Quick Steps to Creating Your Online Portfolio
Your personal portfolio is a way for designers to showcase their work. If your a freelance designer, your portfolio will be an avenue to show your work to potential clients and to promote yourself within the design community. If your a student, your portfolio is what you should have to show your work to design firms looking to hire you. Portfolios are used by all different types of designers, rather your a graphic designer, web developer, interactive media designer, every type of designer in media should have a way to showcase their personal work.
Building your online presence is key to promoting yourself online within the community and to prospective clients. I have put together quick steps that will guide you through the process of creating your portfolio, with examples that will get you up and running in no time.
The Key Elements in Your Personal Portfolio
Your Logo
Your logo is the first thing a user will see on your website. The logo should represent you and your brand. Branding is one of the most important parts in building any type of presence online and its whats going to make your name recognizable. The logo should either be your name or the name of your business. If your promoting yourself as a freelance designer, then its obvious you will use your name. If your a freelance designer who is trying to market his company to potential clients, then its best you design a logo for your business.
The logo is often placed on the top left corner of your website. But a lot of creative designers also place their logo within the header of there design.
Portfolio
Your portfolio is very important. Obviously this is why your here, to showcase your work right? This requires a lot of attention because you want to display your work in a very cool, clean, and possibly creative fashion. Its so many different ways to display your work. But the main idea is to have your work separated into sections. So maybe you’ll have a web design area, which will show your websites, and maybe a graphic design or print area which will display that work. But its best to keep those sections separated.
The other important part of your portfolio is how you display it. You should first have thumbnails to your work, a lot of modern online portfolios use very big thumbnails which has the name of the client or project. When you click on a web design thumbnail, the project description should show, with the project name, technology used, and the URL.
Those are just some ways of showing your portfolio, here are some examples on how its done:
Services
Anyone who comes to your website trying to find out if your the guy for the job would want to see your services. Your services should be sort of a mini resume. It should show what exactly do you provide to clients. This could include: web design, logo, flyer, business cards, e-commerce, photography, twitter design, the list goes on. I think a cool way to show your services is the accompany it with thumbnails. But a lot of designers simply show a list of their services, and even sometimes show the cost.
About Me
This section allows the visitors of your site to get to know you a little better. Your about me section should include a brief bio, with a photo of some sort and maybe even a description on your history as a designer and who you have worked with in the past. General information could be a good idea, but most clients want to know how you relate to their business. Another cool addition that could benefit your about me section is your resume. Possibly providing a .PDF version of your resume could allow people to see your experience first hand.
Contact
The contact section should be straight forward. It could include a few different things though. You want to provide your name, number and email address for clients to contact you.
Also providing a small form for people to fill out in-case they have questions or want a quote request is a very good idea. A lot of clients would love to just fill out their needs and have your contact them back, but I have learned from first hand experience that showing your services and prices on the site tends to give a very good turn around in purchases.
Blog
Adding a blog to your portfolio is a new feature in online portfolios. Almost every designer has a blog nowadays, so its cool to either link to your blog or have your rss feed right in the news section. This will keep users up to date on whats going on with you at the same time show users that your active in the design community. Having a blog also tends to show potential clients that you know what your talking about.
Call To Action
Having a call to action is the deal maker. Showing a purchase now, order now, or event contact for quote area on your site will get potential clients to contact you immediately. Showing web packages with the option to purchase that package is a process ive always used in my websites and it has worked to my benefit.
Social Media
This is obviously another key part to your portfolio. Showing clients your active on social networks is just another element to get clients to contact you. Its another avenue for them to know you personally and contact you for services. Displaying your twitter, myspace and facebook accounts on your website with the option to add you not only builds your friends list, but it keeps a close connection with clients.
Conclusion
Those are just some quick steps to get your going in creative your own online portfolio. In every portfolio should have those options and links. On vectornpixel.com we will continue to publish articles relating to online portfolios that will further assist you and getting your online presence seen. Next we will provide a showcase of portfolios that will inspire you to be creative when designing your next home on the web !
Related posts:
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
I found this post while surfing the net music lyrics. Thanks for sharing will be sure to follow this blog regularly.
Why waste money, time or both to create an e commerce website for your small business that may or may not end up the way you want it to. Cut out the work you have to do yourself and let the experts handle it. I highly recommend Core Commerce, it’s an all-in-one store builder, it includes hosting, web design with a number of templates to choose from, shopping cart software and all the tools you need to promote your e commerce site. It’s the absolute best web solution on the market and you can try it for free.
The new Zune browser is surprisingly good, but not as good as the iPod’s. It works well, but isn’t as fast as Safari, and has a clunkier interface. If you occasionally plan on using the web browser that’s not an issue, but if you’re planning to browse the web alot from your PMP then the iPod’s larger screen and better browser may be important.
Thanks for taking this opportunityto talk about this, I feel strongly about it and I benefit from learning about this issue. If possible, as you gain data, please update this blog with new information. I have found it exceedinglyuseful.
Amazing, that is very good info, thanks.
