Building a Portfolio Course (How To)

Your portfolio is the most immediate means for a potential employer to decide if you’re a good fit. This course will give you insight into creating and curating a collection of your work that will most accurately reflect what you value as a designer/developer, what it might be like to work with you, and what to expect in terms of your output.

What you'll learn

• Defining the concept of a portfolio
• Create a portfolio that draws the right kind of attention

Demystifying the Portfolio

It’s easy to underestimate the concept of the portfolio while overemphasizing aspects that are of lesser importance. In this stage, we’ll define what makes for an effective portfolio and establish the importance of a personal narrative throughout the collection of works.

Chevron 4 steps

• What Is a Portfolio?

  1:31

• Portfolio Types

  3:02

• Why Narrative Matters

  3:10

• Demystifying the Portfolio Review

  6 questions

Portfolio Goals

Now that you know what makes for a good portfolio, it’s time to define what will make for your good portfolio. This stage will draw attention to who you want to reach, why you want to reach them, and how you can begin reaching them.

Chevron 6 steps

• Setting Your Goals

  3:31

• Recognizing Your Audience

  3:33

• Audiences and Goals

  5 questions

• Establishing Your Voice

  3:16

• Defining Your Medium

  2:29

• Your Voice in the Medium

  5 questions

Curating the Work

Whether you have dozens of possible portfolio entries to choose from or just a handful, selecting what you put into the public eye is a challenging, and at times, confusing process. We’ll address how to decide what deserves to be in your portfolio and what to do if perhaps you don’t have as much as you’d like to show.

Chevron 4 steps

• More Than the Sum of Its Parts

  3:16

• Filling the Portfolio Gaps

  1:42

• When to "Fake It"

  2:40

• Curating the Work Review

  6 questions

Embracing the Process

Now that you have a sense of what work you want to highlight, it’s time to define how you want to discuss each portfolio entry. This stage will help you humanize your project outcomes to better give your audience a sense of what it’s like to work with you. An added bonus is that we’ll also discuss how you can call attention to your efforts in group projects without sounding like you were the only one working.

Chevron 6 steps

• Why Context Matters

  2:24

• Balancing Success and Failure in Your Narrative

  3:24

• Your Story

  4 questions

• The Impact of Stakeholders

  2:21

• Owning Up to Your Efforts

  1:59

• More Than Just You

  5 questions

Putting It All Together

This is it! Time to define how you’ll combine all of this effort and inspire those who are looking through your work.

Chevron 6 steps

• Getting Out of the Way of Your Designs

  1:38

• Fail Cheaply and Early

  2:07

• Design the Experience

  4 questions

• The Importance of Calls to Action

  1:33

• Long-Term Curation

  2:19

• Final Touches

  5 questions