In every creative’s career there comes a time to look back at projects and wrap them up nicely together so that they tell a coherent and well-rounded story about their creative personality. Having a portfolio that shows character comes with its benefits: it serves you well during interviews, makes it easier for clients to find you, and creates new opportunities. But a portfolio that shows character is a unique challenge. As a design director, I’ve spent years looking at dozens of portfolios each week, and as I began contemplating this challenge, I was surprised by the contradiction at its heart. The majority of portfolios showed some, if not a lot of professional experience, insight and passion. In contrast, and as though blindsided by the task, most lacked the self-awareness and branding skills that built a bigger, fuller picture of who the creative is as a person. Very few portfolios held a natural connection to the idea of “self-branding”. Having worked with incredibly interesting and creative designers with not-so-great portfolios, I’ve learned that many find it incredibly hard to convey their professional character through a portfolio. So I became interested in overcoming that personal hurdle; and since saying things like “just connect to your inner voice” never said much to me, the process needed to be down-to-earth and accessible. This is my philosophy for building a character-filled portfolio that brings your personality to life through the screen.
Know your (psychological) enemies:
Before starting to design, here are a few obstacles that block us from working on our portfolio with the same insight and depth as other projects. I find that becoming aware of these “enemies” makes it much easier to overcome them.
Creative drain: Working all day long designing projects for money can leave us depleted of energy needed to work on our own things at the end of the day. There is no easy tip here, but I do want you to understand that taking a minute to think about and plan your near future is important if you are looking for a meaningful career. You don’t want to simply drift along with whatever project comes next. Think about how each project represents who you are and showcases your skills. Not doing so might affect your satisfaction with your profession down the road. Find a good quiet time to work on your portfolio when you have little to no projects. If possible, turn down projects that you may not be the best fit for. Find a place where you love to work and put time and effort into your portfolio project.
Avoiding making a choice: As designers we are aware of what feels like an infinite number of ways to showcase our work. This abundance of choice is daunting and can lead to confusion. On top of that, when building our own portfolio, there is no client to tell us what they want, leaving r us to make decisions for ourselves. Many questions float through our mind, like what kind of design niches we want to concentrate on, which projects showcase these niches the best, and deciding the textual tone and voice of the site. All of these questions rightfully make designers choose the easy way out: choosing a simple gallery template, selecting a few good projects and calling it a day. But like we said before, avoiding these questions will damage your professionalism as a designer. You don’t have to face these questions alone. To get that head start, consult a colleague that you have a good working relationship with and whose professional opinion you trust. Have a chat over coffee, look at some of your work together and make some initial decisions.
Every challenging project needs a fun kick-off: Not everything in life needs to begin with glitter and balloons, but a fun and interesting start to a project makes the work itself more engaging. Making meaningful experimental processes is always at the top of our minds when we prepare our summer program in New York. This is where we developed a tool that both our students and team find as a useful way to kick off the portfolio project, the final project we work on at the Academy. We found that designers very much enjoy working on moodboards during different projects. What can be an addictive endless image search where we clear our minds of clutter and unhelpful thoughts is exactly the start we need. We let our intuition lead and as a result create a positive experience.
Self-moodboard
Here are a few simple steps to create your own moodboard. This will help you answer questions you have about the graphic language of your portfolio. It first examines your general style, then dills down to typography, layouts and behavior inspiration.
Open a document in a program that you usually use for inspiration. Here, you should be able to place many images next to each other and zoom in and out to see parts of the collection or all of it at once.
Collect 10 visual materials that you feel are well designed for each of the following categories: music, food, cinema, fashion, literature and one more you choose, such as art, travel, alcohol, etc. Place them into categories in a way that you can see them all together. I highly recommend printing and covering your entire work station with the materials you love.
Visually analyze your collection, as this may very well be your design taste.
Start grouping elements you feel fit together, mixing the different categories. You can group by color groups, typography groups or simply different elements that you feel belong to each other.
Congratulations! you’ve made it! At this point, you have at least three or four different visual directions for your very own portfolio site! And a good start for the project.
A little goes a long way
With a portfolio, small efforts go a long way. Looking at a portfolio website, I look for small informative signs that tell me more about the person whose work I’m looking at. For example, a personal point of view teaches me about the designer’s character, a small indication that the designer keeps up-to-date with design trends, knows how to make an aware, tasteful choice, and so on. The more informative, characterizing hints I see, the bigger and fuller the picture I get. Whoever is looking at your portfolio doesn't need more than just a few small hints to understand that there’s more to you than good projects.
Now, get inspired:
Here are a few portfolios that started with the self moodboard method and that also have successful informational hints.
Sophie’s portfolio shows us who she is without inundating the site with lots of animations and colors. Searching for informational hints, it’s clear that Sophie added geometrical shapes to combine all of the different design languages in her projects into one harmonic portfolio. I find this to be a smart and simple solution. Another clue I get is by clicking on Sophie’s logo and getting a type of inverted page with personal information about her. Spend some time on her site and see all kinds of small and thoughtful design decisions that make all the difference. They don’t take the focus off of her work, but add to it.
This portfolio is the perfect example of a designer with a very strong identity and style.
Knowing Xian, looking at her portfolio site is almost like looking at her right in front of you. So on that visual note, you do get the whole picture. She goes all the way with her visual style and what you see is what you get.
When opening Liang’s site you arrive at what seems to be a very boring looking page, but after a few hovers and clicks you reveal a site full of small, fun and chaotic surprises. When reviewing this portfolio I very quickly learn that Liang likes to solve graphic challenges in an unusual and extraordinary way. Rather than inviting people to view her work and then leave the site, Liang creates an interactive, memorable experience that stays with us long after.
It is extremely important to show that we can communicate visually. In this portfolio, Akira visually demonstrates their passion for bugs and errors. They do this subtly on their portfolio’s header and footer, adding interest without taking away from their projects.
The bright yellow in this 3D animation header is used very smartly throughout Jung’s portfolio. It stayed with me throughout the experience and led to my association of this color with Jung. Animations used in the right way can also make the person that is viewing your portfolio stay a bit longer. I also really like his bio image, which is not the standard pose but also not too far from it (hover the yellow ball on the about page - cute!).
