How to Make a UI Designer Portfolio?

In the current job scenario where there are plenty of designers applying for a single role, a strong portfolio is what acts as a differentiator and makes you stand apart from the crowd. According to a survey conducted by The Creative Group, about 78% of hiring managers have said that a strong portfolio is crucial when they evaluate candidates for a UI designer role.

In this article, we will discuss how to create a UI designer portfolio of your own and some tips for a UI designer portfolio.

UI Designer Portfolio

How to Make a UI Designer Portfolio?

Follow the step-by-step guide given below to create a UI Designer Portfolio of your own:

Step 1. Research about your career goals

It is very important to know what your career aspirations are and what your strengths are. Start with researching the market trends and see where is the intersection between the skills you have and the skills companies are demanding. For this, you can look out for job descriptions of the companies that are hiring.

Step 2. Review your past projects

Review and make sure that your past projects are matching to your career goals and to the requirements of the companies you are applying for. Projects plays a crucial role in the hiring process so ensure that your projects are of professional level. A additional tip is to reach out to professionals on their socials and ask them to review your projects. You can then implement their feedback into your projects.

Step 3. Create a good user interface

If you are showcasing yourself as a UI designer, your portfolio’s UI should reflect it as well. For that make sure that you are following all the web design principles, along with your UI. Your user experience is also evaluated so work on that as well. We have discussed some points on how to do that in the next section.

Step 4. Write 3-5 detailed case studies

Out of the projects you have reviewed in step 2 select 3-5 of the best projects which are diverse from one another, write a detailed case study for every project which includes the wireframes, beautiful screenshots, mockups and prototypes that demonstrates your design journey.

Step 5. Feedback and iterate

Like in UI design, feedback is crucial for creating professional designs, similarly feedback is critical for creating a professional appearing portfolio. Review your portfolio and iterate until you get a professional appearing portfolio that follow all the major web design principles.

Guidelines for a UI designer Portfolio

Following are some important guidelines that you must follow while designing your UI designer Portfolio:

Avoid Serifs and Decorative fonts:

In your portfolio, Avoid Serifs, Decorative fonts or anything other funky fonts. This is because your portfolio is about your work and everything around your work should be easy to process and functional. A very small set of fonts are useful for portfolios and these fonts are:

• Satoshi
• Plus Jakarta Sans
• Inter
• Poppins

Design a simple background:

The background of your Portfolio should be as simple as possible, the best choices are either white or black. If you are using dark mode version you can try subtle shades of color or if you want to use some particular color, try a very light shade of it. This ensures that the background of your portfolio looks really professional.

Header:

The best kind of portfolios are simple and minimalist, they contain a tiny bit of content and a lot of empty white space. At the top left corner you can put your name and your logo (if you have designed one) in a nice readable thick font. Many designers try to create a logo for themselves, a little image to place next to their name to possibly make them stand out. Our recommendation would be to only add that logo if you are also good at designing Logos otherwise its has a lot of negative impact of the overall profile.

Start Page:

In the start page, many of the designers make the mistake of having an empty space with just the text in the middle saying that you are an aspiring UI designer. This is not a very good idea since portfolio is for showcasing your work and you should immediately start with showing your designs.

People really need to see your portfolio as soon as possible so you can either start with the thumbnails of your projects right under the menu or you can add a little bit of context of who you are and then showcase the thumbnails but do not make the text section full screen.

Resume and contact details:

Recruiters have a lot of things to process and a lot of portfolios to review. A lot of recruiters do not want to waste time thinking about how to contact you. For that you need to have your contact email clear, big and visible right in the footer of your page. Do not use contact forms, contact forms are time consuming and they don’t give you any indication of whether this thing was actually sent or delivered to anybody. Next to your email address also give a link to a PDF with your resume.

Socials, Blogs and Videos:

After your email address and Resume, you can add your Social Media links. These link can include Dribble, Behance, LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium and YouTube. If you are creating content like writing articles or making videos, you can create a separate section for those articles or videos.

Conclusion

Your portfolio is a story about who you are in your professional career, it is the document that shows your potential, your creativity and your previous professional experiences. First impression is the last impression and in many cases your portfolio is the first impression for any hiring manager or a recruiter, make sure to put your best foot forward with a well designed portfolio that follows all the major web design principles. Make sure to follow the points mentioned in the article in order create a professional and well designed portfolio for yourself.