+ Our Portfolio Advice...

• Include your name!!! As you will generally be sending your CV (which should already have your contact details) along with a portfolio, contact details are optional on a portfolio, but make sure to include your name.

• Keep your portfolio clean and easy to view. Make it individual to your personality and design style, but don't compromise ease of viewing or take away from the projects included in your portfolio with hard-to-decipher typography, crazy colours, cluttered imagery, or by overdesigning.

• Your portfolio should be at most 20 pages. The showcase portfolio you send to recruiters and potential employers should be a highlight reel of your top 3-5 projects that connect to the role you are applying for - if you are applying for a retail position, don't send a portfolio that is only hospitality work. 

• You should always take your more extended presentation portfolio to interviews with you. This should be longer than your showcase portfolio and will include your favourite projects you've been involved in. Taking a digital version is fine, but make sure it is pre-downloaded or take a hard copy as a backup. We love technology...when it works!

• Each project you choose for your showcase and presentation portfolios should show the project from start to finish and every step in between. Show hiring managers and Creative Directors that you understood the brief you were given, how you responded to it, how you were involved, and the input you provided along the way. 

• Ensure that your portfolio and the individual projects have a logical, easy-to-follow flow. This will help hiring managers and Creative Directors navigate your portfolio easily and help you have an easy flow when presenting or discussing your projects.

• If you have strong hand sketching skills, include this/samples in your portfolio! While only sometimes listed on a brief, clients always love to see this showcased well, and it is generally seen as a major positive!

• While a website portfolio is a great way to show off more of your work, employers prefer a pdf file of your portfolio too. Having the two options is a great way to highlight your 3-5 favourite/best projects in a PDF portfolio and then being able to direct hiring managers to your website for more.

• A big one we see all the time - Don't share projects that you don't personally like! We often have designers include projects they don't love in their portfolios, and then when we discuss the projects with them, they end up talking them down. The projects in your portfolio should be ones you are excited to talk about - that excitement and spark with come through in your interviews too!