When you are a graphic designer, the portfolio that you have is basically the entire world for you. It is the total summary that you have to show for your wonderful skills of creativity and design. Whether you are an expert or just a student in the world of graphic design, there is no doubt that you have to get a design portfolio made for yourself. There’s no slacking back on these people as it is one of the most important things to do. After all, how do you expect the potential clients and all the employers to judge you? It will be on the basis of the design portfolio of course. 
There are many photo editing tools such as Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom that can help you create amazing pictures for your design portfolio. However, mastering the art of these complex tool/software is not easy, this demand enough hands-on experience to create/edit a perfect picture. You can always rely on photo editing services if you have not mastered in the art of editing images. Such services can prove to be savior if you are designing your portfolio for the first time.
It doesn’t really matter at what stage you are in the career, you need to have a proper design portfolio in order to impress the clients and get more and more designing projects for you. If you have a portfolio website for showing your creative work, then you can rest easy.
The portfolio will provide all the necessary details that the clients might need to know. It will tell the story of your creations and will exhibit the work that you do. Not to mention that it is the perfect booster that you need for confidence.
So, don’t you think that having your own design portfolio will be a great idea? Well, how are you going to start with the process, then? Here we have some tips that are going to help you with that. Creating an awesome design portfolio will be a child’s play if you follow these tips properly.
1. Keep The Purpose Clear: Job or Clients?
You could always start with having a clear purpose in the mind. If you are someone who is on the lookout for a job, then you might want to make sure that you put the main point of focus there. You need to make sure that you showcase all the projects you have done related to the job that you want upfront. Make sure that the resume that you have is properly polished and layout all the skill sets that you have. Be sure to highlight your strengths as well. However, if you are seeking some clients, then you need to put on case studies of your work telling them all about how your services were helpful to the other clients.
2. Curate The Work That You Do
When you are designing a proper portfolio, one thing that works all the time is outlining the best works of yours and keeping the portfolio simple. Keep it in mind that a simple format would be an interesting one. So, you need to put the best designs by you right on the front side of the portfolio. Be sure to check for the limit as well. A properly precise portfolio doesn’t really have more than 20 projects in it. However, you could also make it super sharp by putting just your top 10 designs in there.
3. Show Them How Versatile You Are
When you are choosing the photographs, sure you need to put the best of what you have. However, you still want the employers to have a full view of the work that you do. So, what can one do in such cases? Well, the first thing that you need to do is be versatile. Make sure that you showcase lots of different projects with different ranges. That is something that is going to be a definite help for sure.
Tip for Pro: Don’t include any inferior quality work otherwise it would just put your name down.
4. Choose The Perfect Website For Designing Your Portfolio
When you put your work in different platforms and websites, it can be a great thing for creating the best portfolios. This will help you in making the perfect first impression on the clients as well. There are many free platforms that are willing to reduce the work that you do by showcasing your portfolio to many others. So, choosing the best websites for exhibiting the skills that you have doesn’t really seem like a bad idea, right?
5. Then Again Choosing The Right Platform Is Also Important
With so many options of websites and platforms ready to make and manage the design portfolio of yours, it can get a bit confusing to choose the perfect one that would fit all the needs and requirements that you have. You could choose WordPress, for example. It is one of the best platforms that help millions of graphic designers in showcasing their talent to the rest of the world. Think about it once.
6. Keep The Design Minimal
It is very easy to overdo the design when it comes to creating the perfect portfolio for design. Even the experts tend to make the mistake sometimes. However, you need to steer clear of it if you want positive results. Make sure that you have a minimal design that is clean and easy to understand. You don’t want the employers to get confused by the design, right? So, this is something that you have to do.
7. Have A Brand Of Your Own
For a graphic designer, it is all about the creation and enhancing of the brand equity across different clients with the help of the projects that they have. Can you think of a better way to do that then to just have your own particular brand that is going to help you present the design portfolio that you have? So, why not try it out. Create the logo first and the rest will just follow.
8. Make Sure To Organize
Some of the most successful design portfolios have one thing in common for sure. All of them have a story to tell. That is what you need to do as well. Make sure to have your work organized so that it can provide a strong case that is in your favor. The design portfolio is meant to provide details of your work. So, make sure that you have everything organized in that manner. You need to provide details about the categories, the industries, the media type and so much more.
