- Hey everyone, welcome to a new portfolio review video.
This is a series where I take a look at your portfolios,
and share my advice and feedback
on changes you could make to it
based on what you're intending to do next in your career.
If you would like to submit your portfolio
to possibly be reviewed in this series in a future episode,
then you can do that at charlimarie.com/portfolio-review.
Quick note before we get in,
this video is sponsored by Squarespace,
which is my favorite all-in-one website building tool,
and it's perfect for building portfolios,
but more on that later.
First off, let's take a look at what you've been working on.
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So first up we have Veronica.
Veronica is from the US,
and she is having trouble finding work,
so wanting me to take a look at her portfolio
and see perhaps what the first impression is that
I'm getting, and some improvements she could make.
She says that she is a website designer,
and is beginning to look for UX work,
and would like to be working at a UX agency
in-house or freelance.
So Veronica's portfolio has like a full-page
splash screen I guess, is that the term for it still?
I don't know.
I think what I'd like to see in your portfolio
there Veronica, is something that starts off
with your approach to UX straight away,
because at the top here,
we come straight into some UI work,
which is different from UX,
and if you are looking for a UX-specific job,
then I think it'd be better
to start your portfolio off with that.
The way your website seems to scroll,
obviously these effects are very cool and all,
but it does make it feel slower,
which is not a great user experience.
So maybe just take a look at that,
I think that just simply scrolling through
the sections might be better off
than having the fancy stuff going on there.
This case study that you have here for the Samsung fridge,
I think is a great in-depth look at the process,
about looking at the user experience and how it all works.
So perhaps that's a better thing to lead with.
I feel like I would like to know
a little bit more information about each stage here.
You've got the site map, then wireframes, then user flows,
like what is your approach to each of these things,
and why do you go through them?
That could be something good to just
have a couple of sentences explaining in there.
Perhaps what you could do in your portfolio
is have these three projects in a row,
sort of on equal footing,
and say underneath, Samsung Smart Fridge app,
say UX design, and like user flow,
or something like, a little bit to explain
what was involved in the projects,
so that I know if I want to see an example of your UX work,
this is the one that I should click on.
I would also like to see a link to your About page
and your contact form up the top of the site as well,
or perhaps in some form of navigation.
I know you have this menu at the side here,
but I have to actually scroll down
to even see that there is an About page to get to,
so I think some, just some simple text links
could really benefit there.
Make that information really easily accessible up the top,
and that'll be useful,
because this About section is pretty well-written I think,
so why not make it easier for people to access, you know?
I'm not opposed to this whole idea
of a one-page site design,
which is essentially what this is,
but I think that if you're gonna do it,
it has to be really easy to navigate around that one page.
You know what, it might even be good
to put this process piece at the top,
I kind of missed this on my first scroll through.
It might be good to bring this nearer to to the top,
because it's kind of like the basis for then,
how you go through the case studies,
and then you could arrange the case studies
into the three like, points that you have here.
So basically what we're seeing is this is my process,
and this is how I've applied it to some examples.
So I think all in all,
you've got all the pieces that you need Veronica,
to have a great portfolio.
Like, I like that you've been specific
about choosing just those three projects, for example.
But you just need to arrange them in a way
that makes the whole portfolio a better experience
for someone looking at it.
Up next, we have Patricio, who's also from the US,
and ironically, another UX designer.
That just seems to be what came up in my inbox
the day I was choosing these.
Patricio says that they want to be a UX designer
who has the ability to code, and I'm constantly thinking
on how to make things better.
So a UX design and front-end coding
is the portfolio we're looking at here.
I can instantly see that your portfolio
is a great example of your front-end coding abilities.
I really like this cool little animation
that you've got going on here,
that I assume is based on JavaScript.
I like this grid of projects.
It makes it really easy to see right from the start
that you've got a bunch of great examples of your work,
but I like the way you've done this grid,
isn't a classic one where every single
grid element is the same size.
I like that there's this bit
of overlap and tesselation going on here.
It's a really nice touch
to have some references on your site as well.
I feel like that's not a thing that I often see
in design portfolios, so yeah, I think that's great.
Let's click into the first project here,
because I feel like that's usually the first one is the one
that you're most gonna want people to look at, right?
This is really nice, the way you walked through this process
of creating this billing app.
I like that you show clearly in steps,
like literally with numbers, I think that's great.
Planning, design, and then delivery.
One thing is that when I scroll to the end of this,
I was hoping that I would be able to see some like more
closeup examples of some little details within the project,
and perhaps some interesting UX pieces culled out,
like some interesting decisions that you made.
That could be something to include,
because even though there is images here behind the header,
I can't actually click in
and see anything that you've designed closer up.
I just feel like seeing some pieces of the app culled out
would give me a better sense of how it works.
Interestingly here on another project,
you have that same planning, design, delivery,
but I assumed they'd be clickable
to take me down to a certain section, but they're not.
That's something to watch,
that if you're gonna give something a hover state,
it needs to perform an action,
because that's what the user will expect.
It'll be great to see you apply that same
planning, design, delivery, walkthrough here.
Again, I can just see this one image of the project,
and it's the whole landing page zoomed out.
I think it would be nice to have you point out
the features that you're the most proud of,
and that you feel you did like the best job UX-wise with it.
You've got a nice About page, which is great.
It'd be nice to see a photo of you on it,
if you feel comfortable putting a photo of yourself online.
I know not everyone does, but it just helps
to make people feel like they're getting to know you better
when they can see a photo of you.
I would also be aware of the messaging of Contact Us
on a page that's for a personal site.
Change it to Contact Me, or if you are a team,
then perhaps explain that on the About page.
