include accounts that do not feature professional work.

2. Focus on Quality

When deciding how many projects to put in a design portfolio, focus more on quality and less on quantity. If you're a recent graduate, your portfolio might be slim (5-7 projects). Your projects could also be less than perfect since you were still learning when you created them.

We don’t believe in spec work, but if you do not have a lot of real-world work, you may want to consider strengthening your design portfolio by doing some pro-bono work. Find local businesses, not-for-profits, or organizations that you believe in who look like they could use some design help, and offer your skills.

Another option is to enter your work into design competitions. Some, like the Core77 Design Awards, give equal priority to student work as professional work. You can also look at AIGA, IDSA, IxDA, and Fast Company.

3. Organize Your Portfolio to Tell a Story

Including the right content is only a piece of the puzzle. You will also want your portfolio to tell a story. To do so, it must be well organized. An industrial designer, for instance, might use a case study to display their troubleshooting and problem-solving skills. They should show their process, a couple twists-and-turns, and a clear explication of why their solution is strong. If it’s client work, they might also include a client review that raves about their interpersonal skills and knowledge of the market. (These other elements add new dimensions to the typical components in a product design portfolio.)

While organizing your portfolio, remember to include results. A gorgeous piece of art is nice, but clients want to know how your work can help them reach their goals. If you're showing off a wireframe for an app, for example, add pullquotes or small blurbs about the goals you accomplished. For example, perhaps the client wanted a particular UX element for the user to be drawn toward; talk about how you made that happen.

Finally, organize your content to leave a lasting impression. You don't want the reader to end on a low note. (You also don't want your best stuff buried at the back!) Start strong and end strong.

4. Develop a Personal Brand

As a designer, showing your authenticity and passion through the work in your portfolio allows you to begin to develop your own personal brand. Remember, your potential employers are people who want to connect with you on a personal level in addition to valuing your skills. Show off your personality—but don't overwhelm your reader with every detail of your life. Instead, focus on information that demonstrates your values and lets you shine.

Your personal brand extends to other platforms. If you have a presence on social media or networking sites, keep your choices consistent. For instance, using similar images for your profile can help solidify your brand. (Again, if your profiles on these other platforms don’t include professional work—and are more about restaurants you ate at or concerts you went to—maybe skip featuring them on your website :)

5. Build a Stellar Website

One of the most important parts of your design portfolio is its appearance and functionality. Clients will expect a designer to have an eye for what looks good. Thankfully, you can find plenty of portfolio platforms to help you create a stunning website such as Squarespace, Wix, Cargo, and Adobe Portfolio. (These sites have pre-designed templates that you can tweak, but don’t overdo it. You should be populating your portfolio more than designing it…unless you are an interaction designer and part of your skillset is html/css.), There are also sites that feature images and captions only—Behance, Coroflot, and Dribbble—but those are best used as “calling cards”—some samples of your work—with links to your actual portfolio where you can tell a more complete story.

When creating your design portfolio website, keep these display tips in mind:

• Optimize your portfolio for mobile browsing: Your readers should be able to access your site from a phone or tablet. Most website builders offer tools for viewing the mobile version of your website. If building your owCreating a portfolio that is functional on a tablet or phone shows your ability to use responsive design in your work.

• Choose the right format for your art: Being intentional with your layout will go a long way. For example, photographers might prefer to put their images fullscreen, while a 3D modeler might use videos to display their work. If you have a wide range of projects, separate them into folders or pages with the appropriate style.

• Optimize images for the web: If your images are too large, they won't load quickly, which affects the user experience and the overall performance of a web page. As a designer, you want your readers to see your projects in the best possible light. You can optimize your images for a website by resizing and compressing them. Stick to PNG, JPEG or GIF files.

• Update your portfolio regularly: Treat your portfolio like a living, breathing entity. Continue to build it up with new projects and refine your focus as you grow in your career—not just when you’re between jobs :)

Make Your Portfolio Shine

Building a portfolio can seem daunting — especially if it's a step on the path toward a new career. With a deliberate and strategic approach, you can create a stunning compilation of your professional skills. Remember to fill your portfolio with your best work, leave it free of low-quality projects, and keep it well-organized. 

In addition, your portfolio is the perfect place to show off your personal brand, and hosting it on a great website can help you guide viewers through the experience.

Hopefully, you feel equipped with the confidence and knowledge to get started. Following steps above can help build a portfolio you're proud to share with potential employers.