Crafting An Online Portfolio For Remote Work
Summary
TLDRIn this portfolio review video, Stephanie Owens and Greg Gunn from The Future provide in-depth feedback to Miguel, an aspiring graphic designer looking to land his dream job in the digital economy. They discuss the importance of clarity and specificity in showcasing work, the need for a professional website, and how to effectively present design work to appeal to potential employers or clients. Through a detailed examination of Miguel's portfolio, they offer actionable advice on improving presentation, focusing on relevant projects, and tailoring content to meet career objectives. The review is aimed at helping Miguel and viewers like him understand how to make their portfolios stand out to achieve their professional goals.
Takeaways
- 😃 Miguel wants a remote graphic design job to have more flexibility in his life
- 👨💼 His website should appeal to creative directors looking to hire a graphic or brand designer
- 🎨 His portfolio lacks clarity on what specific skills he offers; it should be pruned down and focused
- 🖼️ The project thumbnails need improving to showcase his best and most relevant work upfront
- 📝 Avoid generic terms like 'brand strategy' if the work is actually identity design
- 💻 Getting his own domain and template would allow customization and better presentation
- 🖥️ Reference other portfolios to see best practices for presenting projects clearly and beautifully
- 🤳 Use mockups to showcase branded collateral like business cards in context
- ✂️ Drastically cut down project text to focus on the key details
- ⏱️ Improving presentation will take time and effort but is essential to showing off great work
Q & A
What is the purpose of the portfolio review?
-The purpose is to help Miguel achieve his goal of finding a remote design job by providing feedback and suggestions to improve his portfolio website.
What type of design job is Miguel looking for?
-Miguel is looking for a remote graphic or brand design position, either at a company in-house creative team or at a design agency or studio.
What feedback did Stephanie and Greg give about the homepage statement?
-They suggested simplifying it to clearly state who Miguel is, what he does, and the value he provides, rather than focusing too much on design philosophy.
What should the website thumbnails showcase?
-The thumbnails should showcase Miguel's best and most relevant design work in an appealing way to draw people in to click through to the full projects.
Why should Miguel remove the logo design services offering?
-He should remove it because he is looking to get hired full-time, so companies may see it as a distraction or conflict of interest if he is also freelancing.
What term should Miguel use instead of branding strategy?
-He should use the term "identity design" since the project focuses specifically on logo and visual identity design rather than full branding strategy.
What platforms does Stephanie recommend Miguel use for his portfolio site?
-She recommends using Squarespace or getting his own custom domain, rather than the current templated site, to have more control over the layout and formatting.
What is one way Miguel could better showcase his process work?
-He could include images paired with brief 1-3 sentence captions explaining what that image represents in the design process.
Where does Stephanie recommend finding designer portfolios to study?
-She recommends looking at designers he follows on Instagram and Dribbble and finding their portfolio sites, as well as searching LinkedIn to find designers at studios/agencies he aspires to work at.
What are the key things Miguel needs to work on with his portfolio?
-The main things are improving his presentation/formatting, pruning down the content to only his best and most relevant work, and spending time on considered mockups and images.
Outlines
😊 Introducing the portfolio review participants
Stephanie introduces herself as the lettering artist and educational director at The Futur who will be participating in a portfolio review for community members along with Creative Director Greg Gunn. They will be reviewing Miguel's website portfolio first and ask Miguel to share what types of clients or companies he would love to work with.
💡 Providing feedback on Miguel's portfolio website
Greg mentions the goal is to provide helpful feedback to achieve Miguel's goals. Miguel shares he is looking for a remote graphic or brand design role. Greg suggests tailoring the website to appeal to creative directors looking to hire a graphic/brand designer, showcasing relevant skills and experience.
📝 Reviewing the website introduction and recommendations
Greg and Stephanie provide feedback that Miguel's opening statement should simplify who he is, what he does, and the value he provides. They recommend removing location specificity since Miguel wants remote work. Stephanie suggests a format for highlighting skills and experience to grab attention.
