Designing a more effective portfolio
5 tips to make your design portfolio more likely to land you a job
Before I get into the tips, let me share a bit of context…
We recently changed the way we review portfolios in the Shopify UX team. In the past, the first point of contact with one of our designers was an interview. This isn’t scalable, but more importantly, this approach contributed to an inconsistent quality bar, especially for visual design.
Because of that, we introduced a portfolio screen that solely focuses on a candidate’s visual design ability, to make sure that all the product designers we hire meet our minimum requirements.
The way it works is simple, we assign the same portfolio to 3 different reviewers and, to move forward in the process, a portfolio needs to gather an unanimous positive response from all 3 reviewers.
Despite the large majority not passing this first screening, we realised that the ones that make it end up doing well in the remaining interviews. Thus making this upfront investment worthwhile, since it significantly reduced the amount of interviews that end up in no offer.
Throughout my career, I’ve reviewed hundreds of design portfolios, and witnessed our tools evolve incredibly. It has never been so easy to build your own online portfolio. Despite that, and regardless of the seniority level of designers, I keep bumping against the same issues, over and over again.
Issues that not only make my life more difficult as a reviewer, but also prevent me from passing candidates to the next stage. Which is always a bummer.
All I want is to see your amazing work presented properly, so I decided to take advantage of my experience reviewing work, and share some tips that will help you increase your chance of success, no matter if you’re just starting or a seasoned veteran.
All shapes are valid!
First, let me just clarify that a portfolio can take many shapes and sizes. I’ve seen everything, from crafted online interactive experiences to simple slide deck presentations.
I don’t believe one is necessarily better than the other, I’ve seen good and bad versions of both.
The format that you pick really depends on the time you have on your hands. It’s nice if you have time to craft a website, but if all you have is time to quickly pull together a slide deck, it’s better to share a well crafted slide deck than a janky website.
Believe me! I’ve been there, done that, and got the job. When I was approached by Shopify, I wasn’t looking for a new job, but I didn’t want to miss what seemed like a great opportunity.
For the sake of time, and to avoid making them wait, I reused materials from prior work keynotes, and with them built a short story that encapsulated the last project I designed. I didn’t really create any new materials for this; I only had to do a bit of digging and assembly.
For me, the most important piece was the story and how it all reflected my role and contribution to the project, so that was the thing I tried to spend more time in. Somehow that clicked, and the rest is history.
All that to say: the format is up to you. Regardless of what you chose, there are a few important things you must keep in mind as you go about designing your portfolio.
So, let’s jump into that!
1. Think about your audience
As a designer, one of your first priorities should be to understand the audience you’re designing for. This is no different when it comes to your portfolio.
Consider not only who’s going to browse through your work, but, more importantly, how much time they will likely spend.
From my experience, I would be surprised if a reviewer spends more than 5 minutes on your portfolio. And I’m being VERY generous. If that seems unfair, just consider:
- A reviewer will have multiple portfolios to go through, not just yours.
- An experienced reviewer will be able to quickly make up their mind, sometimes all you need is a couple strong signals or a couple red flags to make a decision.
- Reviewing a portfolio is just the first step of a process, if the candidate makes it, then there’s more time to go through the work in depth.
Why does that matter? Because this means that you need to optimise your portfolio to make a good first impression, and make it extremely easy to consume. In practice, this means removing as much friction as possible to see the actual work.
Avoid novel patterns that may cause confusion in navigating your work, this is not the time to reinvent the wheel. People just want to see the work, so make it extremely clear how to jump into your projects.
If you need to password protect some projects, that’s ok, but please do it for the whole site, so people only have to enter a password once. Even if the password is the same, having to enter it over and over again is really annoying, and this friction may turn off some reviewers.
2. Tell YOUR story
Besides showing your work and experience, your portfolio should help a reviewer get a sense of your voice as a designer. Because ultimately you are what they will be hiring, not the work you did in the past or the list of companies you worked with, but the work YOU can do in the future.
For that, when you’re selecting what to show, I’d advise you to give emphasis to what speaks to your role and strengths. What kind of designer are you?
No matter what work you’re presenting, I think it’s important to think about what story you’re telling. How did it come about and how does that reflect your methodology and philosophy as a designer?
With this, it’s very important to understand that I’m not recommending you to write a blog post for each project, or try to put too much emphasis in the process, I’m just recommending you to think about each project as a quick glimpse to the way you work, what you focus on, and what value you actually deliver in the end.
Lastly, I’d also recommend you not to be afraid to inject a bit of your personality in the way you present the work. When we’re working for an organisation, often we have to play within a predefined sandbox, but your portfolio is yours.
Avoid following trends and clichés. So many portfolios I review follow the same exact narrative. I have no idea where this is coming from, but for what it’s worth, know that you don’t have to include a double diamond diagram and a photo of a bunch of post-its just to say you did the work.
Look at it as a chance to show your voice and range. Just make sure it doesn’t end up getting in the way of the work you’re trying to show, the work should be the highlight, everything around it should only reinforce that.
3. Let the work do the talking
A story doesn’t need lots of words, especially for the type of work designers do. Visuals speak volumes.