The About page seemed to be talking about you as a person,
so it was a little confusing now
to see this Us messaging, makes me wonder who Us is.
Could also be a great area to have a little bit
of information on this contact page
about what kind of projects you're looking for,
so giving people an example of why they would contact you.
All in all, it looks like
you have a solid portfolio of work.
I think the one issue here
is the depth that which you go into in your projects.
So that first one with the breaking down
the three steps was great,
I would love to see that for each of them,
and then also like I said, the closer up details,
and pulling out pieces of the projects
that you want to point out.
I think the action of doing that
points out that design isn't surface-level,
and we all know as designers, that it's not,
and so bringing that out and pointing out
the reasons behind some of your design decisions
is gonna be really useful
for potential employers to look at.
The overall imagery style
that you're using for your projects is great.
They're super high quality and I love, love
what you've done with the markups.
So keep that going.
Alright, the last portfolio that we'll take a look at today
is Alicia's, or Alesia, I'm not sure
exactly how to pronounce that,
so forgive me please if I've gotten that wrong.
I'm just gonna go with Alicia.
Alicia is from Nashville,
and they say that they're mid-level designer.
Been out of school and working for about four years now.
"My goal is to transition into getting freelance clients,
"specifically in logo and branding work."
So let's take a look at Alicia's portfolio
with that in mind.
One thing I will note straight away is that
I know your name is in the URL,
but it doesn't actually say your name anywhere
that I'm looking at on the site, so that's interesting.
I would highly recommend adding your name,
and adding your title, even if it just says designer, to it,
because that just lets people know instantly
that they're in the right place.
I know it seems obvious,
but just adding those things can be like,
a nice small little detail that can really help.
All of your work looks pretty interesting here Alicia,
so let's just click into the first one,
and see what's happening.
So right away, inside your project,
I feel like I would like to see a title
and a short description of what it is that you worked on.
I'm assuming this is a logo design,
because that's what I'm being shown,
but I don't know that until I scroll down further.
Oh, and then I can see that
actually you've also designed a website,
so that makes it even more interesting.
So if I was clicking through your portfolio,
looking for examples of your web design work,
I might have left right at the start when this page loaded,
because I saw that it was a logo and not a website,
so that's when a description
of the type of work that was involved,
and kind of like an introduction
to what I'm going to see on this page,
can really come in handy.
I love that you've showed your wireframes
and the thinking behind the design.
It's always nice to see
that behind the scenes sort of aspect.
You do mention it briefly when talking about the logo,
that it needed to be show the idea of modern, stable,
and future-focused for this truck driving lifestyle company,
but I think that hearing some of the brief
behind the website would have been useful as well.
Like, what were some of the problems with the previous one,
that you were then fixing with your design,
and pointing out those areas.
I really like the way your portfolio
has this list of projects at the side.
It makes it really easy for me to jump around between them.
And yeah, if you could add some sort of tagging system to it
where I could see what type of design was involved
with each one, that would be really useful,
because I'd know which one most interested me next.
So for example, I've just clicked into this one, which
I didn't know was an illustration until I clicked on it.
This is really cute, and I love this example
of the video showing it in use.
Thing that's a problem that can
often happen with design portfolios
is that the take the work out of its context, so seeing it
in context and how it was used is really interesting,
and it shows why your design was effective
with the different colored backgrounds there.
I would love to see a little more information
about you on your About page.
I feel like you told me more in the email
than you do say on here, so that would be nice to bring in,
and perhaps if you're gonna say
"Drop me a line via my contact page."
You should link to your contact page from that line of text.
Everything that you do on your portfolio,
just make it really easy for people to go to the next step.
Whether it's view the next project,
to contact you, to inquire about work or whatever.
One last piece of advice I would give you
for your portfolio Alicia,
is to have a page perhaps about your process.
If you're looking to get freelance clients,
clients will need to know how you work
and what to expect when they hire you.
So some sort of like, hire me page,
I guess is what your contact page could evolve into.
That my friends is all of the portfolios
I have time to review today,
but if you like this series, then give it a thumbs up,
and keep watching them I suppose,
and I'll keep making them.
I'm really excited to have Squarespace
as the sponsor for this video, because it is the service
that I'm always recommending anyway as a great way
to get a design portfolio up and on the inter webs.
It's super ideal for portfolios,
because they have a bunch of templates built-in
that you can use that are beautifully designed.
They're all responsive,
so it means that your work is gonna look great, no matter
what device the potential client or employer is using.
It's super easy to customize it
to make whatever type of page you want on your site,
and you don't need to have any understanding of code at all
to be able to do this.
But if you want to, you can also add custom CSS,
so it's like the best of both words.
They've got 24/7 support, so you know that someone's
always gonna be there to help you if you get stuck,
or just need some help
bringing the idea you have for your webpage to life,
and they make it really easy
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which I always recommend for a design portfolio,
because it just makes you look all that more professional.
So if you clicked on this video because at the moment
you're trying to improve your portfolio,
you want to update it,
because I feel like us designers
are always in a state of updating our portfolios,
or maybe you don't even have one online yet.
I want you to head to squarespace.com for a free trial,
and just get a site started,
and get your work uploaded onto it,
and when you're ready to launch it,
go to squarespace.com/charlimarietv,
and you'll get 10% off your first site or domain.
So no more excuses, you're gonna get that portfolio done,
and when you launch it, you can feel free to submit it
to my series to be reviewed in a future episode.
So thank you Squarespace for sponsoring the video,
and just for making a tool
that's great for design portfolios,
and thank you to you as well for watching.
I really appreciate it,
and I will see you in my next video, bye.
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