Our Top Tips for Design Portfolios

As a designer it’s imperative that your CV and portfolio showcase your skills and represents the best of your ability. Here are a few simple tips that could help:

1. Your portfolio is all about giving people an idea of what you’re like as a designer and showing off your work, so let your work speak for itself. Tip number one is to keep the format and layout simple – no fussy backgrounds or zaney colour schemes.

2. Don’t put too much work in your portfolio, there’s no real need to go over ten pages. The person recruiting can always ask to see more if they need to. If you’re sending a PDF over try and tailor it so you’re showing the work that’s the most relevant to the role you’re applying for.

3. A really great way to make your work look professional is to show it in context – if you’ve designed a layout then show it within the magazine. Use high resolution images.

4. When emailing work over send everything as a PDF and combine the portfolio and CV as a single document.

5. Keep work contemporary and try not to show anything too old as it can look outdated.

6. Include some detail about each project. A paragraph outlining simple details helps the person recruiting to understand the work (especially when sending PDFs). Include where you were working when you carried out the project, the name of the client, your specific role and a sentence detailing what the work is. Keep it short though, the employer can always ask you if they need any further information.

7. Include as much professional work as you can - this one’s for the juniors! Any uni projects are usually best put at the end of your portfolio. It’s usually your most recent work that’s going to help you in your application.