Plus, your audience doesn’t have time to read, so lean on visuals rather than words when you’re building your story, and aim to show more than you tell.
Visuals can be more than screenshots of your work. The outcome of product design is rarely a static experience, so I highly recommend you share how things work and behave as part of your story. This makes it more compelling and easier to consume, but, more importantly, it gives the reviewer a better sense of what you designed.
Share how things work and behave as part of your story. This makes it more compelling and easier to consume, but, more importantly, it gives the reviewer a better sense of what you designed.
When you need to use words, be brief and straight to the point. As I mentioned earlier, a reviewer won’t have much time, so you can’t expect them to read massive paragraphs. It’s more likely they read it if you keep it short and precise.
If you want to share your process or design rationale, there are ways to achieve that with little to no words. Simply show artefacts that encapsulate the process and decisions, like first sketches, early mocks, failed attempts, prototypes, etc.
Essentially, anything that helped you get to the final solution.
Lastly, but equally important, I highly discourage the use of any embellishments in an effort to masquerade bad work. Things like 3D mocks may add some value to good design, but if your design is subpar, framing it with an iPhone will only make that so much more obvious.
If the work is good, you can probably benefit in giving it a bit of context, like framing it with a device or showing it in use. But I ask you to think carefully when to do that.
As a reviewer, I want to see YOUR work, there are tons of mocks available online, with really interesting compositions that work well for a cover image, but when I dive into the project I shouldn’t be squinting to see what you did.
As I said earlier, make sure it takes the main stage. Your work is the hero.
4. Don’t show EVERYTHING
I talked about what to show, let’s now switch it up and talk the opposite.
What should you avoid showing?
What I said about words applies to the work. There’s a lot that goes into our work, but we can’t show it all. We have to fight the desire to dump everything in our portfolios.
There’s a time and a place for everything. When people only have a few minutes to go through a portfolio, they want to see highlights, so curate your work. You’ll have time to dive a bit deeper on a second stage.
Be conscious of what companies you’d like to work for, and what work is more relevant to them. If you have proof of work in a similar context, that is always appreciated, but make sure you’re only showing your best side.
You won’t be judged by the amount of work you show, you’ll be judged on quality.
More often than not people will make their assessment based on the worst project they saw, not the best, because the worst piece you add to your portfolio reflects your quality bar, and gives a hint to the worst possible thing you could produce if, for instance, you’re in a time crunch. Therefore, you better be very picky about what ends up in your portfolio.
The other thing to avoid is filler content, like post-it boards and Figma file overviews that nobody can read. Really think hard what purpose these things serve before you include them.
Worse than that are teasers to work that will never come. If you want to mention you worked for an acclaimed company, there’s a place for that like your resume. If you can’t show the work because of an NDA, just don’t.
In your portfolio what matters is the work, there’s no place for an “in construction” page. All you really get with that is your audience wasting a few clicks, and a bit of patience too.
Three projects feels like the perfect amount to include to me, because it enables the designer to express some range whilst not demanding too much from a reviewer.
To be most effective, your portfolio needs to feel light weight but satisfying at the same time. Three projects feels like the perfect amount to include to me, because it enables the designer to express some range whilst not demanding too much from a reviewer.
5. No detail is too small
As I mentioned earlier, time is of the essence, so you should take advantage of your design skills to lead the eye of your audience. People don’t actually read, they scan, so use visual elements and space to help guide the eye through the work.
If you’re building a site, think about the experience of your reviewer. Things like being able to access the work from the landing page, having proper hit areas to get to the projects, and a ‘next’ button at the end of each project. These are great indicators that you consider the person who’s going to use your site.
Start with your best work! People rely a lot on the very first thing they see, they will make an assessment based on a first impression and then look for evidence that confirms what they think.
Start with your best work! People rely a lot on the very first thing they see, they will make an assessment based on a first impression and then look for evidence that confirms what they think.
As with designing a product, there’s no such thing as small details.
Make sure there’s no misaligned elements, missing assets, typos, and please stay away placeholders text like ‘lorem ipsum’.
Designers will be reviewing your portfolio, and I promise you that they won’t miss the tiniest detail. Which is good, because that kind of lack of attention to detail just demonstrates sloppiness, which is not a desirable skills for a designer.
The ultimate goal
A portfolio is only a first glimpse to you and your work as a designer.
The goal shouldn’t be to communicate the full extent of your processes and experience, but instead, to show proficiency and entice the viewer to get to know you better. Very much like an elevator pitch, the idea is to generate a spark and to create a good first impression.
So do your best to capture that first flag, but realise that there’s more to come.
Thanks for reading! I hope you find these tips useful, and I really hope they help you get your next gig. If you think your portfolio is up to snuff, I encourage you to apply for one of the many roles we have open at Shopify:
We’re looking for the best designers in the world to join us in helping millions of independent businesses succeed. If you apply, I hope to be amazed by your portfolio.
If you feel like talking, connecting, or just want to see what I’m up to, I’m Halfool on YouTube and Instagram, and you can also follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
