5 ways to improve your design portfolio

As a designer, your portfolio is your shop window. As well as selling your skills and your individual style – and hopefully winning you work in the process – it's also a chance to express your personality, and what you're like to work with. Getting it spot-on is no mean feat, and even the best portfolios have room for improvement.

Creative Bloq teamed up with moo.com (opens in new tab) to provide some killer advice to help you craft your ideal portfolio, whatever discipline you work in. Following a global call-out for submissions (opens in new tab), over 100 portfolios were whittled down to just five – ready to be critiqued by an expert panel from Google, Wolff Olins, MOO and BrandOpus.

Those five are:

Watch our panel – including moo.com (opens in new tab)'s head of design Millie Scarlett Davies, Google Creative Lab ECD Steve Vranakis, Pedro Messias, multidisciplinary designer at Wolff Olins, and Meghan Hagerty, marketing director at BrandOpus – critique these five diverse portfolios in the video below...

The video above is packed with insights and advice from our expert panel. Here are five key takeaways to apply to your own portfolio website today...

01. Show things in context

Millie Scarlett Davies was particularly impressed with how Gabriella Barouch made the effort to show her commercial work in situ, rather than just the illustrations in isolation. "From our perspective, if we ever want to work with an illustrator, it helps to see that the work translates into the real world," she explains.

02. Design for mobile first

While the panel though Bishal Limbu's site felt a little sparse on desktop, it works more effectively on mobile. "We look at these sites in the moments in between the work we have to do – when we're commuting, or have a chance to get a tablet or phone out," points out Steve Vranakis. "Designing for mobile is a must."

03. Take viewers on a journey

The panel particularly liked how Jon Banuelos leads viewers through his portfolio, with twists of personality throughout. Meghan Hagerty compares his case studies to awards entries, a technique she admires: "He's got what his brief was, what exactly he did, and who he worked with," she says. "Everything is spelled out."

04. Curate an experience

Although several of the panellists felt that Victor Renaux's portfolio made people work a bit too hard to see his projects, Pedro Messias praised the way he gave each project its own cover image as part of a unified theme: "There's an element of storytelling to it; he's treating each project as a different chapter," he explains.

05. Don't be afraid to experiment

Less is often more when it comes to design portfolios, but Kendall Slade took the chance to show off her personality – and her coding skills – with her simple, but ever-changing layout. "It's got attitude, it's a bit punk," says Steve Vranakis. "It's like she's taken a digital crowbar and smashed up the windows of the shopfront."

Once you've nailed your portfolio, you need some top-quality self-promo materials to point people towards it. Digital print and design company moo.com (opens in new tab) provides fun, affordable, easy-to-use tools for creating premium business cards, postcards, stickers and more. There's even a 100% satisfaction guarantee with the MOO Promise (opens in new tab): if there's any kind of mistake on the design – even if it's your fault – they'll fix it for free!

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Nick Carson

Nick is a content strategist and copywriter. He has worked with world-class agencies including Superunion, Wolff Olins and Vault49 on brand storytelling, tone of voice and verbal strategy for global brands such as Virgin, Pepsi and TikTok. Nick launched the Brand Impact Awards (opens in new tab) in 2013 while editor of Computer Arts, and remains chair of judges. He's written for Creative Bloq on design and branding matters since the site's launch.