9. Mention The Process Of Your Working
The perfect design portfolio is not just the representation of the work with the help of some pictures. You need to have some context and authenticity behind it as well. That will come if you share some your thought and working process in the design portfolio of yours. What are all the challenges that you face? How did you overcome them? What are the requirements that you fulfill? These are some important questions you need to ask yourself.
10. Provide Case Studies And Results
The employers and clients of yours will always be interested in the results that come in the real world. So, you need to make sure that you translate that work of yours into the real world results by providing proofs. Well, how are you going to do that? You need to make sure that you choose the action photographs that would help in showcasing your design right on the way of being made. Click the photographs of the whole work because it will be very beneficial as well.
11. Cut To The Chase
You only need two to three seconds in order to woo the potential client that comes to your website. Trust us, if it didn’t happen then, chances are that it won’t happen ever. So, don’t just go beating around the bush. You need to make sure that you don’t miss the opportunities that are provided to you. Grab the viewer’s eye with the help of the pictures that you have. Don’t waste time on the flashy designs as it won’t get you your next project.
12. Make Sure The Your Personality Shows With The Work
You need to add your personality to the design portfolio in order to make it more personal. After all, the clients would want to know about you, right? So, make sure that you put every single significant detail in the ‘About Me’ page that there is on the website. This allows the viewers to connect with you on a more personal stand. So, the clients will find it easier to choose between you and your competitors and you will be the one chosen.
13. Have A Resume They Want To Download
Creating the proper resume is another one of the important things that you need to do with your design portfolio. You need to make sure that you put in all the important details such as the education, projects, experience, clients and the other important stuff that they might like to see. Also, you need to ensure that all of these details are in a particular chronological order when choosing your resume template . This way, the clients will be charmed with your resume.
14. Give Them A Source To Contact You
After all the hard work that you have done on portfolio, you wouldn’t want to miss your chance just because the clients couldn’t contact you, right? So, in order to get the best results, you need to make sure that you provide proper communication links and contact information for the clients and the viewers to reach you outside of the world of Internet. This is one of the most important things for sure.
15. Have A Responsive Website
Most people these days use mobile devices in order to access the websites and platforms, right? So, one thing that you have to take care of is that your website is responsive when people open it in a particular mobile device. If it doesn’t do that, chances are the people will not want to visit your design portfolio ever. Make sure that the loading times are faster as well. Also, the touch screen features of interactions should be important.
16. Keep A Blog
If you add a particular blog to the website of yours, you can easily let the clients and the viewers know what you are up to. Plus, you can also provide some background stories and anecdotes about your projects, both ongoing and finished ones. So, why not try this fantastic method out and see how that works for the design portfolio of yours. You will be able to connect with more people with that.
17. Get Reviews From The Peers
You might want to get some objective feedback from the people that matter to you before you actually publish the portfolio into your website. The peers can be a great help in that. They will be able to see all the mistakes and point them out to you in an honest manner. So, in short, you will have plenty of chances to rectify these mistakes which could otherwise cost you your customers and clients.
18. Keep It Updated
You don’t just want to have the same portfolio for the rest of your life, right? That is not going to do anything for you. Since change is everything that people seek these days, make sure to review the portfolio once in a while and then make the necessary changes wherever needed. You can replace the existing projects with the new ones and see how that turns out, which will are pretty sure will be good.
19. Have The Portfolio Printed
Sure, the online portfolio is the perfect way to interact with a very large audience. However, you must not forget that the print portfolios are perfect when you have a face-to-face meeting with someone. So, what are you waiting for people? Go ahead and print out a sophisticated portfolio now.
20. Promote And PROMOTE Your Website
You thought just creating the website for your design portfolio was enough? Well, we have got news for you, my friend. You need to spread the word more so that people can actually know about your website. What is the best way to do that? Well, with the help of promotions, of course, what else?
Conclusion
When you are creating the best design portfolio, you need to consider in all the factors that will drive the end result. Keep this in mind that the design portfolio will not really be a vanity exhibit. However, it is more like having a perfectly crafted engine that will help in driving the results which will provide you with more opportunities in the future.
With the help of the above-mentioned tips that we have for you, create the most wonderful design portfolio for yourself right now. Get the best of the clients with your amazing design portfolio.