🤔 Clarifying terminology use and project presentation
The group discusses use of terminology like "brand strategy" and suggests using "identity design" may be more applicable. They recommend separating projects instead of having a collection, improving thumbnails, and pruning irrelevant projects.
👁️ Examining portfolio presentation and formatting
Greg and Stephanie focus commentary on improving Miguel's presentation of projects, including larger images, concise explanatory captions, cutting down heavy text sections, and using better mockup images to showcase work.
💪 Providing final recommendations and encouragement
The group suggests Miguel focus on his best 3 projects to showcase his skills and creative voice. They emphasize studying other designers' presentations, getting his own domain, and recognizing it takes time to refine his portfolio.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Portfolio Review
💡Accelerator Program
💡Creative Direction
💡Graphic Design
💡Brand Design
💡Remote Work
💡Digital Economy
💡Identity Design
💡Presentation Improvement
💡Mock-ups
Highlights
Miguel's goal is to find a remote graphic design job at a studio, firm or in-house creative team
The homepage statement should clearly convey who you are, what you do, and the value you provide
Improve thumbnails to showcase your best and most relevant work
Prune portfolio pieces not aligned with your graphic/brand design goals
Have separate pages for each full project rather than collections of images
Get your own domain and template for better layout control vs. current platform
Lead with identity design if not actively doing brand strategy; set goals in that area
Brooklyn Mike's Pizza project is very cool but buried - should have its own spotlight
Limit mentions of current employer and focus copy on your personal skills/experience
Mockups from Creative Market help showcase logo/identity design in realistic contexts
Start portfolio with 3 strongest projects fully built out rather than everything at once
Study other designers’ portfolios to get presentation ideas; Instagram/Dribble good places to find
Use mockups and thoughtful image presentation to showcase projects in best light
Be very concise with descriptive text - 1 image + short caption often enough
Presentation improvement key focus along with pruning/organizing current work
Transcripts
hi there I'm Stephanie Owens
professional lettering artist and
educational director here at the future
and you are watching a portfolio review
that I took part of with creative
director Greg Gunn to help our future
community members land their dream
clients and if you'd like some future
eyeballs on your portfolio then head on
over to our accelerator program where
we'll look at your portfolio your
capabilities deck your website and
you'll get weekly coaching calls with me
and Mr Ben Burns and now the portfolio
review
and we are going to be looking at
Miguel's website first so while I pull
that up Miguel
tell us about like what you would love
to to do
like who would you love to work with for
me I'd love to work with at some point
maybe a video game Design Studio or Sony
Santa Monica or things related to um
period video game design I'm in Savannah
Georgia right now and there's a lot of
like cool design uh related things
because of scad uh that college down
here it's pretty cool so you've been
working for a college or something
anything to just really just explore the
creative world I'd be happy with you
know cool awesome Greg and I looked
through this so Greg why don't you why
don't you kick it off for us yeah I
think I just wanted to give some context
for for what we're doing for for each
I guess website in real we're going to
look at uh our goal is to is to help you
achieve whatever goal that you're
looking to achieve right so a lot of uh
are well I would hope that all of our
kind of uh comments and suggestions
would get you closer to that goal
um
how you can help us is be really clear
about what that goal is otherwise we're
just going to be like saying random
stuff that it will be unhelpful with
with that being said uh Miguel a website
is usually intended for a particular
audience right so like the future.com
that's that's for as for you that's for
our our community and our audience and
uh fellow creatives looking to learn
who is your website for like what what
is the purpose of of this website for me
for this website I would say
the purpose would be to find a remote
job
first and foremost that's probably like
the first thing I'm trying to explore is
to enter the digital economy and see if
I can find a job that allows me to be
more flexible with you know my work when
you say get a job is that like for a
like a design studio or a a tech firm or
an agency there's lots of different sort
of like places for a designer do you
have any idea about like where you fall
in that range like a studio a design
studio or a firm so it sounds like
you're looking for
um a graphic graphic design or I would
maybe even see like a brand design
position and that could be either
in-house like by in-house I mean like
some you know corporate or something or
an agency or a studio so you're kind of
open to all those opportunities but you
