Tips for Creating a Successful Portfolio

What to avoid:

  • Personal branding that is unpolished or distracting
  • Using low-fidelity images
  • Showcasing designs that died years ago
  • Not targeting your desired role or company
  • A lack of personality

Interviewer insights:

  • Always showcase your best and most relevant work. Do not simply show your work in chronological order
  • Find ways to highlight your creative and visionary skills
  • Include conceptual work, sketches, research, and technical drawings along with finished work to help the viewer understand the full range of your skills
  • Create it in an easy-to-manage size
  • Keep it up to date
  • Make it discoverable through host websites, and add it to your LinkedIn profile

Success factors:

  • Highlight your best work! Do not include anything of low quality
  • Showcase the kind of work you want to be known or hired for
  • It’s not about the work you’ve done, it’s about how you present it
  • Be sure to showcase the design process, not just final designs
  • Provide a balance of both text and imagery
 

Bright living room with forest green paneled walls, a grey, white, and black rug, a green ottoman, a grey ottoman, a gray leather chair, a light brown fabric couch, a large mirror, a golden shelf with pictures and trinkets, and dark curtains

 

Woman painting a room that holds an inspiration board full of interior design photos

 

Living room area with a small white table, two pink chairs, a black and white couch with yellow and white pillows, white walls, bright natural light, a cactus plant, a large house plant, a rough sketch on the wall, and a fuzzy grey rug

License

School of Human Ecology Undergraduate Portfolio Guide Copyright © by University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Human Ecology Advising & Career Center. All Rights Reserved.

Share This Book