5 Most Common Design Portfolio Mistakes and How To Fix Them
Creating an attractive portfolio is a must for graphic designers, so learn the 5 most common design portfolio mistakes and how to fix them in order to grab your potential clients’ attention!
When you first start crafting your portfolio, many questions pop up in your head as you want to make it perfect. It’s understandable — there are many things to consider and it’s easy to lose your thoughts in the process. To help you with that, I gathered the 5 most common portfolio mistakes and tips on how to fix them.
If you have no experience in creating online portfolios, it will be helpful to test the waters in advance. In such case you can check out graphic design portfolio examples that will inspire you and give some food for thought.
Mistake 1 — Lack of a clearly defined goal
It happens too frequently that designers just follow the advice that they should build a portfolio without actually thinking about why. On a project for a client, though, you would never do that, right? You always look into user cases, their journeys, and workflows in your “actual,” paid business. There is no excuse not to invest the same amount of time and attention in developing your own design portfolio. In fact, you should be working even harder if you’re a freelancer.
Therefore, spend some time defining the goal of your portfolio before you sketch a single screen or layout. You may ask yourself: Why am I creating this website? Do you want to obtain more freelancing clients, land a great position at a company, or just have the prettiest blog on the planet? Keep in mind that being very explicit is important in this situation. What kind of client or job are you seeking whether you’re looking for freelancing clients or an inside position? The response will likely have a significant impact on the site’s design and the tone of the material.
Who will I anticipate going there? How will they find my website?
Answering it will enable you to decide where to focus your efforts and how to develop your content strategy. This should follow directly from the why. Frequenting blogs with original illustrations that you subsequently publish to Dribbble, Twitter, and Designer News would make a lot of sense if you want to develop your own brand among other designers.
What should they do when they found it?
You should showcase your prior work, including some testimonials, perhaps provide information on your fees, and offer a contact form if you’re searching for freelancing clients. Looking for an internal position? While you’ll need a lot of the same information, a contact form might not be as functional as your personal email and phone number.
You may clarify your ideas about your aim for your portfolio as well as how you’ll accomplish your goals for the site by taking the time to consider the answers to these questions. Furthermore, you’ll be able to assess your site after launch to ensure that it’s accomplishing your objectives by referring to your responses as you make selections during the design process.
Mistake 2 — Not having a unique responsive design
You may specify how you’ll persuade folks to assist you in achieving your site’s goal if you have a clear understanding of it from top to bottom. That will include something different for each distinct reason. But in every case, it will need designing a route that will lead to the accomplishment of that objective, whether it be completing a contact form or simply visiting your blog. And that will significantly affect your portfolio.
If you’re trying to establish your brand through your in-depth blog entries, your main page can just be an index of your blog, with projects listed as an afterthought and social sharing buttons prominently displayed.
Trying to draw in customers? Maybe you add a “Get in contact” call to action (CTA) to every page that links to a form with customized form fields and testimonials on one side. You see where I’m going with this: your portfolio website shouldn’t use a generic template for any reason. Regardless of the device someone is using, your portfolio should be designed to express your objective and encourage them to act on it.
Mistake 3 — Allowing your portfolio to stale
It’s simple to neglect your portfolio website when you’re working overtime to complete paid projects and attract new clients. But that’s a grave error. There are a lot of reasons, but these are two of the most important ones:
- The outdated information
Regularly posting new work will demonstrate to visitors that you’re engaged in your work and that your design philosophy and aesthetic are adapting to the times.
- Maintaining SEO-friendliness
There is compelling evidence that Google appreciates new material and opportunities to crawl your website. Furthermore, each time you update your material, there’s a chance that new keywords will appear on your site, increasing the likelihood that your site will be found by your next customer during a search.
Mistake 4 — Relying only on images
Beautiful screenshots won’t suffice these days; a website’s aesthetic appeal alone won’t get the job done. You are up against a ton of other excellent graphic designers, after all. Some of whom, at least in terms of visual ability, can be better than you. So, you should go further.
Your non-visual information may definitely help you stand out in this situation. Put some meat on the bones of your initiatives using case studies rather than merely presenting a collection of beautifully positioned screenshots taken from various devices.
A case study often has the following elements:
- Problem
- Solution
- Result
Clearly state the issue you were entrusted with fixing and the approach you took to do so. Documenting the process will be important in certain circumstances (usually more so for individuals looking for in-house jobs), but less so in others (freelancers).
But be sure you constantly include the problem, the answer, and the important outcomes. This will enable you to showcase your design ideas and offer a ton of context to your work. This may be especially appealing to clients who are dealing with problems comparable to those you describe in your case studies. It’s also beneficial to give the outcomes of your work, since this will demonstrate that you’re not just interested in creating things that are beautiful or useful but also in generating outcomes for companies.
Be sure to include the issue you resolved when naming your case studies. Therefore, call it “mobile app redesign to enhance engagement and conversion” rather than “mobile app redesign for firm X.” The increased degree of detail will once more draw people who are trying to solve a particular problem that you have experience with, both when they are on your site and when they are searching online.
Mistake 5 — Too much information off the subject
You have no idea how frequently designer portfolios list every single thing the designer has ever edited in Photoshop or Sketch. A portfolio is not meant for that purpose.
When you are just starting your journey, keep in mind that your portfolio should highlight your greatest work, things of which you are proud. The ones that gave clients an enormous benefit. The content that was featured in big magazines or got you an award.
Consider your portfolio as something you would print out and bring with you to your next job interview. I don’t think you would want to bring your most recent 50 projects, let alone go over each page with three interviewers.
Your website users’ interest is likely to dwindle if you can see an interviewer’s attention doing the same. Focusing on your strongest assets will reduce your workload and increase the likelihood that visitors will become paying customers.