would be graphic or brand designer
working on a creative team
Okay cool so your website should appeal
to
uh
fellow creatives and designers maybe a
creative director or an art director who
needs help on their design team uh for a
range of graphic design and brand needs
so that's the sort of like lens I'm
going to look at at this through you
want to look at where should we go first
I think we start right here this is the
this is the first thing people people
see so
um Miguel is a Daytona based graphic
designer who subscribes to the belief
that design should be a purposeful
functional and relevant to its original
intention
um okay so I I think
it's good to have an opening statement
and and the goal of that should be who
you are what you do and
who you do it for or or a little bit of
why
I think what I'm getting is
your graphic designer in Daytona
and then there's some design philosophy
so I I think you can probably simplify
that a little bit
um
I'm Miguel I'm a graphic designer
uh uh with experience working on Brands
Identity Design and like you could just
be maybe a little more like specific and
and focused with that statement okay
yeah I think that the the design
philosophy stuff so like purposeful
functional role I I like that I think
that can probably go on your about page
when you're like
talking a little bit more about about
you
um but this first thing should just who
you are what you do as specific as you
can possibly be okay
I do have a question you you said that
you correct me if I'm wrong you wanted
remote work was that correct yes trying
trying to get more flexibility in my
life honestly because I mean I'm a fan
of the future and I've listened to
pretty much all the podcast episodes and
like everybody's stories are so
different and so unique you know I'm
just trying to I guess find my own story
or create my own story and
get a job perhaps working with herbs I
would like working remotely
awesome so so in in that case I don't
really know if you need to even put
Daytona based I just think you could put
graphic designer because you're not
looking for local work you are expanding
yourself out and it might be a little
confusing to people outside of the
Daytona area so when I'm looking at a
sort of like a value proposition at the
beginning of a website I'm looking for
three things who Who You Are
what you do which we have and why should
I care and I think this is going to get
to that point of this is if this is for
right like you want to get a job in a
either in-house or in an agency this is
where I want to see words like Identity
Design with so many years of experience
or just give give whoever your audience
is
a reason to pay attention to why they
might want to hire you Flex a little bit
but I agree with with Greg I think the
philosophy stuff which I love as well is
better suited for the about page when
people want to dig deeper into into you
and this should be about like what you
have to offer people on a
on a
skill level basis especially if you are
wanting to be hired and and something
you could do as well which would sort of
be extra credit is you could make a
different
page for each
company you're trying to get hired with
so if you are trying to get hired with
let's say a video game company like you
said you could talk about in this like
you have this much experience and you
love video games video games are live
like making it out so like this is this
is your dream job obviously you're not
going to do that on this page unless you
are only trying to find a job in video
games or at a local college or if you
wanted to apply to local colleges you
could have a page that is very tailored
to or maybe not local colleges but just
colleges very tail tailored to why you
would want to work for colleges but if
you're keeping it more general for this
home page
just why why should they pay attention
to you
okay
what value can you provide to their
company yeah who you are what you do
your value yeah okay it doesn't have to
be long one sentence no it doesn't have
to be long yeah and that's that's what I
really tried to um
you know narrow it down just keep it
simple but you know like you guys said I
guess add a little bit more about myself
in in that uh thesis about me
yeah there's two kind of values the
value you provide and the values you
have let's stick to the value you
provide on the home page and then the
values that you have as a designer on
the about page okay awesome yes all
right let's start
okay
so
um spoiler alert we reviewed your
website a little bit together yesterday
just to kind of have like more yeah
better understanding clear thought going
into it but I I think you know just
sharing what you did about your your
career goal
um that that also sheds some light on
things so I think one of the first
things we we both thought was not quite
sure what what you do
um so I think that the statement up top
will help
um and the reason we weren't quite sure
is because we see some at least from
right here we see like a logo
we see a photograph
we see a coffee
you see some
old photographs
uh some really well designed tins and
then another photograph so it's it's
very heavy on photography like now that
I'm looking at it so I I think
um
