Portfolio Link: https://pmcadesign.co.uk/
Miro Link: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVNbnyKZY=/?share_link_id=329457872618
To start the process of creating my own portfolio, I decided to look at the work of others to gain inspiration. I wanted to look at both experienced and designers like myself who were at the very start of their careers. From this research I decided to create a moodboard on Miro, full of screensnips of my favourite design elements that I found. I hoped to combine some of these elements together to create a portfolio that included the essentials that employers would expect, but also had a design with some individuality.
https://miro.com/app/live-embed/uXjVNbnyKZY=/?moveToViewport=-3036,-1704,7332,3666&embedId=147569405998
On this board I placed anything that I saw and liked, from the introductions to the portfolios or how the people showcased their work. At this stage I was mainly concentrating on first impressions and what you would see as soon as the site loaded. I think this is something I need to concentrate on as first impressions count.
I have noticed a large number of portfolio sites start with a introductory phrase or short paragraph that sums up what the person or company does and a little of their outlook or values. I like this idea as coming off the back of the more formal CVs and Cover Letters, this is my first chance to express some character for potential employers.
I was also interested by how the work itself was showcased, some people went with a list, some on a separate page but I think the method I liked the most was using a grid structure. I feel this adds some visual appeal to the page, allows me to showcase some of the visuals from my projects and as I don’t have a huge amount of work at the moment for my portfolio I feel this makes the most out of the work I do have. I feel a list of three items may look a bit empty.
One thing I also noticed while looking at these portfolios and that you can’t see on the Miro board above was that a lot of them used interesting interactions. In most cases this was a nice hover effect when you scrolled over a piece of work (a nice introduction to the project) but some portfolios had went further and added interesting scroll effects, some of these were nice and added to the site others I felt were a bit distracting. As my portfolio is to showcase my work, I don’t think it would be a good idea to go over the top with these effects as it may detract from my work rather than enhance the experience.
Now I had looked at a number of portfolios from experienced designers, I wanted to look at some from people who were at a similar career stage to me. For this I decided there was no better place to start than with those in the year above me on the Interaction Design course, as these people would be on placement now so would be a good indicator of what I needed to have.
Most of what was available through the IXD Belfast site was people’s blogs, like what I have here on Notion, but some people had gone further and designed nice webpages to showcase their blogs. I liked this example that used a grid layout for the blog posts I could see how this could be repurposed to house my case studies.
