The eleven tips
- 01Be careful what you include. Every piece is a promise of what the client will get. Remove anything you would not want to be hired to repeat.
- 02Show range within your specialism. A brand designer shows logos, systems, packaging and social, not five logos. Range across unrelated disciplines dilutes.
- 03Quality over quantity. Six to ten strong pieces. A weak piece lowers the average more than a strong one raises it.
- 04Get the image resolution right. Crisp, consistent, colour-managed, sized for retina screens and compressed for speed. Blurry mockups undercut the work inside them.
- 05Talk about results. What the client needed, what you did, what happened: the enquiry increase, the launch, the review. Numbers where you have them, honesty where you do not.
- 06Make it easy to navigate. Work, about, contact. Filters if you have many pieces. No hunting for the email address.
- 07Write sincerely. Plain sentences about the problem and the decision. No "crafting bespoke solutions".
- 08Let passion show, specifically. Not "I love design" but the detail you obsessed over and why.
- 09Avoid heavy animation. Loading screens, scroll effects and autoplay video slow the thirty seconds down. Let the work move; keep the site still.
- 10Get a second opinion. A working designer for the craft, a non-designer for the clarity. Both will find things you cannot.
- 11Review quarterly. Add the best new work, cut the oldest, update the about page. A portfolio with 2023 work at the top says you stopped in 2023.
A structure that works
| Page | Contents |
|---|---|
| Home | One-line positioning, four best pieces, one client quote, contact link |
| Work | Six to ten case studies, filterable if needed |
| Case study | Brief, approach, outcome, three to six images, client quote |
| About | Real photo, short story, specialism, who you work with |
| Contact | Form, email, WhatsApp, response time |
Common questions
- How many projects should a design portfolio have?
- Six to ten. Enough to show range and consistency, few enough that each gets attention. Beginners with fewer real projects should add self-initiated work that solves a plausible brief.
- Should I include client work I am not proud of?
- No. The portfolio is curated by definition. If a piece was compromised by the client, either explain the constraint in one honest sentence or leave it out.
- Do I need case studies or are images enough?
- Case studies. A paragraph on the problem and result is what converts a browser into an enquiry and what search engines can index. Images alone are a mood board.