a pruning the work to your only your
best work and that is relevant to like
what you want to do
and then also improving the thumbnails
having like your thumbnails are it's
like uh like YouTube thumbnails it's the
thing you care about the least but that
will
like make or break whether someone
actually watches or clicks through it
um and the thumbnails need to be really
beautiful
um and relate to to the the project
um so for instance uh the
uh booklets brochures menus and more
interesting not quite sure why there's a
photo of a woman on on there like
there's that's kind of a disconnect you
know and if you're a graphic designer
I feel like that thumb each thumbnail
should be showing us the best part of
that project's design process yeah the
finished beautiful beautiful product
um so I I think yeah improving your
thumbnails making them more clear
um and then yeah and then pruning the
work because I think if you want to be a
graphic designer or brand designer
identity designer
um I think you can probably get rid of
the professional image restoration bit
because that's not relevant
um
logo design brand strategy wedding
events sleep water work oh okay now I
remember what we talked about after that
but yeah I I think fundamentally on on
this home page that's that's what I was
thinking was like the thumbnails need to
be uh improved a lot they really need to
sell what you do and show off your skill
like immediately
um and then yeah prune what doesn't uh
make sense to to be there okay
and now that we know that you want a
more corporate job whether in-house or
with an agency and this is the portfolio
that you will be sending to them I think
you could get rid of the 100 plus logos
designed seventy dollars per logo I I
don't think that's going to be a value
add to oh yeah the the company that
you're trying to get hired with because
they also don't want you to be coming in
and them having on their mind is he also
doing logos for other people and it's
just I don't think it's relevant for for
a job yeah if you had a separate website
where you were doing logos for brands
that would be one thing but let's let's
keep this one focused
um let's let's dig into
this one where it says branding strategy
so
yeah go ahead I was just gonna say we
already looked at this so if you're in
the audience watching you've got one
project here
and then you've got
like sort of like the build out of it in
different phases and then we go into
another project here
so
I would like to see these on separate
pages rather than a collection because
people don't always like to scroll and I
need to click to before like I don't
even see this cool Brooklyn Mike's Pizza
on your website when I first click on
it's like I have to dig to find it and I
don't want to dig to find things and I
think the same could go for for all of
the projects so like having so that
there it is again and having this image
be on your home page and click to the
case study of that work yeah sure okay
so kind of yeah keep things more
separate rather than in a collection
kind of yeah yeah and we have some
examples of some some stuff that we
wanted to show you as well
um just just to kind of get your your
eye your your brain flowing with some
like how could you restructure this yeah
I would also say that putting this as
brand strategy when I was reading
through it
I wouldn't necessarily call this project
brand strategy if we're not getting into
market research and if you are cool I
just don't see that in here I don't see
sort of creating the marketing plan
creating the voice tone look and feel is
part of what you did but you know
developing the mission of the company
and having them develop their purpose
and their vision and goal planning and
things like that what is what I would
consider brand strategy so it's
absolutely okay to call you rightself an
identity designer and if you want to
work in brand strategy you know work
towards that but I wouldn't quite call
it brand strategy at this point okay and
yeah a lot of my terminology is like I
would say yeah very loose like I'm not
super like I said I've worked at a super
small local print shop so it's kind of
just
as much as I know but Identity Design
that does make more sense yeah
absolutely that's what I would call this
and that's what you know you might want
to start saying you're you do Identity
Design and if if you do want to work
in-house or even at an agency this type
of booklets brochures menus and more
would be sort of like the production
side of of brand identity and I do know
that those types of companies a lot of
the work that is done in those is sort
of on the production side of things
um and then if if you want to get into
the world of strategy just set your set
your eyes on improving on that but for
now I would just I would just
Identity Design okay
nothing wrong with that yeah that sounds
good
yeah and I I think you know
um do you kind of learn this stuff you
know like look up and get familiar with
all these terms I think that'll help you
um one of the best things about a
portfolio that you can do is be specific
about your role and the thinking which
we'll talk about in a second but be
super specific so I'm I'm in alignment
