A great design portfolio is essential to finding work as a creative professional. It's a summary of your vision and abilities, and anyone who is keen to get you on board for work will want to take a look at it first in order to get an idea of your capabilities and talent. So how can you put together the best creative portfolio possible in order to prove beyond a doubt to potential employers that you'd be a total asset to their organisation? The good folk at Creative Bloq have some great ideas, and we wanted to give you a little preview!
Their first tip? Make sure your folio contains only the best of your work - or as they put it, "All Killer, No Filler"
This should really be common sense, but you'd be surprised how often it isn't followed. Only ever show your very best work in your portfolio and if you aren't 100 per cent happy with the outcome then don't feature it.
It's fine to show a creative journey through your work but people don't want to see way back to your college years (unless of course you're a recent graduate) and the old adage that 'you're only as good as your last job' should spring to mind.
Next up? Make sure your folio is available to view online.
There is simply no excuse for not having an online portfolio in this day and age, even if you are predominantly a print designer. You don't have to know any code to take advantage of the features that sites like Cargo Collective and SquareSpace offer, not to mention an abundance of ready made and beautifully designed Tumblr and Wordpress themes. Not forgetting the social portfolio platform behemoths, Adobe Portfolio and Behance.
It's also super important to ensure you've curated your folio for the job you're applying for in order to put your best foot forward.
If sending out a PDF sampler or curating your portfolio for an interview, always make a bespoke selection of work each time that's tailored to that specific client.
Although it may be the thing that you're most proud of, a potential corporate client probably isn't interested in the experimental fashion shoot you've just worked on. This applies to whole selections of work on websites as well; only show the kind of work that you want to get commissioned for or hired to create.
It can also be great to show examples of how you worked to get to the end result, because even if the end result might not be what the client would've chosen themselves, they'll know YOU have the skills and knowledge that could still be beneficial to their brief.
Along with seeing self initiated projects, its can also be valuable to show your working and the journey you went through to realise the outcome to a given brief. This may be the journey from marque creation to implementation within a branding project or the craft based process behind an analogue piece of work.
Check out all 10 Tips For A Killer Design Portfolio over at Creative Bloq now!