Writing — 30 April 2024 · 13 minutes
My Portfolio Process: A Designer's Tale of Strategy and Execution
I approached my portfolio's design like a project given to me by a client. From first hand experience, it's easy for us designers or developers to say we are going to design, build or work on our...
Treat your portfolio like a client project
Role-play both client and service provider: define the PROBLEMs and REWARDs before touching pixels. Accountability tweets don't survive rabbit holes; a client brief does.
Interrogate the brief before designing
Why do you need this site? What must it achieve, and by when? The same discovery questions you'd ask a client (Dan Mall's questionnaire works) apply to yourself.
Hick's law hits portfolio-builders too
Reviewing dozens of portfolios made choosing a direction harder, not easier. Settling on a vision took deliberate reflection: what to achieve now, and how the site should grow.
Architect for growth, not launch
A two-page site clogs with information overload. Breaking it into a six-page root navigation made room for current work and future interests, a corner of the web to grow with.
Start aconversation.
Hiring, building, or just curious: I read everything.
One person, end to end.