what are the best graphic designers doing right now in their portfolios why is it important
and what can you learn from it i'm going to try something a tad crazy in today's video
i'm going to try and change the way you think about graphic design portfolios let's first
take a look at an award-winning branding agency rebrands they are self-confessed dutch masters
when it comes to branding and last year they won a global rebrand award for their branding project on
wound wards now that's great but how can their portfolio of work help you today it starts at
the top quite literally the very first thing you see on the screen is a sentence that tells you
what they do they make brands unique this might seem trivial or mundane but trust me
it's the start of a very clever system now it's hugely important to get across exactly what you
do early on in your portfolio if the viewer or potential client is given confirmation that they
are on the correct website for the person or the skills they're looking for they are more
likely to continue on through your portfolio now just think about that for a second think
about how important that is but let's dive deeper from this initial contact and let's take a look
at what this award-winning designer does next in their portfolio now if we scroll down we can see
some high-profile projects that they've worked on and also that award that i mentioned earlier
so let's think this through a moment they've told us what they do which if you are a company looking
for a brand designer that automatically has you intrigued from there you then see successful
and high-profile projects and graphic design awards you are then likely intrigued further
but wait below this is my favorite part of the portfolio and that might actually surprise you
now they've clearly shown an eight-stage process for possible clients to read through
also inside this text it tells the potential clients how branding is vastly important to
a business and that's going to hook the potential clients currently reading this eight stage process
to rewind and recap this first example the portfolio homepage has firstly told us what
they do shown as past experience of what they actually do and then demonstrated why it's so
important and how they do it and also of course an award thrown in for good measure as you can see
it's less about dumping your work onto a website and more about hooking and targeting clients
if you've heard something similar to this on my channel before then let this be a reminder
and a demonstration of real life examples of how it's done properly but let's see a second example
of how the top designers are marketing their portfolios francis zhao is another award-winning
designer and look at the very top of the homepage what do we see it's an explanation
of what this person is all about we do not hear about the pets he has or where he likes to travel
or even get to random imagery thrown at us we are told he is a competent and award-winning
designer and that he's good at solving problems and that's a buzz word right there problem solver
i've said that before on this channel now i don't want to just show examples of good portfolios or
sugarcoat the video with visually nice work here at satori graphics we do go deeper than that
we look at the how and the why so moving down we hover the cursor over the top left project and it
tells us what the project is and also that it's won an award this section of preview text on the
thumbnail helps the website user navigate things really easily if i'm not interested in branding
as a potential client then i'll just move on to something else but the award-winning aspect has
caught my attention you don't need to have one awards but you do need to demonstrate your worth
really think about this and listen carefully as we look at the next portfolio by stefan calvillo
right out of the gate we know he's a product designer and he mentions that he works for lyft
lyft is a really large company and so he's essentially just name dropping here which is
actually really awesome it's effectively the same as mentioning that you've won an award it's adding
strength to the persuasion of any potential client looking to hire this person so stop for a moment
and think about yourself consider your design abilities your skills your accomplishments what
can you say or do at the start of your portfolio to strengthen your image as the right choice in
the eyes of our clients obviously these people we're looking at today are grabbing the top tier
clients and they likely are out of our league but for the average designer out there what can we do
to gain trust and confidence now if you've been a designer for a number of years mention that
you've worked for x amount of years and that's the experience you have under your belt that's always
a strong start in my opinion if you've worked for a notable client that has an existing website
and might be known to a group of people mention that too if you have a huge social media presence
as a graphic designer that can work in your favor too because you have authority in the space
if you have a master's degree in graphic design that's always a good thing to mention too
but you do get my drift here find your foot in the door that shows you are the
right person for a potential client job and back that up with a kind of authority
so to summarize mention what you do early on narrow that down to a niche or a few niche things
that catch the attention of the right people then add some flair by making yourself known
to be better than most designers at that thing demonstrate problem solving and also competence
all of this should be designed in a well thought out portfolio one with a running theme
that expresses what you do but if you want to learn more about portfolios or graphic design
just click a video on screen and until next time design your future today peace you