Being a web designer requires you to have well-rounded skills in visual design, interactive elements, design approach, and other critical elements of the design workflow. These may be a lot to showcase to put together cohesively in a platform. That’s why you’ll need a strong web designer portfolio.
In this article, you’ll learn how to make a web designer portfolio, get tips from top web designer portfolio examples, and know how you can start your web design projects. So, keep reading to enter into this creative industry, advance your professional trajectory, and impress your future clients.
What Is a Web Designer?
A web designer is a tech, customer experience, and creative professional who builds visually and functionally efficient web pages. The specifics of your job duties in this profession can vary depending on your industry, role, and workplace. Some of your primary tasks include user experience (UX) design, graphic design, front end development, and web page layout design.
To be a successful web designer in today’s job market, you need to master important web designer skills that cover visual, user experience, and even programming techniques. Depending on your career goals, you can work in the digital marketing, information technology, finance, healthcare, or education industries.
Do You Need a Web Designer Portfolio?
Yes, you need a web designer portfolio to stand out and increase your chances of getting hired or winning projects. A professional portfolio will also help you enter this growing field. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the projected job growth outlook for web designers is 13 percent between 2020 to 2030.
Elements of a Strong Web Designer Portfolio
- Basic information. Make sure that clients can easily get in touch with you by including your contact information. Some of the basic information in this section covers your name, email address, contact number, LinkedIn, and other professional website links.
- Career summary. Be sure to your relevant accolades, past experiences, design skills, and educational qualifications. Keep this section concise.
- Projects or work samples. Include your best work on the skills you’re specializing in, be it web design, animation, graphic design, or front end development. Remember to link these projects to their websites or have a screenshot of your sample works.
- Services and fees. Be clear about the services you can provide. You can also include pricing if you already have web design packages.
- Recommendations. Lastly, add recommendations to back up your listed skills and abilities. This element will solidify your expertise by instilling further confidence amongst your clients regarding your competencies.
How to Make a Web Designer Portfolio
Now that you know the essential elements of a web designer portfolio, we’ve created a step-by-step guide to making a web designer portfolio. You can personalize your portfolio to match your background, skills, and career ambitions. Check out our steps to creating a killer web design portfolio below.
1. Acquire the Required Web Design Education
A lot of educational paths cater to both long-term and short-term learners to ensure that they acquire the fundamental web design skills for building personal portfolios. You can attend web design bootcamps, get a bachelor’s degree, or even enroll in online web design classes.
2. Get Design Certified
Adding a professional certification to your portfolio adds to your credibility and increases the chance of you getting hired. There are tons of web developer and designer certificates that are great career advancers. You can get the Adobe Certified Expert certificate to highlight Adobe creative and design skills.
3. Create Your Portfolio
Choose a template that lets you highlight important information, and of course, your web design skills. As a web designer, be sure to make a visually appealing and user-friendly portfolio layout. Your design process should include choosing colorful designs, including customer testimonials, and tailoring your projects to the type of client you’d like to work with.
4. Find Out More About Specialized Projects
While showing a generic portfolio can be efficient, it’s also a good practice to prepare a targeted portfolio for the project you want to bid for. This requires ample research skills and industry understanding. Look into the company’s background, values, and ideal web design requirements. Then, choose the skills and projects you want to highlight accordingly.
5. Add a Wide Range of Web Design Projects
This is your opportunity to display your diverse creative, design, and technical skills. So, include a wide range of web design projects covering front end design, web development, graphic design, and visual design. Your portfolio design should be as unique as you are, and potential customers will appreciate a diverse, informative design scheme.
Web Designer Portfolio Examples
A strong web designer portfolio adheres to the web industry’s technical standards and showcases the designer’s high creativity skills. With this in mind, we’ve curated the five best design portfolio examples you can use as a benchmark. Start building your own by choosing the template that allows you to express your creative freedom as a web designer.
Virginia Orosa
Virginia Orosa’s web design portfolio is both visually appealing and interactive. This good mix of design and function is suited for aspiring user experience or user interface (UX/UI) designers. Along with design projects, the portfolio also has client testimonials, adding to Virginia’s professional credibility.
Best Parts of Virginia Orosa’s Web Designer Portfolio
- The visual layout and interactive elements of this portfolio offer a great viewing experience.
- This portfolio spotlights diverse web design projects from various companies.
- The recommendation section lets you consolidate feedback about your web design capabilities.
