How to Build a Portfolio when you are new to design

A portfolio is as much about showcasing your design approach, process, and results as it is about the design itself. Develop your visual identity as a designer and use those assets as a way to add personality to your portfolio.

You could create yourself a logo, font, color scheme, illustrations, animations, tagline, and more. Think of it as developing a solid brand that can help introduce you to the design world.

As an extra bonus: adding these fun projects to your portfolio also highlights who you are (the human behind the designs). So, don’t be afraid to incorporate your interests and hobbies into your branding.

Instead of waiting years for your perfect, dream project, why not create it now? Think about a brand, industry, website, or product you’ve always wanted to work on and create your own brief for that project. Treat this dream project like any professional design project and practice going through the steps of the design thinking process.

As you work on portfolio pieces, make sure to jot down your thought process and decision-making approach. This doesn’t have to include anything revolutionary, but it should provide the reasoning behind your designs. For example, perhaps you reference customer research you found online that informed your design. Or, if you design your own portfolio website, you could conduct informal user research and testing.

The main goal of this portfolio is to show how you work and who you are as a designer, not always to show off the most impressive results.

Example of a student portfolio, link

Product design portfolio

Video of Example Engineering Design and Development Portfolio

Create an e Portfolio video explanation