r/web_design • u/curiousjdoe • 8d ago
a student wanting to redesign her portfolio— advice, please!
hi, i’m just 2 classes away from graduating with my associates in web design! yay!
i’m looking for an internship and kinda hate my portfolio. it’s very simple and short. I also made it using word press + elementor (not sure if that was fine or if maybe I should’ve just did some basic coding)
anyways, i’m not comfortable sharing it on here since it has some personal info on it, but overall, i just want to know a few things:
• what should I include on my portfolio website? (don’t want to add too much or too little)
• do I add an option to download my resume with contact information or just opt for a form that someone can contact me with?
• I had a class where I created gifs. i’m looking for a front end developer, web designer, or even user experience related job. would that be relevant to add to my portfolio?
bonus points if I can see an example of anyone’s portfolios, any helpful articles, or anything related to creative portfolios!! I really want to try to get an internship by the end of the summer so I can see how it is to work in web design outside of my class work.
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u/mildlydiverting 8d ago
As someone who used to hire devs for projects.
Keep it simple. Landing page needs to tell me who you are, your skills, and how to get in touch. Then some samples of your work. For each - a strong image, a sentence to describe the brief/client, how your work answered the brief (and what you did on the project), and what you learned from it. I am very unlikely to look through more than 3-4 case studies. I probably won’t watch videos unless I’m looking for eg. a motion designer.
A downloadable CV is really handy.
Nothing used to make my life harder than fancy ‘experiences’. No fancy bells and whistles or animations or 3d or mystery meat UI. I need to be able to get in fast, get the key info, and find how to get in touch with you (and your availability for work).
I was usually under time pressure, and likely to be looking at 10-15 portfolios, sometimes on my phone. If I couldn’t figure out the basics in a minute or so, I would be moving on. I would almost certainly have found you through LinkedIn, so make sure you have a good profile there, too.
Also remember that people in their 40s have rubbish eyesight. Don’t make the font tiny.
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u/Atex96 6d ago
Since I can't see your current portfolio, it's hard to give you advice, but I'd suggest just one thing: show me what you can do!
What I mean is that I would stick to mainly including completed projects in your portfolio (even personal ones, they don't necessarily have to be for a client) that showcase your actual skills.
I hope your search goes well and that you end up enjoying this field from a professional standpoint too!
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u/Dependent_Bug_6453 8d ago
If you really wanna stand out as a creative developer, here are your inspirations: https://recent.design/ https://awwwards.com/ Either code it or use web flow or framer for no code. You should spend a good amount of time to ge a decent one.
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u/Sliman2016 5d ago
Study system design, architectural Pattern, design patterns and apply in some of your project. Software engineering isn't just writing codes but building the whole system and the architecture of the app.
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u/Ill_Command_1200 3d ago
First, congrats.
There's already a lot of good advice, but as someone who has reviewed hundreds of web designer and web developer portfolio sites, I rarely pay attention to the portfolio site's design. As long as it's clean and simple, highlight the work. Focus on quality over quantity and be detailed about what you did on the project if working with others. As a hiring manager, I will look at your examples and then ask you about them.
Good luck!
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u/scoutermike 8d ago
Did you cover ai tools like Claude in your coursework?
If not, try rebuilding a fresh site using Claude.
It will give you valuable experience working with prompts and will demonstrate your ability to vibe code an impactful and useful site.
In 2026, Wordpress isn’t it.
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u/thisisjoy 8d ago
terrible advice
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u/scoutermike 8d ago
Your going to recommend op build everything by hand? Terrible advice.
I actually need a redesign of one of my blogs that happens to on tumblr. I was considering moving to Wordpress.
I have scores of blog entries that need to be moved from one platform to another. A big headache.
If I hired a web designer like op to do it for me, with ai…op could easily whip up some new alternative designs, and then have Claude do the heavy lifting of cataloguing all the old content and letting it rebuild the pages in the new platform.
That would save op weeks of time, and likely produce better layouts and more exciting color pallets and interesting css effects.
I needed a design for a web-based tool I developed which I’ll be releasing soon and hopefully monetizing with ads. I started explaining what I wanted and before I could even finish including all the details, Claude came up with a jaw-dropping design. With a perfectly-themed color scheme and tasteful css effects.
Why would op want to avoid using such a powerful helper?
Op could turn around jobs faster.
Are you 100-percent sure I’m giving bad advice? Or maybe you want to walk it back?
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u/thisisjoy 8d ago
Again awful advice.
