Building a Great Web Design Portfolio – 10 Best Tips & 40 Examples

May 8, 2011 by Oleg Mokhov Freelance, Inspiration, Web Design, Web Inspiration

To a prospective client, you as a web designer are often only as good as your portfolio. They’re checking you out for the first time, and if you don’t impress them enough, you won’t get their work. And if you don’t get work, you don’t get paid. And if you don’t get paid, then you… aw, you get it. Point is, having a great web design portfolio can greatly increase your chances of getting more work and money. The following are the 10 best tips for building a great web design portfolio.

What it ultimately comes down to is quickly answering the question “why?” for a visitor (as in why they should go with you for their web design work) and showing your personality, making it easy for them to navigate around your portfolio and contact you, and making it clear what you can offer them.

So without further ado, here are the 10 best tips for building a great web design portfolio…

Building a Great Web Design Portfolio – 10 Best Tips & Examples

1. Have a clear logo and tagline

Your logo is your brand; your tagline is who you are. In the short-attention-span internet age, you need to be able to capture attention and answer the question “why?” very quickly. Otherwise, the visitor will click the back button very quickly. Your portfolio is not exempt from this.

By having a clear logo and tagline, a potential client will quickly see who you are (your name is in the logo, and the style of the logo will give a sense of your design style) and what you do (the short description you offer in your tagline).

Make the logo representative of your design style, and make the tagline short and descriptive of the value you can give to a potential client. Remember: quickly answer the question “why?” or the visitor will bounce outta there quicker than, um, a really bouncy ball.

2. Make your portfolio easy to navigate

This is pretty forehead-slapping common sense. Still, it’s worth mentioning again: the best website don’t mean jack squat if it’s hard to navigate. If you can’t get to your work examples easily or quickly be able to contact you, then it doesn’t really matter how good your work is: the visitor will potentially grow frustrated and try another designer.

Make your portfolio super-easy to navigate. Simplify and streamline the menu items, reduce and consolidate pages, and keep the navigation style simple rather than getting clever with it.

3. Make it easy to contact you

What’s the ultimate point of making a portfolio? To get clients – and get paid. The easier you make it for a visitor—a prospective client—to be able to contact you, the greater the chance you’ll end up getting his or her work – and get paid.

4. Don’t show everything – only the best

Keep the “B-sides” off of your portfolio. For the non-music readers, a B-side is a tune not good enough to be a “hit” and is delegated to track 2 status on a single. There’s a reason most artists’ greatest hits only have the hits, not the B-sides.

Think of your portfolio as your greatest hits album. Only showcase the hits—your absolute best, most impressive and representative work—and keep the lesser work samples off of your portfolio. Just how a flawless greatest hits album will instantly make a fan out of a new listener, a flawless design portfolio can instantly impress and interest a new prospective client.

5. Categorize your work

This is a continuation of the easy navigation tip. Categorize your work samples to make the browsing of your portfolio easier. Even, say, 10 items are instantly easier to make sense of if they’re categorized by logos, websites, banners, whatever.

6. Include testimonials

Social proof is one of the most effective ways to reduce risk for a prospective client. Think about it: if you’re not sure of this new designer and see people raving about the quality of the work, and you see a link going to the website in question to prove that it’s legit rather than a lame fake testimonial, then you’re much more likely to take a chance. That’s what testimonials do to prospective clients – reduce their risk and make them more likely to try you out.

7. Offer a downloadable portfolio/resume for printing

This isn’t essential but a nice bonus for some visitors. Say they want to print out your portfolio to show their boss in person, or simply look it over on a non-digital device. Having a PDF of your work lets them do that – and you can increase your client-getting percentage, even if by a little bit. Again, this step isn’t essential, but if it’s not too hard to do, then why not? It’s not in the way.

It’s like an online store offering phone support – yeah, most won’t use it, but it’s out of the way and can increase the number of orders.

8. Clearly say what work you’re available for

You might be noticing a theme in these tips – make it as easy as possible for the visitor. And this tip is no different: clearly say what work you’re available for to the prospective client. Don’t make them figure out what type of work you do – clearly say it. So a visitor comes in, quickly sees your style and what value you offer, checks out the work, looks at the testimonials, and is sold – the last piece of the puzzle is for them to quickly see what kind of work you can do for them.

9. Add info about yourself

Since a prospective client won’t meet you in person, add some info about yourself. After all, business is personal – it’s done between people, not robots, and the relationships can be just as much about personality compatibility and your character as much as your skills. You can add a simple About page with a brief description of you (not your skills, but you as a person, your likes and dislikes, and so forth), and you can consider adding your social network links if you feel they represent who you are and won’t compromise getting clients.

10. Don’t forget the X factor – your uniqueness

This is an extension of the previous tip on adding info about yourself. Stamp your uniqueness all over your portfolio. In your wording, in your website’s design, and anywhere else you can. Because there’s tons of other designers with equally-pro-looking portfolios out there, so why would a prospective client go with you? Again, this goes back to the theme of answering the question “why?” for your visitors. Whatever your X factor is, it can help you answer that question.