with Stephanie's assessment in that like
the that pizza project that should be
its own its own thumbnail its own thing
that's like one of the coolest things
that's on your website and it's buried
at the bottom of you know two pages yeah
oh no you know like you could flush it
yeah that's that's a whole that's a
whole project Okay so
uh that's another thing and this this
one too yeah not that Greg and I were
like this is so cool why is this not on
the homepage yeah like it's so much
cooler like whilst this is a cool
picture of vintage tins this is your
work and this is what's going to get you
hired gotcha one thing about the the
text I do like that you have like the
objective the audience stylistic
requirements technical requirements I'm
like oh
that's from my workshop so good job I
actually just realized that that's from
my workshop so awesome I love that
you're you know incorporating the
creative brief into here I think that
the way that this is formatted right now
is a little difficult to read the text
is very heavy and this is probably your
template that you're working with in my
portfolio yeah so one of the suggestions
I believe we had for you was to get your
own domain and you know get us squares
it doesn't have to be webflow custom
build or WordPress like like what Greg
and I have it can Squarespace is pretty
easy to use and then that way you can
have your own domain you can be in
charge of the format a little bit more
because right now
um and Greg do you want to comment on
the purple
sure yeah I love your color guy I'm
gonna let you reduce the color
it's objective but the overarching
thought here is
um purple is great nothing wrong with
that however it could either make your
work look better
totally unaffected or a lot worse
because the whole background is is
purple so it could uh clash with with
something so usually for a website
background you want to stick with
something neutral that doesn't mean it
has to be just pure white or pure black
it shouldn't be probably
um but something that sort of just like
this neutral Fades into the background
and lets the the images really really
sing
um so that I think that's why we're like
a good Squarespace template we'll get
you like 95 there and you can swap out
the colors
um
I I think uh given given the time that
we have the the one last thing that I I
would like to comment on is uh Miguel I
think like look at this this is great
work you can see all the thinking and
everything I think your presentation
just needs Improvement
um and we we have a reference for that
but that that sort of comes in in
twofold it's a how you're presenting the
actual work itself the images because
this is all great stuff right here but I
feel like this could probably be like
two or three different images
um that you know are sort of like
grouped nicely and uh you know the
artwork has arranged really really well
um and a very brief description
um and then I think the second part to
that is like there's a ton of writing
and I appreciate that yeah but you don't
need that much you could probably cut
cut all this down to like maybe a
quarter of what you have okay um and I
realized like
making a website making a portfolio
putting all this thought into it it's
not easy it's like the problem is never
I don't have enough the problem is
always like there's way too much and I
suffer from this too it's like how do I
edit this down to like what's really
what's really good and what's really the
important stuff that I want to show so
it's it's really an edit process and and
it takes time
and that goes for all the things we're
going to talk about today uh but I I
think you have such great work
um you're doing a disservice to it by by
not presenting it in its best light and
um and yeah I think we yeah we can show
you Emily's uh portfolio as like a great
example one thing that I did want to
come up uh mention is you do lean into
your current employer quite a bit on
your in your copy I would I would limit
that as much as possible and make it
about you rather than your employer
because there were Parts where it seemed
like you were trying to get work for
vintage paper company in your copy so I
would just limit that but yeah let's
look at Emily's so this is her home page
see how each each one is is a project
nice big images so let's go to I know we
we looked at this one yesterday to
actually see how
yeah large image at the top
one paragraph where this is where you
could do the Creative brief and how you
achieved it
and then if you wanted to have because
she just shows the final deliverables
which is fine I do that on on on our
website as well but sometimes when you
do want to show that more process work
you can do that as well and perhaps
um maybe put an image next to a short
paragraph to kind of give context to
what's going on in that image but I
would keep it too three sentences yeah
yeah some something super concise yeah
it's gonna say like you could just put a
caption sometimes that's that's all you
need the likelihood people read that is
pretty low to begin with so if it's like
a quick little something that'll that'll
provide some context I think that's
great
but one thing to pay attention to on
this Miguel is like