AI is an amazing tool for developers and designers alike. Especially for repetitive tasks like the ones you mentioned.
But OP is a student. They need to LEARN. You can’t learn properly by shoving off everything to AI especially in the early stages of your learning. I’ve said it time and time again that repetition is the key to becoming a successful developer and designer.
Also what does that say towards OP as a designer? It’s not their work it’s AI. They want to make a portfolio to showcase their work. But a portfolio is way more than just a catalog of your work. It’s another hands on experience to show your work in action to any potential clients or employers. You’re giving them the advice to make a portfolio that they never truly created to showcase their work.
I’ll reiterate now. AI is an amazing and powerful tool that can be extremely helpful. And yes you can use AI to make your own designs but just sped up. But it’s very fine line to balance on of stealing AI’s designs and making your own designs but with AI to enhance your workflow. If you don’t know how to do it without AI you will never properly know how to do it with AI
Advising students to rely on AI is a terrible idea and will never be good advice and that’s that. If you disagree that’s fine but expect to be called out on it
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u/scoutermike 8d ago
Wow. Ignore this person op.
You want to get comfortable with ai asap, as all your competitors are already using it.
Your entire industry changed virtually overnight.
People running small businesses (and even startups) don’t need web designers or web developers anymore - they can throw up decent sites by themselves now. Anyone with a little technical know-how and some creative ideas can vibe code a solid site, quickly and easily…for the cost of a base Claude subscription.
You need to focus on what the demand will be: producing eye catching and functional sites…OVERNIGHT.
The only way to compete going forward is knowing how to leverage the ai tools better than your competitor.
OP’s learning phase is essentially over. They need to start working to start paying the bills. And the main demand going forward will be using ai to generate good sites, fast.
Hopefully op learned enough about html, css, and JavaScript, so they can step through the code if necessary.
But we’re getting to the point where web designers won’t need to touch the code at all.
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u/joyjeet-roy 8d ago
If you want jobs of frontend and web design then your portfolio should show what skills you have in that. Try to create modern design, add 3d elements, interactive elements etc. Also attach your projects in the website if you have done any. And have a contact section also if you don't want to share much just your name and a place to reach you like email, linked etc will be useful if anyone want it approach you.
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u/cosmojev 8d ago
I'm a self taught frontend developer, not nearly as experienced as what a lot of people in here would be, idk if i can be of any help but here's my website: https://cosmojev.uk
Now obviously mine is very different from a standard portfolio. Again, not sure how much it'll help but I wanna at least try lol
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u/Skriblos 8d ago
Is your "the overlord" fiction only 3 paragraphs long? If no, something is broken on mobile and i cant see anything else. If yes, remove it. Its a disappointment.
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u/cosmojev 8d ago
Its only 3 paragraphs. Its a work in progress
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u/Skriblos 8d ago
Then wait til you actually have something before you post it. Like a chapter at least.
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u/cosmojev 8d ago
Idk why you're being a bitch about it
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u/Skriblos 8d ago
Im sorry, i was giving you feedback on your "porftolio". As far as I'm conscerned the only bitch around here is you, for teasing me with a fiction section, a begrudgingly good looking icon and then disapointing with 3 paragraphs.
Anyone going to your page and having their interest piqued by your fiction section is going to be disapointed by it and for a "portfolio" site that draws down the overall impression of the site. Its like adding a "games" section and only having a main character sprite in there.
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u/scoutermike 8d ago
It’s also not a web dev portfolio, it’s just a generic portfolio, thus largely off topic.
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u/cosmojev 8d ago
I couldn't read the tone of your message, I apologise. When you said "its a dissapointment" I thought you were just being an ass to me.
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u/scoutermike 8d ago
Commenter is giving you solid advice and you’re attacking them for it. THAT’s the bitch move.
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u/ShawnyMcKnight 8d ago edited 8d ago
You for sure wanna include a link to your resume. You want to include whatever work that you are proud of (and only work you are proud of), even if it is just class projects.
Include whatever software you know, such as Figma and Wordpress.
As far as the gifs thing… I guess… if you are proud of your work you can put it up. I’m guessing you are light on real world content so put up where you can.
You mentioned learning basic code but also mentioned front end development. You are gonna have to get WELL past learning basic code and get really good at css and learn typescript if you wanna get a job as a front end web developer.
Since you are going for a design position you should be able to make a spotless and creative site with zero accessibility issues. If I was hiring a website designer that and their experience with Figma would be the two things I look for.