Purchase Valium no prescription online. valium no prescription, VjIf5SxoQa4
Order Valium no prescription online. buy valium without prescription, MfY5SzuEc3
Nice web. Maybe you should try to monetize it with
http://tiny.cc/05mrc
They do have 40 days cookie duration and they pay 10-15% commisions. They’ll match ads based on search query of your visitors and display relevant ads on you blog.
[...] Quick Steps to Creating Your Online Portfolio [...]
Your RSS feed is not work in my browser (google chrome) how can I sort it?
Do you have a unique fashion style or do you try to blend in? I have a weird fashion style. A mix between southern/metal/and cowboy. Wrangler jeans, cowboy boots, shirt, overshirt, and metal (music) jewelry; jewelry is usually Pagan. What about you?
I really enjoyed this post, especially the “examples in this post” portion which made it really easy for me to SEE what you were talking about without even having to leave the article. Thanks
yaay, finally a new update. There was quite a big gap between updates.
Hello webmaster can I use some of the information from this post if I linkback to your site?
These dumbbells are so wonderful! They have helped me get alot bigger. I adore them!
Hrmm that was weird, my comment got eaten. Anyway I wanted to say that it’s nice to know that someone else also mentioned this as I had trouble finding the same info elsewhere. This was the first place that told me the answer. Thanks.
Im grateful for the post.Really looking forward to read more. Much obliged.
Have after long searching found the information to the topics of my forum! Can I use some of your information there if I link to your blog?
Thank you for another excellent article. Where else could anyone get that kind of information in like a perfect way of presentation.
I think this is a great post. One thing that I find the most helpful is number five. Sometimes when I write, I just let the flow of the words and information come out so much that I loose the purpose. It’s only after editing when I realize what I’ve done. There’s defiantly a lot of great tips here I’m going to try to be more aware of.
Thanks for the response. I think writting from the top of your head and let it flow naturally is the best way to write useful information. editing after is obviously important also
Ya know, this is going to be pretty interesting. Seeing how this blog grows from 50 uniques a day to x,xxx+ (hopefully
).
I was very pleased to find this site.I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.
great post, i hope you keep it up!
Have you ever considered adding more videos to your blog posts to keep the readers more entertained? I mean I just read through the entire article of yours and it was quite good but since I’m more of a visual learner,I found that to be more helpful well let me know how it turns out! I love what you guys are always up too. Such clever work and reporting! Keep up the great works guys I’ve added you guys to my blogroll. This is a great article thanks for sharing this informative information.. I will visit your blog regularly for some latest post.
Wow..very good…Nice blog and well updated…
I want to take this moment to say that I really love this blog. It has been a good resource of information for me in my research. Thank you so much.
This is really some awesome advice. Keep it up, my colleagues would love this.
Hi there, awesome site. I thought the topics you posted on were very interesting
Very intereresting reading. thx
Wow..very good…Nice blog and well updated…
Your work has always been a great source of inspiration for me. I refer you blog to many of my friends as well.
Great articles & Nice a site….
I’ve been checking your blog for a while now, seems like everyday I learn something new
Thanks
I do not see much effect on my sales at the moment. The fact is that, i was not depending on adsense. I positioned my blog to sell something which i manufacture. So, they money coming in from sales.
I have surfed the net more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s worth enough for me. Thanks.
I think it was been greatly balanced. Fair I mean.
I admire the valuable information you offer in your articles. I will bookmark your blog and have my children check up here often. I am quite sure they will learn lots of new stuff here than anybody else!
As a newbie to the internet, this info has proved to be particularly helpful. Thanks!
Aw, this was a really quality post. In theory I’d like to write like this also – taking time and real effort to make a good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate alot and never seem to get anything done… Regards…
interesting blog. It would be great if you can provide more details about it. Thanks you
You are a very creative blogger, and I absolutely enjoy reading your posts.
I wish more people would write blogs like this that are actually fun to read. With all the fluff floating around on the net, it is rare to read a blog like yours instead.
I admire what you have done here. I like the part where you say you are doing this to give back but I would assume by all the comments that this is working for you as well.
A colleague recommended that I check out your site. I’m glad that I’m here.
Blogroll links aint that wonderful
but i’m not the admin¡ 
¡ Just Telling 
I really liked your article post. Great.
Say thank you for tell very wonderful informations. Your world-wide-web is great.I am impressed by the information and facts that you’ve on this weblog. It exhibits how nicely you realize this topic. Bookmarked this specific page, will arrive back again for more. You, my friend, amazing! I discovered just the info I by now explored everywhere and just could not discover. What a perfect site. Similar to this web page your site is 1 of my new most desirable.I similar to this knowledge proven and it has given me some kind of idea to have accomplishment for some cause, so keep up the good operate!
“Sometimes i would prefer to think that people today would just get a existence and understand how silly they appear. I imply, why are you spamming, is it a means of hacking or some thing. Just cease, please, i prefer to study others opinions as well ya know. in any case, beneficial submit. just get rid of your spam please. thanks.”
“I think about this may possibly be diverse upon the content material.!!!. nonetheless I nonetheless believe that it would be suitable for practically any kind of written content, due to the fact it would usually be satisfying to view a warm and friendly face or perhaps hear a voice when initial landing.”