Design Portfolio Website Tips

Having recently updated my own website, I know how hard it can be to create an engaging and informative portfolio website. Here are my top tips for creating a design portfolio website.

Create an Interesting Homepage

Possibly the most important page of any website, your homepage is the center of navigation for your website. A homepage could be created in a number of different ways, and there is plenty of room to be creative. Whichever way, your homepage needs to have strong, logical navigation and naturally direct your website users on to the content they want to look at.

Selection of projects

The projects you show on your website should be carefully planned out and decided upon based on the value they show to potential clients. For example, if you are looking for work in a specific design field, showing similar work will show visitors what you enjoy doing and ensure that your work enquiries are closer to that type of design. It’s important to remember not to feature every job you’ve done, however it’s still more or less up to you how many items of work you wish to show off.

Easy navigation/filtering

I already mentioned the importance of thoughtful navigation. The sight navigation should also be easily accessible from all areas of the site. If you have a lot of content, it’s often a good idea to set up secondary navigation to easily search or filter through pages. For example on my website, I have an easy to use filter which sorts the projects by the type of design work involved.

Share a bit about the project

While it is true that all good designs should speak for themselves, visitors to your website will often find it much more useful to read a bit more about each project. Start by talking about the project brief, what was required, your role in the project (important if you collaborated with others) and how the outcome achieved its goal(s). This last point is often the one that will show potential clients that you’re worth working with.

Contact/Social networks

Possibly the most important feature of your website is an easy to find way to contact you. There’s no point showing off your great work if nobody can get in touch. If you would rather not add your email address then consider adding a contact form where people can add their information and get in touch through the website itself. This also has other benefits, like making it easier for people to mail you, which can be a persuading factor in contacting you. It’s also worth adding any social networking links such as twitter. (I mentioned my opinions on twitter in my Websites All New Designers Should Check Out blog post.

I hope you find this helpful and use these tips to create and improve the way you display your work to the world. Good luck!