Web Design Online Portfolio Website

Web Design Online Portfolio Website

How do you create a strong web design online portfolio website that’ll help you land your dream job? If you’re a talented web designer, you’re already halfway there. Read on to discover how to make your folio stand out.

Unlike other professionals who can get by with a CV or a resume, a web designer’s best shot at advancing their career is with a portfolio—a showcase of their best work, design philosophy, and creative process. Without design portfolios, most clients can’t visualize what a designer is capable of and whether their work aligns with their brand.

But how are design portfolios made? And more importantly, how can they be made to stand out? Here’s a quick guide to creating a solid web design online portfolio website. By the end of this guide, you should be able to create professionally-designed portfolios that represent everything about you as a web designer.

The Importance of a Web Design Portfolio

Design portfolios are part and parcel of building up one’s career as a web designer. They’re excellent tools for showcasing a creative’s talents and capabilities—and with a digital portfolio, a creative can present their work to potential clients from all over the world.

Aside from serving as platforms for the best examples of your work, design portfolios are also great for when designers are in need of some creative inspiration. Design portfolios can act as digital creative journals—easily accessible platforms for designers to document and look back on their progress. With portfolio websites, designers who are feeling lost or demotivated can seek inspiration in their past achievements and growth.

What Web Designers Should Include in an Online Portfolio Website

So what makes up a strong design portfolio? Here are five things you should never leave out of your digital folio:

Your best work. Of course, a portfolio isn’t a portfolio without examples of your best web design work. You should include 10 to 15 projects that represent who you are and what you want to continue doing as a designer. Make sure to provide a wide range of briefs, industries, and styles—you want to show that you have both the necessary skills to excel as a web designer and the flexibility to adjust to different creative briefs and requirements.

Background information. When building a portfolio, examples of works only make up half the equation. A potential client would never hire a complete stranger. Let people get to know the designer behind the work by introducing yourself, your interests, your academic and professional background, and any award or accolades you’ve received for your work. Better yet, add a professional photo of yourself and inject a bit of personality into your writeup!

A list of services offered. In this section, you need to be specific and narrow down your list of services to a shortlist of the things you really excel at. Presenting yourself as a “jack of all trades” can backfire, as you’ll often encounter clients who are looking for something very specific. Decide on three to five things you’re good at and make them your unique selling proposition as a brand.

Contact details. This should go without saying: always leave contact details on your website! Include your professional email, your phone number (if you’re comfortable), and links to your professional social media sites!

Tips To Make Your Web Design Portfolio Stand Out

Now that you’ve got the basics down pat, let’s take a look at some things you can do to make your website stand out from the dozens of other folios out there.

Always go for quality over quantity. A potential client doesn’t have all day to scour your site for the best examples of your work. You need to narrow down your projects to the very best ones and make sure to organize them so that your top one project is the first thing visitors will see. Your second-best project should come up last so that you leave a lasting impression on visitors, whether they just took a quick peek or thoroughly combed your site.

Use case studies. Don’t just show screenshots of your finished product, especially if you’re applying to a firm. An employer wants to know what makes you tick, what gives you inspiration, and what you’re capable of doing in a bind. Case studies are excellent ways of showing off your problem solving, storytelling, and design skills!

Don’t be afraid to have fun. It’s good to keep a website professional, but try not to make it too stiff. Employers and clients are probably sifting through dozens of similar-looking portfolios. Provide something fresh and exciting by injecting some fun and personality into your site. Whether through your writeup or your site design, there’s a myriad of ways to make your site unique.

Web Design Portfolio Ideas

Don’t know what else to add to your website? Here are some ideas to help make your site more interesting.

Add a blog. If you’re the type of designer who likes to keep themselves busy with personal projects, side hustles, and design challenges, one way to keep track of your progress and let site visitors in on what you’re up to is to keep a blog. It’s a great way to give visitors a deeper look into what goes on behind the scenes.

Set up an online store. Are you interested in graphic design too? Do you have side projects you can profit from? Try setting up a store to offer up some of your creations to fans of your work.

Web Design Portfolio FAQs

Still feeling a bit lost? You might find the answers you’re looking for from these five frequently asked questions.

When creating a web design portfolio, a designer should always put their best foot forward. Portfolios are showcases of designers’ best work in website design, building, and development—to create one, you need to make a list of your best projects, then put together a set of photos of your process, from conceptualization to the finishing touches. Afterwards, you can choose a website builder or web hosting service to build your folio.

Website designers’ portfolios could include the following: samples of the designer’s best work, captions, or even case studies to explain the design process, background information on the designer, a list of services offered, and a CV.

While some designers might want to keep their websites simple and minimalist, captions and explanations of their work are a must—unlike photography or graphic design, website designers would need to explain their process in order for a client to understand how they contained design problems, conceptualized and planned the layout, and tackled the brief.

Another must-have in a web design portfolio is a list of services. Most people use the terms web design and web development broadly, so it’s best to have all your technical skills listed down. Lastly, be sure to include your background information, where you have your academic history, employment history, as well as hobbies and interests (provided they’re relevant to your work) covered.

There are tons of websites that can help you build the perfect digital folio, from site hosting services that allow designers to build sites from scratch to website builders that cut the job in half! Some web designers consider the latter a better choice, as they give designers more time to focus on their work.

Format is one of the top site builders on the web. You can build and customize your portfolios in just six easy steps. 

A designer has several options when it comes to presenting their portfolio website.

Portfolios can be presented in a simple and clean minimalist grid—this layout allows designers to give visitors a quick snapshot of all their present work. Another way to present a portfolio is by designing case studies to explain every step of the design and development process. This is a great way of letting site visitors in on your creative process, problem-solving skills, and project management style.

Lastly, a designer can also choose linear or slideshow gallery approaches to present their work.

Online web design portfolios exist to help designers prove their skills and talents to a larger audience. To get more people to see your portfolio, you can display a link to it on your social media accounts. You can also join sites like Behance or Dribble—platforms where a designer shows their work in a community filled with fellow creatives.

Some clients use these communities to get a quick view of a designer’s work, then move to their websites to get the full scope of their capabilities.

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Ready to Build Your Design Portfolio?

While you may be more than capable of building your own website from scratch, it’s a pretty exhaustive task that can take precious time and energy away from your daily work. Save yourself the trouble and create a stunning web design portfolio in six simple steps with Format.

Format’s website builder lets you create a site sans the hassle of hosting, and gives you special tools to help push your website further, from an SEO editor to social media integration to an online store. On top of that, Format provides a variety of mobile-responsive and customizable templates fit for every kind of designer.

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