Your web design portfolio is likely the single most important component in your career as a front-end developer or web designer. Because of this, it’s critical that your portfolio inspires trust in any potential clients. Clients are likely to evaluate your current experience and talents based on the caliber of your portfolio, therefore it must showcase your greatest work.
What to Put in Your Portfolio for Web Design:
Keep in mind that a potential employer is not just looking at your portfolio for the quality of the design. Additionally, you must demonstrate your capacity to adjust to various types of employment. To demonstrate your flexibility and capacity to modify your design approach and source material to meet the current assignment, one method to achieve this is by including a wide range of works in your portfolio.
A potential client may be put off if you can only create in one style because they will need you to be flexible in order to meet their unique business needs. If they are considering employing a web designer, they won’t be searching for a generic answer, thus you must be able to demonstrate this with confidence in order to influence their choice.
More to put on your website’s web design portfolio
You and your work must be represented on your web design portfolio website. Throughout various important pages, the colour palette, typefaces, typography, layout, and photos should show your unique brand:
Homepage
The most crucial page is your homepage; this is a requirement. Here, you can entice potential customers with captivating images or work examples that pique their interest. Here, you have the opportunity to present yourself, whether it be through your artwork, a self-portrait, or entertaining animations. Make sure that everything you choose reflects who you are and what you can do.
Make sure that your design specialty—such as incorporating 3D effects or creating online shops—is immediately apparent.
Information about your life, working style, and experience can be seen on your about page. Clients want to know that you are a skilled designer, and including a summary of your education and experience reassures them that you are.
They are more likely to contact you about a project if they have faith in your ability.
Portfolio
Your most noteworthy projects are highlighted on the portfolio page. Choose a mix of projects that demonstrate your versatility across the sectors in which you have expertise. In order for future clients to see what you excel at and how you approach your job, give a description of each that includes your essential role in the project, the issues you solved, the talents you employed, and the reasoning behind the plan.
Contact Us
Although the contact page and the about page frequently overlap, giving your contact details is still vital so that possible employers can get in touch with you. It’s a fantastic method to discover more about them, too. Additionally, here is a wonderful location to list the prices for the services you offer so that potential customers may estimate the cost before contacting you.
Your online portfolio is yours
Having your own website has the advantage of being completely yours. You have control over what you display on your website and how visitors can interact with it, supposing you have a domain name and are paying for hosting in some way.
However, you do not own platforms like Instagram, Dribble, and Behance, therefore they have the right to modify the regulations at any time. Instead, utilize social media as a funnel to draw in new customers while directing them back to your website, where you have complete control over the user experience.
Personal Projects
You may develop a website for your mother’s artwork or start a blog for your animal. The topic matter is not crucial because your personal projects demonstrate your technical and aesthetic abilities.
If you’re just getting started as a website designer, you might not yet have a strong portfolio of previous works or projects. However, your portfolio doesn’t have to contain finished products; design concept art and mock-ups also perform admirably.
You are also urged to make an effort to create specialty websites based on topics in which you have interest. As an illustration, imagine that you love quinoa and have created a website with all of your favourite quinoa dishes.
A creative touch should be put into anything you submit to the portfolio. Even if you created them as side projects or experiments, try to add your best work first.
The Need for Attractive Portfolios for Web Designers
In the world of web design, appearances can mean everything. After all, you’re presumably in charge of building beautiful web sites. This means that your clients might not find a standard written resume to be persuasive.
Because of this, using a visual portfolio might be much more beneficial. It is a selection of your online portfolio of finished work: Showing potential clients what you’re capable of can be more effective than trying to sell them on your abilities. Portfolios, in other words, let your creations speak for themselves.
Additionally, portfolios can serve as archives. If clients can tell you have a lot of experience, they might be more likely to hire you. As a result, collecting a portfolio of your career’s worth of work can be a powerful approach to show off your expertise.
Establishing your profession may depend on possessing a library of your work. Try building websites for fictitious clients if you don’t have samples. The outcomes won’t lie, even if nobody commissions you to construct it. Regardless of the purpose for which you created it, a well-designed web page may showcase your skills.
Due to these reasons, most web developers ought to have portfolios. maximize the impact of your portfolio, you might wish to consider additional factors.
Describe Your Motives
One thing is to share a link or screenshot of a development project you’re really proud of, but another way to improve your web developer portfolio is to entice people with information on how those projects and websites were made.
