When it comes to showing off your work to possible clients, it’s imperative that everything looks stunning. There are a few different ways in which you can set up your portfolio, but the most common these days is to have your own website.

The website itself works not only as a portfolio but also as a way for your clients to hire you. If you don’t have a website yet, or you want to have an offline version of your portfolio, there are a couple creative options apart from Behance, Tumblr, and Dribble.

For example:

• A slide presentation
• A scrolling infographic
• An animated presentation OR infographic
• A video

The vibrant trends of 2018

Minimalist Portfolio Design

No matter if your graphic design portfolio is a website or something else, there is one trend that is the most notoriously preferred not only by designers but also clients. I’m talking about MINIMALISM.

If you aren’t familiar with minimalism, it’s the design movement which can be described in three words;

“Less is More.”

When it comes to your design portfolio, the minimalist approach can be applied a few different ways. First of all, in the way your work is presented. Second, in the curation of the work you choose to show. And best of all, in the way your different styles are represented as an entire piece of work.

Minimalist Portfolio Layout

Following this minimalistic trend, the layout for your portfolio should be clean, neat and very low key. The emphasis should be in your work. If you have many different styles of work, different in color intensity or saturation, organize the pieces according to the feeling it gives.

The minimal and unsaturated next to each other, the colorful and bright together and so on. The background should be white, off-white or a light grey so that it doesn’t compete with your designs.

Minimalist Curation of works

When you choose your designs to show off in your portfolio, imagine you are a curator in a gallery or museum. Curating can be difficult when it’s your own work that you have to pick from. But basically it’s like this:

Do you love the design? Are you proud of it?

• If yes, include it
• If no, leave it out.

It’s that simple.

Another tip for curating your graphic design portfolio is to group the designs according to the work you want to get hired for.

For example you can have a website with all your best work separated into sections (or not) and a special minimal slide presentation for showing at a job interview. You can have different versions of slide presentations, one that showcases marketing designs, another that showcases magazines spreads etc.

If you have some printed designs, they are only worth showing in physical form if they have really special paper or finishings and you have kept them in mint condition.

Moving Parts

 Another big trend in graphic design portfolios is an addition of moving parts. If you are an animation designer then this would be no problem. If you do animations, show them off if you are proud of them!

Including animation, even if it’s just a hover or a micro animation, can make a big difference in the overall design of your portfolio. If you aren’t a web designer, find a friend who is, to help give your portfolio that little bit extra with some css code.

If you are creating an offline portfolio, like a presentation or pdf infographic, it’s pretty easy to add an animation while building it. You can use Visme or Venngage.

Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2015/07/7-secrets-for-enhancing-ux-with-micro-interactions/

Extraordinary Measures

 Your portfolio, web-based or otherwise, isn’t the only place where you should be showing your work. Most of the time, graphic design portfolios showcase work done for clients, so your personal projects are not always portrayed. That is unfortunate since a lot of the time our in-house creations are really great!

A unique way to show off your skills outside of your portfolio is to design graphics or fonts for site like Freepik or Creative Market. The possibilities of creative output are infinite when you produce resources for other designers to use in their own projects. By selling your creations, your name as a designer also makes its way to social media and you gain more recognition.

Having an online presence apart from a collection of hired work shows your capacity of creativity. Clients love that, and younger clients will probably find you through these creations anyway.

Another extraordinary way to show off your designs is to open a Society6 or Redbubble store where you can sell your creations printed on different types of apparel of homeware. Just make sure you actually design what you use instead of reusing someone else’s designs.

Over to you

How do you showcase your designs? What does your graphic design portfolio look like? Maybe it’s time for a renewal! We hope these tips have helped your creative influx.