Assuming your quality of work is up there with the best, then maybe the prospective client relates to you as a person or shares a similar interest. Or they happen to like your quirks more than other designers they’ve been checking out that day. Or your design style resonates with them most. Point is, by adding your uniqueness as much as possible to not only your work but your portfolio, you can increase the chance of answering the question “why?” and getting work from that prospective client – and ultimately, getting paid.

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What Are Your Favorite Design Portfolio Tips?

Over to you: what are your favorite tips for building a great web design portfolio? Feel free to share your useful tips in the comments section below.

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http://twitter.com/Inspirationf Igor Ovsyannykov

Don’t show everything – only the best, this is one of the best tips!
http://www.facebook.com/aku.arif Arif Riyanto

It’s great. inspire me. thanks
http://twitter.com/chiarogianluca Gianluca Chiaro

here another example http://kreativalab.com
http://iamzb.com/ Andres Quintana

these are some really nice web portfolios!

iamzb.com
Ralph

Awesome advice and really great designs. Thanks for the feature!
http://profiles.google.com/christianrodero Christian Rodero

Thanks for mention :)
Michael Borodynko

Thanks for including me!
http://www.tristarwebdesign.co.uk/ Amelia Johnson

This is a great post for people looking
to build their portfolio’s up to a better standard, there are some
really impressive and creative designs. Peter Cain and Jon Montenegro
have fascinating portfolio’s, The must have really thought through
hard to imagine a style of portfolio like that. I also really love
the quirky style of Kyle Steed.
Anonymous

The first thing i mention, is that creative web design is always an ongoing process and the initial creation cannot be done in a day.
Tim

Why does everyone reference Kyle Steed’s site. It sucks!!!!!! The dude cannot draw. He doesn’t design well. Overall does poor websites. Period. At least this new site looks better than the last version, which was really bad.
Tim

Also, that Wells Riley site, I have no clue how to even find the portfolio on there. Poor, poor navigation.
Pingback: 40 ejemplos de sitios creativos en la web | blog
Pearl – Jandutech

awwww….. What a piece of advice. Really Appreciable and the point about making a page about yourself is really gonna help in having a personal and real impact.
http://www.jddesigner.ie Joe

I just designed my first portfolio site…check it out at: http://www.jddesigner.ie/ It is still in development.
Joe Mazziliano

Feel free to give me a peek, I do nice clean, XHTML valid work.

http://joemazziliano.com
http://twitter.com/new1_web_design Donald Peterson

I didn’t make the list, but I’m not really a “list” kind of designer. I design for the Huck Finns, the R2D2′s, the Red Skelton’s of the world . . . know what i mean? http://newark1.com
William Davidson

Hey I like Kyle Steed’s work alot. Gives me hope. Its the quirky stuff that stands out. If it sells its probably good, well not always……
As for someones comment that he can’t draw, well doesnt matter. A good designer or craftsperson can make even bad drawings or sketches sing and come to life. Kyles got some good ideas and can make them work.
William Davidson

All these portfolios are nice and Im frankly quite jealous. I wish I had the time to redo my portfolio wether it would help me attract more clientelle Im not sure. Couldnt hurt. Im just not that wonderful of a designer, maybe my illustrations and fine art are better…
One thing that impresses me when I visit a designer or programmers website is what they are willing to give away ie examples of hand written code, tips and tricks etc… If I were looking for someone to help build a cool website for my own enterprise, thats what I would be look for, evidence.
Ive been muckin around with illustrator’s DOM and was looking for some sample scripts so I visitied http://www.wundes.com Now its not the most beautiful site but If I were working on a large project where I need some particular code to create a pattern or something, this fellow would be on my list of people to hire on my team, thats if he’s available. This fellow http://www.khulsey.com has a niche and lots of information to give away.The point is giving away tips and tricks tells me this person is exactly whom they purport to be.
Im not sure about the ‘b-side’ comment either, if I were a client I’d like to know about the projects that just dont work, the why who and how it happened.

Building a Great Web Design Portfolio – 10 Best Tips & Examples

1. Have a clear logo and tagline

2. Make your portfolio easy to navigate

3. Make it easy to contact you

4. Don’t show everything – only the best

5. Categorize your work

6. Include testimonials

7. Offer a downloadable portfolio/resume for printing

8. Clearly say what work you’re available for

9. Add info about yourself

10. Don’t forget the X factor – your uniqueness

40 Personal Portfolios for Inspiration

Innovative & Unique Portfolio Designs

Clean & Minimal Portfolio Design

Portfolio Design with a Grid Layout

Illustration & Large Background Portfolio Design

and finally… our favorites…

What Are Your Favorite Design Portfolio Tips?

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