Signs of a Weak Online Graphic Design Portfolio

Every year the passes, the web is becoming more of an important place for graphic designers. Just a few years back you could get away without having a web portfolio, but today it really is a MUST-HAVE. Competition for full-time and freelance jobs is insane and if you don’t have an online graphic design portfolio you are going to potentially miss out on life-changing opportunities.

If I helped create the curriculum for graphic design colleges I would have students creating portfolio sites in their first semester instead of it being “recommended” in your senior year. I knew a lot of students who still did not have a web portfolio up months after they graduated. Senior year is usually a very busy year for most design students so it would be easier if you already had a website up that you could upload your final work to before you started job hunting.

Many businesses now look for designers online to hire, so your portfolio needs to be exceptionally strong and you must get your name out there as much as you can. The more sites you showcase and promote your site on the better and we will cover marketing tips in the future so subscribe and stay tuned! For now, check out these tips below geared to help graphic designers strengthen their online design portfolios.

Reasons You Should Strengthen Your Online Portfolio

1. Limited Variety of Work and Not Enough Samples

As I mentioned in a previous post “5 Things to Have in a Well Rounded Graphic Design Portfolio” its important to have a well-rounded portfolio as well as one that is tailored to the area you are looking to specialize in. For example if you want to get a job in magazine design you should show a lot of examples of this type of work, but also many other samples of typical types of graphic design projects. This can greatly open up the number of jobs you could be hired for.

A website with multiple pages should have a portfolio section organized by categories, just make sure each category has at least a few samples. For one page portfolios/single page sites its common to show work in order of most recent at the top, but you could organize by category as well if you made it easy to quickly get to each category without scrolling around too much.

2. No Current Work

One of the most fatal flaws you can make is not showing your most current work. Like any other professions most graphic designers advance in skill level, which can dramatically change how their design projects look. Work from 2 years ago could be of a totally different quality of work produced today, so its important to update your portfolio at least every 6 months with your best and newest designs.

3. Hard to Navigate

Many graphic designers see their online portfolio as a canvas to show off their creativity. This is fine, but remember who your audience is. If you are job hunting, you want to make it very easy for potential employers to quickly view your work, navigate your site and contact you if they are interested. If your site is OVER creative than they might simply pass you up because its taking to long to get at what they want. So when creating your web portfolio try to at least keep your navigation simple.

4. No Easy Contact Method

Another important element that is surprisingly missing on a lot of web portfolios is a way to contact the designer. All you need is a dedicated contact page linked in your main navigation and footer. The contact page should have your email, contact form that sends to your email and a phone number at the minimum. A visitor should be able to find out how to contact you and get to the page in under 5 seconds. If your portfolio design is a single web page, than place your contact info together in a highly viewable area.

5. No Full Size Views of Work

When you post work to your portfolio you basically have 2 options. One option is to show thumbnails that link to larger versions of the images and the other option is to display images at full size right away. Either way, you should make sure viewers can see the images at a large enough site to really appreciate the work. If you are using thumbnails its usually better to have the large images appear as a pop up instead of taking the viewer to another web page. This way they can just close out the large view and continue browsing instead of having to hit the back button or click a link back to the portfolio page they were on.

If you have website designs in your portfolio, its best to show multiple screenshots of the design or include the website URL if the design is live so they can check it out. Just make sure to check the links every once in a while to make sure your web design looks like it is supposed to.

6. No Personal Information

The web can be a very impersonal and cold place, so sometimes it can be great to add a little personal information to your web page. About pages can be a very powerful tool and lets people get a qucik idea of who you are and what you are about. You may want to include a little bit about your personal work history, what you like to do in your free time and so on. Its also a good idea to use your name wherever possible and a quality portrait style photo of yourself would be a nice final touch.

7. Missing Online Resume

If you want to increase your chances of getting work you should always include a copy of your resume online. You should at the very least allow people to download a PDF copy of your resume, but sometimes designers will also display the entire resume as live text on a web page. Keep your PDF size as small as possible to reduce download times and make it easy for people to find the download link.

Having your resume online will make it easier and quicker for potential employers to decide if you are qualified and can save you both time.

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Image Credits – http://www.flickr.com/photos/darwinbell/465459020/