BUILDING A GOOD WEB DESIGN PORTFOLIO

 

Before people hire you, theyre going to want to see examples of your work. You wouldnt just hire someone blind, would you?

Youll need to build yourself a professional looking portfolio before you launch yourself into the working world of web design. A portfolio showcases you, your talents, and your past work. You dont need to have a ton of work under your belt to build a portfolio, but your portfolio does need to look professional.

First impressions count. Potential employers or clients will examine examples of your work to decide weather they want to hire you. The way you design and display your portfolio can be one of the most important things you do when starting out in the web design job world. You're taking a web design course, so now you can get to building.

In this section, well examine the ins and outs of building a portfolio that will help get you work.

 

I Need a Portfolio To Get Work, but I Need Work to Build a Portfolio

Whats up with that?

Seems to be quite the conundrum, doesnt it? Well, you can practice your skills and build a portfolio at the same time. Most potential clients and employers arent as concerned with who you built sites for as how those sites look and how easy they are to use.

�.       Build or rebuild sites for family, friends, charities, community centers, or non-profits for free or at cost.
Make sure that the sites you build are professional. Building "Bobs Cool Personal Homepage" isnt going to help you much.
Try to avoid offering free sites to businesses youre not personally associated with. Youll want these businesses to pay you later. Plus, youll ruin the market for yourself and everyone else.

�.       Build fake sites.
Refer to them as "concepts" or "prototypes". You can even rebuild an existing companys website, submit the design to the company and ask them if they want to hire you. If they dont, then youve got a "Company X Concept Site". Be careful about republishing logos and whatnot without permission.
Again, prospective employers are looking for examples of what you can do, not who you did it for.

 

Get Your Own Web Site

You want to look professional, right? Professional web designers display their portfolio on their own website.

Dont even think about giving prospective clients your web address as: www.members.somesite.com/users/my_portfolio

Youll need to get your own top-level domain name. Thankfully, domain names are cheap, now. Try:

www.fifteendollardomains.com

Get a name that reflects your business. You probably want to avoid getting www.johnsmith.com. You wont look as professional. If you really want to include your name, use something like www.JohnSmithDesigns.com instead.

 

Where you Host Matters

If your site is slow, employers and clients will blame you, not your host. Be careful about where you place your portfolio. Dont sign up for free hosting that inserts banners, pop-ups, or extra frames into your site. Low cost hosting services include:

www.doteasy.com : Free, non-intrusive, fast host. Youll pay a transfer fee for your URL. The price goes up if you need CGI access or other goodies.

www.aplus.net : Cheap, fast, full service hosting including CGI and Java support.

 

Building Your Site

If youre looking for a job or want to do contract work, youll need to have your own site to showcase your talents. Your site is your biggest portfolio piece; so make sure its nice. Think of your site as a super fancy online resume and cover letter.

Design a site that reflects your personality. Search the Internet and look for other sites that reflect your nature. Use these sites as a benchmark. If youre primarily using your site as an online resume to get a job, youll want to make sure its obvious that youre the only person behind the site. Otherwise, youll want the site to like a professional organization, even if its only you. Youre the design studio!

The actual portfolio where you display your work should only be part of your site. Aside from your portfolio, a site should also include:

�.       An Introduction This is your first chance to introduce people to who you are, what your work is like, and what your philosophy is. People will most often hire those they like and agree with. Dont be afraid to toot your own horn a little. If you are not the best writer, ask someone you know to help you. If you dont know anyone, there are professional resume people who can help you. Basically, youre going to need a small cover letter for your homepage and a larger one for your "about" page.

�.       Letters of Appreciation and References: Let someone else do the bragging for you! Actively solicit letters of appreciation from your clients by having them fill out a Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire.

�.       Contact Information: Make sure you include your e-mail, phone number, and geographical location. People from all over will find your page if its correctly listed with search engines. Your hosting site should provide you with a yourname@yoursite.com e-mail address. Use it. You can set that address to forward to your normal address if you want to.

 

Your Portfolio Should Include

A portfolio is designed to showcase your work, so youll need to showcase, baby!

For design tips check out other design sites to see how theyve laid out their portfolio section.

 

How many Samples do I Need?

Normally you dont want to overcrowd or under populate your portfolio section. If you only have one or two examples, itll look like youre too inexperienced. Make sure your portfolio includes at least three examples of your work.

 

What Kind of Samples do I Need?

The samples that you include must be the best looking, best designed, most totally awesome stuff youve ever done. If Flash is not your strong point, dont include Flash animations. If youre not super-proud of it, even if the client loved it, dont put it in!

Otherwise, your portfolio needs to showcase all your talents. If you can do it and it looks great, put it in, or at least list it under your skills.

Make sure you include a banner ad or two if you can. Theres a lot of work in the banner ad field, and it shows that youre well rounded.

Take screen shots of your work and include them on your site. Make sure you have permission to republish work youve sold. Many web designers work under contracts explicitly stating that the designer has permission to republish the work for portfolio purposes.

 

Example Portfolios

The nice people at About.com have provided you with a bunch of sample portfolios.

http://graphicdesign.about.com/arts/graphicdesign/cs/designerportfolios/index.htm?rnk=r14&terms=Web+Design+Portfolio

Hows that for a link?

 

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