so on this image right here right look
at the effort that's just put into how
it's presented like that's a piece of
artwork itself she took her design and
then
plus it and made it into this beautiful
presentation it's not just like there on
the screen it's like yeah angled nicely
there's some lighting it's like so I
think that yeah yeah I'd like to see
that that level of effort into how
you're showing off uh your work because
it deserves to be shown up that way it's
really great and if you're you can buy
yeah this is she you can take your own
photos I mean if you're a photographer
Ben Ben Burns will say make your own
mock-ups because you're a photographer
but you're not you're not a photographer
so creative Market has great mock-ups Mr
mock-up has great mock-ups um I also
have gotten mock-ups from Adobe stock if
you have an adobe stock account
um are there any other places that you
can recommend Greg for mock-ups no those
I think creative Market has probably
everything you need it's worth it
because you'll buy you'll spend maybe 50
bucks on mock-ups and then you'll have
mock-ups forever for all your projects
for for the next five years you know
yeah we have worthwhile investment we
have a collection of mock-ups and we use
a lot a lot of times we use the same
mock-ups over and over again it's just
we change it in some way change the
color of the background change the angle
of things we get these collections of
signage like I have a collection of
signage that I got from creative Market
we haven't even like touched the surface
of all of everything that's in there so
it is definitely worth worthwhile
because if you're doing branding work
people want to see like a logo by itself
is great but how is that logo going to
be implemented in the world
and that's what that's what people want
to see whether it's clients or companies
or ages that's right here it's great so
your your brochure design your menu
design like this is a great way to
present that you know yeah okay
absolutely yeah I see uh like the
business card the menu and the kind of
invitation looking things
yeah
that makes sense yeah it looks good all
right awesome do you have any questions
for us before we dig into cherries
no I think uh that you guys provided me
was actually really helpful and like
just the presentation
alone is such a big thing on its own and
all those ideas that you guys gave me
are great I just have to realize like it
does take time that's going to take some
time for sure
the mock-ups help too yeah yeah anything
you can do to save time for sure and
especially since you're not you know
you're looking for a job the time is of
the essence you don't need to present
nearly as much as what you're presenting
right now in your portfolio I think if
you take Brooklyn mics you take the
Sports One
I'm just picking the ones that I that
stand out to me in my brain Tempest
Brooklyn mics and
this one and you just start with those
three and build out three beautiful
projects of those three
you can just work on the rest as as you
go but I think those three will will
definitely and they they all have a
certain Vibe as well to your work it has
some of your own creative voice coming
through
awesome thank you totally do do your
homework do some research look at how
other people that you aspire to sort of
work with
um are presenting their work
um and study it and make yours better
presentation's a big it's a big yeah
oh yeah when when we when we relaunched
our business and burned everything down
we were sort of like we like aspects of
their portfolio we like aspects of their
portfolio and then that way you can come
up with your own secret sauce for
presenting your work in a way that's
effective I guess that's kind of one
question like where do you even go to
just find portfolios to even like study
or you know kind of look at you just
so I don't even know
um I mean if you're on Instagram start
with designers that you follow on
Instagram go to their websites some are
great edits some are not great at it
yeah
um
also uh if you go on dribble
you can look at designs from and try to
find like people not like businesses and
go to their websites that's usually want
to end up on someone's website
the hands as well you can find people on
on the hands yeah or if you go to a um
like if there's a studio or an agency or
something that you want to work at and
you can find out who works there through
Linkedin you can go to those designers
websites and start studying what they're
doing right there yeah because that's
another fun thing for me to do like
since I started like
trying to apply for jobs is like reverse
engineering people other people's work
to see like how they you kind of created
their own pieces which is really cool so
it's a great way to get ideas for sure
yeah
cool well I hope this was helpful Miguel
I think you have great work and you've
got a lot to do but I I can I can see it
you know yeah the ideas are there I just
gotta really work on the presentation
and I mean it makes sense it's just
going to take the time and effort to do
it yeah awesome thanks for sharing this
uh appreciate it thank you guys I really
appreciate it no problem
foreign
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