A great portfolio helps your clients see why they should work with you

Being a web designer, you know that your portfolio has the power to make It or break It; and, by It, I mean your web design career.

“A perfect portfolio serves as a feasible medium to tell your potential customers about your skills and how creatively you use them to the clients’ advantage.”

In other words, it provides your clients a basis for deciding on whether they should work with you or not.

Convincing your clients is not an easy process: Because when it comes to hiring, every entrepreneur is likely to be highly skeptical. And, in order to pass through their skepticism, you have to clearly demonstrate the following messages:

You understand what you do

You can deliver the outputs they’re looking for, and

You are reliable enough to work with.  

In order to do that, you have to be careful about various aspects. Below are given the major do’s and don’ts that you have to take note when aiming to design a killer and exhaustive design portfolio.

 

Explain Your Projects So Far

DO: Present Only Your Best Works

Image credit: Easy Consulting by Contentder

Creating your own portfolio website can be overwhelming at first. It’s because you know the story behind each project you accomplished and how much emotional value they hold for you. So, you might end up listing all of your works in your portfolio.

But, your potential client can’t see them that way. Their eyes are objective and highly critical. So, no matter how many great projects you display on your portfolio, it’s only the worst of the projects that will decide your worth.

This is why it is often said, “You are only as good as your worst project.”   

Thus, it is important to curate your projects and select the best ones that can convince the clients about your designing capabilities.

 

DON’T: Hesitate to Show Your Independent Works

 While your professional projects help clients see how great you are as a team worker, your self-initiated works can show them the creative flexibility you have and the diversity of original concepts you can come up with.

Experienced web designers often dictate the importance that creative works have long held in their design career. Some experts even state that their independent projects were the key reasons why they got opportunities to work on big projects.   

You can find great examples online on how designers have showcased their self-initiated projects; some of the designers list out the projects just for the sake of displaying, while the others have leveraged out their portfolio in order to advertise and create revenue from them.

 

What Clients Can Expect from You   

DO: Demonstrate How Your Works Provided Value to Clients

When your potential clients look at your portfolio, the first thing they want to know is what value you can provide them as a designer. For this, the first thing they look at is your past project. Therefore, if you have done nothing more than simply providing links to your former clients’ site, it can become a major turn-off; because, in that they won’t be able to see what contributions your design skills have made on their website, and their business as a whole.

It is better to provide an explanation regarding why you took on the projects, what major contributions you made on them and how much ROI your clients were able to receive from your works. Besides, it would be an icing on the cake to provide a brief detail about the impact of your works on branding aspects of their business.    

 

DON’T: Be Too Comprehensive

Your potential clients are most often entrepreneurs. They are too often quite busy and stressed out.

So, don’t add to their stress by going on and on about your tell-tale story. Keep it professional and to the point.

Also, make sure to avoid technical jargons and keep it simple enough for them to understand.

Short and simple story keeps your potential employers engaged and you will be able to create the impression on them that you intend to.

 

Your Insights and Expertise

DO: Show Your Problem-Solving Approaches

One of the influential resources you can include on your portfolio site is the case study. Select one or two of your best projects from your past projects’ list and prepare the detailed case studies on them.

Address the following points in your case studies;

·         Why you decided to work on the project

·         What problems your clients had

·         Which approaches you took to solve the problems

·         How much impact you were able to make on the business

 

What makes You Unique

DO: Show your awesome personality

Your potential employers might have gone through a litany of portfolios like yours. In such, it is common for your name to be lost in the crowd.

So, how to stand out?

As a designer, you have two major aspects where you can mark yourself out;

Your About Me page

And Your Portfolio Design

Do you have an awesome personality? Is there something unique about you?  Let it all out.

Well, not to miss those self-initiated-projects of yours. If you have a handful of such original design ideas, why not try and apply the best of them on your own site, right?

DON’T: Ignore the UI/UX

Your portfolio website is the best example of how good a UX designer you are. So, if your portfolio itself leaves your clients doubtful about your UI/UX skills, there’s no point in putting all these efforts on creating a portfolio, right?

So, don’t fall for Pretty. Take into account every aspect related to the components’ flexibility, usability and the site’s overall navigability and responsiveness before you finalize your portfolio site.

 

Words of Mouth

DON’T: Use Banal Testimonials

Your entire portfolio is an opportunity to let your potential clients see your unique side. And the testimonial is not an exception.

So, instead of the same general cliché, you can ask your clients to provide an in-depth testimonial. Request them to state genuinely how much helpful your contributions have been for their business.