A page of your best work, each piece with its problem and outcome, to send with an application.
Whoever opens your portfolio is usually working through a stack of them, a minute or two each. Corinne Abara, a made-up information designer, fits five projects into that minute, each cut down to a problem, what she did and a result with a number in it. Borrow the structure and bring your own work. Where you'd put a screenshot or a photo of the piece, hers has a small drawing.
Who it's for
Designers, developers and writers applying for a job, or answering a prospective client who asked to see some work. Send the link in the application or in your first reply.
If your work is the pictures themselves, as it is for a photographer or an illustrator, use a page like this as the cover note and keep the full gallery somewhere made for images. And if a project is under a confidentiality agreement, describe the problem and the result without the client's name.
What a good one contains
- One sentence on what you do. The sample's headline names four things she redesigns. A reader knows in five seconds whether to keep going.
- Four to six pieces. Five shows range. Twenty says you couldn't choose.
- The problem, in the client's terms. "About 2,140 customers a month called only to ask what they owed" explains why the water bill needed work before anyone sees it.
- What you did, with verbs and figures. Moved the amount due to the top in 28-point type. Cut 212 signs to 74. "Led the redesign" says nothing a stranger can picture.
- A result someone counted. Bill calls down 23%. 21 of 25 riders finding the last bus, up from 11. With no figure to give, say what changed for one person.
- Something to look at for each piece. A bill, a timetable, three clinic signs, each drawn small. A reader can skim the pictures and stop at the text.
- A short About, and when you're free. Two paragraphs, where she's based, and "January 2027".
- One way to reach you. An email address in large type at the bottom. A page can't receive messages, so skip the contact form.
Choosing the pieces
Pick for the job you want next. If you're applying to a transit agency, the timetable goes first. Leave out anything you'd have to apologize for in an interview.
Check every number against your own records before it goes on the page, because a careful hiring manager may call the water district. Ask before you name a client, too. Some will agree to the name and refuse the figures.
How to send it
As an open link. A hiring manager forwards it to the rest of the panel. A password is one more reason for someone not to look.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
