• Think of your portfolio as the visual gateway into who you are and the talent you have. It's a good idea to treat it like a design project in itself.
  • Does it fully represent who you are and the design skills you have?
  • Are there areas that could be more polished?
  • Are there ways you can use it to show off things that you're really good at - layout, apps, motion, UX, social media even - to stand out in the crowd?
• Buy a custom domain name, which signals you’re serious about your work.
• Do not put all your work out there; choose a curated selection of your best work.
• Create interesting cover images to draw your viewer in.
• You can also include a separate section on your site for side projects and works-in-progress. This can be a nice addition to your professional work, but keep it out of the main focus.
• If you have a significant project in-progress, you can create a ‘work-in-progress’ image to add as placeholder visual until the work is done.

What if I don’t have many projects?:

Create personal projects in your free time to keep building up your portfolio.

• Example: Make a ‘re-design’ of an app/an app’s features.
• Redesign a landing page.
• Redesign app screens or part of a flow.
• Focus on an issue or limitation you have identified in your own life, and solve it.
• Does someone in your family have a small business? — Offer to redesign their landing page or turn their Facebook page into a website.

Document your process from research to the final design implementation, discussing what led you to make the changes and the outcomes your designs lead to (or would lead to).

Sometimes in the beginning, it’s ok to take on unpaid work to build up your portfolio. Maybe you have a friend or relative that could use some design help, which you can turn into a portfolio piece.