Ivette Felix Uy
The Ivette Felix Uy web design portfolio is a great example of a minimalist approach. It vastly appeals to clients looking for designers specializing in minimalistic designs. These qualities make it a good template reference for both product designers and UX/UI designers.
Best Parts of Ivette Felix Uy’s Web Designer Portfolio
- The introduction section’s casual tone and creative font are a great way to grab a visitor’s attention.
- The overall visual layout and color schemes are minimalistic and tastefully executed.
- Ivette’s portfolio allows her to display extensive web design skills through color and typography, graphic design, and UX design.
Colin Moy
If you want to make a web designer portfolio that’s unique, fun, and interactive, look no further than Colin Moy’s website. It displays the best of Colin’s graphic animation skills that are essential to web design. This portfolio covers a range of creative projects on art direction, illustration, web design, product design, and brand marketing.
Best Parts of Colin Moy’s Web Designer Portfolio
- This portfolio has animated and playful visual graphics, which offer a unique interactive experience.
- The about section doesn’t only talk about Colin’s career, it also speaks of his design philosophy and professional vision, which helps create a personal connection.
- With its fun mix of imagery and animation, the project samples section catches attention and makes visitors want to click for more information.
Eve Kayser
Eve Kayser’s web design and development portfolio is a great inspiration for design newbies in search of industry-focused projects. It includes Eve’s past design work for various international clients. It also briefly discusses Eve’s webflow development and design pillars, like responsive layouts, SEO optimization, and high performance.
Best Parts of Eve Kayser’s Web Designer Portfolio
- The project samples clearly cover companies in a range of industries from technology, retail, and real estate to healthcare and hospitality.
- The contact button’s color pops against its background, which makes it hard to miss.
- Eve’s portfolio has a UX/UI design that demonstrates his mastery in skillfully combining visual elements like color schemes, fonts, and layouts.
Adrian Z
If you aim to focus your web design career on human interface design, take a look at Adrian Z’s web design portfolio. This is also a great portfolio example for those who aspire to become a designer for Apple and other tech companies.
Best Parts of Adrian Z’s Web Designer Portfolio
- This portfolio has write, play, and speak project categories, with short and informative descriptions for better visitor experience.
- It has an interactive element for indicating upcoming design projects.
- Its write and speak sections are also a space for letting visitors know that he’s updated on design and technology trends.
Best Web Designer Portfolio Project Ideas
As an aspiring full-time or freelance web designer, a portfolio can increase your job security and help you land lucrative design jobs and projects. Below are some web designer portfolio project ideas you can do to develop your skills and gear up yourself for your dream job.
- WordPress website design and development. WordPress is a popular content management and web development tool that also provides web design solutions. Adding a WordPress website design and development project to your portfolio highlights your user experience, visual layout, and SEO understanding.
- Interactive design with Google Web Designer. In this project, you’ll build interactive designs and motion graphics using HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. Here, you can showcase automation components, drag-and-drop elements, and a multi-device viewing experience. Just download the software, and you’re on your way.
- Landing page in Figma. If you want to merge web design with marketing, then this is a great project for you. Landing pages of a website are essential for user traffic and conversion. With Figma, after you create an account, you can create an appealing visual design for websites while directing attention to call-to-action buttons.
- Typography with Lettering.js. If you’re new to web design and visual design, then this typography project idea is for you. You will use Lettering.js’s plugin to improve your typography skills for a web page. With this project, you can create a cohesively designed website using typography techniques on font, size, and placement.
- Build a responsive website with Gridless. In this project you will use Gridless’ mobile first responsive web design features. Building a responsive web design is apt for both mobile devices and desktop screens and experiences.
Web Designer Portfolio FAQ
Yes, a web designer portfolio is essential to showcasing your professional qualifications and impressing potential clients. An online portfolio provides clients with deeper insight into your design skills, which a resume and cover letter alone cannot do.
You can add a wide range of design projects to your web designer portfolio that covers UX design, front end design, and graphic design components. Make sure to include tons of design styles and techniques to provide a great interactive and viewing experience for your prospective client.
Jobs in graphic design, full stack development, web development, front end development, software development, and animation fields can benefit from a web designer portfolio. However, be sure to tweak your professional portfolio and tailor it to your respective profession.
You’ll need visual design, UX/UI design, graphic design, motion graphics and animation, front end development, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills to make a strong web designer portfolio. You’ll also need a solid understanding of your industry and digital branding to create an optimal web design for your client.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