This entails explaining how things were designed or imagined rather than merely how it would make sense to another developer. In other words, you can talk about the specifics of your coding method while simultaneously keeping it informal and conversational so that potential employers from all backgrounds, such as product management or human resources, can get a sense of your goals and thought process.
Consider the following questions for each sample you provide: What motivated you? What obstacles did you get over? How did you implement your vision using computer languages?
Instead of just displaying a static image of a website, you might want to use an animated browser to make it appear as though someone is interacting with a particular section of the page you want to bring attention to.
Plagiarism
Today’s websites are mostly template-driven, according to Eckert. Therefore, a company will only construct a homepage, a landing page, and a content page. Additionally, they’ll make every effort to fit.
According to him, if you want your portfolio to stand out, think outside the box of conventional grid design by making personalized pages for clients that tell a cohesive story from beginning to end.
That also holds true for the photos you choose. Stock photos could be alluring, but according to Eckert, original photography and custom-designed graphics stand out far more. Because we frequently view stock photos, he claims that people often become numb to them. It will outperform everyone else if it is made more friendly.
The imitation game
Although design is a visual medium, words are still important. When used effectively, text can highlight elements that aren’t visible from a snapshot or live website, like your problem-solving abilities, astounding creative insights, or incredible interpersonal skills. Some highly effective portfolios just employ a few lines to describe their projects.
Additionally, testimonials can be a great way to highlight certain projects. If your clients have praised you and your work, it is a great idea to put their words in the project detail pages. Give your clients a quick call or send them an email to request a quick quote if they haven’t provided any complimentary remarks off-the-record and you’re still friendly.
Many portfolios also have an About Me section or an equivalent, where the designer or developer describes the exact types of work they do, where they are, the kinds of projects they enjoy working on, and anything else that might be pertinent. It’s a fantastic spot to include any accolades or awards you’ve received and to give them a sense of who you are, though, as with any online writing, there can be too much personality. When in doubt, skip the jokes and watch out for other copywriting faults like misspellings, grammatical flaws, extended sentences, and irrelevant details. Always keep your reader in mind; if you develop a section titled What I do, it should actually read What I can do for you. Additionally, keep in mind to customize your copy to the type of job you’re attempting to land.
Web design resume
The best projects in a portfolio, in my opinion, also show some process, either in the form of development stages or an unused portion at the end. Scour Web advises giving credit where credit is due as well. I truly respect folks who correctly thank their collaborators in their portfolios, even though it’s not very frequent.
According to him, listing the collaborators on each project adds an extra layer of assurance and teamwork. Since so many of the portfolios I see don’t acknowledge anyone, many of them must be deceptive in some way.
Do you need to have a blog? Yes, but with a caveat: if it’s good and updated frequently, it can be useful. When hiring people and forming a team, it’s important to get to know a person a little bit; checking out their blog can be useful.
Considering the user experience
Every website must prioritize the user experience. Your website portfolio design should be simple to read, utilize, and navigate.
Use a user-friendly layout and a transparent information architecture (IA) to make it easy for visitors to access key content, including your contacts and projects pages.
Scour Web keeps the attention on his brief biography and contact details by utilizing a lot of empty space. The projects page is easily accessible to visitors via the top menu.
Here is yet another illustration of excellent UX design by Filippo Bello.
Don’t Overthink It
Owners of businesses are aware that time is their most asset. They don’t want to waste time getting lost in your portfolio’s many elements or navigating a challenging interface.
The purpose of your portfolio should be obvious throughout the entire website. It should only be your greatest work, and it should be readily evident. Avoid confusing visitors by using overly inventive navigation or doing something you’ve never done before. It probably won’t impress them. Choose something classy and understated instead. In truth, your portfolio website should merely serve as a backdrop and frame for the work you are showcasing.
Making sure a portfolio site functions properly in all widely used browsers is also crucial. Visitors who are using Internet Explorer 6 or earlier and think your website is malfunctioning won’t give it another try with Chrome or Firefox, which means you’ve produced a bad first impression. The easier it is to fix cross-browser problems, the simpler your website should be.
Conclusion
A web developer needs to have a strong portfolio. It exhibits your ingenuity and capacity to handle various projects.
Whether you have past work experience or not, this post has addressed the doable steps to building web developer portfolio websites that attract potential employers and clients.
