Portfolios are not a new trend in the industry. In fact, they are part of our lives as a result of their delicate-essence in shaping our businesses. It is impossible to imagine a world without portfolios.
Whether you are invested in attracting new customers, personal brand growth, improving your online presence or to showcase your skills to employers, a website that displays your abilities will accomplish that.
Creating an appealing portfolio doesn’t need to be hard. As a matter of fact, you don’t need to be a graphic designer to create an amazing portfolio.
What you need is it to:
- Determine what you are showing off. It’s good practice to figure out what exactly you want the visitors in your website to see. Besides, it’s from these samples that potential employers will hire you. People have a limited attention span. So, it’s best to pick samples that demonstrate your skills and experience.
- Keep it simple. A simple portfolio doesn’t translate to a less busy look. On the contrary, it keeps the visitor’s attention on the things that you want them to see. You don’t have to fight for attention to leave a mark. Fighting for attention, will result in clutter, which is overwhelming for the visitor. For the purpose of a cohesive feel, make it simple and clean.
- Make it easy to navigate. This applies when you have a lot of work to showcase. However, it doesn’t exempt you if you have a little work to show. Learn the art of categorizing content. This way, you will have related topics i.e. graphic design or user interface in one place, and the other in a related category. Categorizing your work also shows how vast your skills are.
- Lastly, include your story. Owing to the fact that employers will hire you for your skills, including your background and the type of person you are will hasten sealing the deal.
Well, now that we have cleared a path for clients to walk right to your door, let’s look at a few portfolios that will inspire you.
Garden Estudio
This is a simple portfolio created by Gustavo Colombo, Lucas Bebber, and Jéferson Matana. It is a simple website fueled by a careful combination of colours to give a beautiful design approach.
It is easy to buy what the owner is selling. A skilled interface and user experience designer.
Sophie Rousseau
Though the website is in French, it’s easy to pick the allure built around it. Check out the website to see the full extent of their unique design.
Lempens Design
This design is just amazing. The background plus the delicate incorporation of elements is a sight to behold. I must warn you, you might not stop scrolling up and down the page.
Femme Fatale
Based in Paris, this creative studio focuses on art, editorial, culture and luxury. The site shouts a union between sophistication and simplicity, giving forth an excellent design child.
Furthermore, it incorporates a background that moves slower than the foreground when navigating the site. This is a 3d technique with a whole lot of uses. The effect of combining this technique with bold images is just astounding.
Bert
These specialists are based in Netherlands and work on an international level. They are also located in Amsterdam and London. Their operations range from design and development to branding.
Additionally, it is a portfolio packed with images sprinkled with informative pieces of text that communicate an outspoken design.
Matt Farley
This is another portfolio you need to see.
Matt is a specialist in website development and interface design. Equally important, he teams up with clients to mold ideas into well thought specs. A recipe for a good user experience.
Not only is this portfolio simple, Matt also encourages you to email him if you need to see more of his work.
Dejan-Markovic
This is a portfolio simply built to offer a feel of user experience and design.
Dejan Markovic specializes in design, user interaction and user experience. Currently, he is working for the InVisionApp.
Seb Kay
This is a portfolio that takes into account all the above four tips. From a simple and an easy to navigate site, to a well figured display of his work and an about section: this portfolio is definitely built to seize clients and employers.
Jonny Maceachern
Less is definitely more.
This is a front-end developer with a few projects to show, yet so much detailed in terms of skills and experience.
Melanie Daveid
This portfolio is simple yet beautiful.
Melanie, who is a user experience and art director displays an impressive touch on the user interface and user experience in her portfolio. Scrolling down the website gets more and more interesting.
She is adamant on using the latest technology and teamwork to achieve a better web. Albeit a fact, some of us prefer to work on projects all by ourselves.
Conclusion.
We hope that the above portfolios will encourage you to craft your own portfolio. It doesn’t matter whether you think you don’t have enough samples to add, or you are not sure where to start. The above portfolio samples should get you started fine.
Go through each one of them and see how their owners embraced creativity, design and artwork to bring into life their amazing skills.
