Craft A Story, Not A Portfolio
Tips for beginner UX, UI, and product designers
Once upon a time, there was a different idea of what a designer was. They worked for ad agencies and print shops. They were hired for their craft and aesthetic. They thought like artists but they were treated as production workers. They had a very set role, and they did what they were told. Everything went pretty smoothly until their canvas turned digital. Then things got a little blurry, and we wound up with all sorts of titles and expectations. One of those expectations is an online design portfolio.
Vestiges Of The Past
The UX, UI, and product designer of today has moved miles away from the graphic artist, but the industry still expects many things that come from the designer’s history as an artist. Back in the day, portfolios were extremely valuable for artists.
An artist’s portfolio is an edited collection of their best artwork intended to showcase an artist’s style or method of work. A portfolio is used by artists to show employers their versatility by showing different samples of current work. Typically, the work reflects an artist’s best work or a depth in one specific area of work. -Wikipedia
Designers Are Doing More
Designers have been making online portfolios for a while now, but these design portfolios aren’t keeping up with the design field at large. Designers have moved from the copy room to the boardroom in a few decades.
World-changing companies like Apple have had huge success by putting design at the core of what they do. Designers have reaped many side benefits of that success, and the industry is flourishing. However, along with the privilege to be more involved in the company process, comes the responsibility to do more than create visuals. Because of this shift, if you want to get hired as a designer today, you will be expected to do more than show pretty pictures.
The pressure of the industry on UI and even UX designers to create a portfolio is very high, especially for beginners. Even though UX designers aren’t in charge of creating polished visuals, they will probably feel the need to do so in their portfolio. This is unfortunate and something that will hopefully change soon. Until then, you can use storytelling in your portfolio to show that you are more than just an aesthetic.
Storytelling Is Innate
Storytelling is an excellent way to connect with people because we are wired to understand stories. Long before we drew anything on a cave wall, we were telling each other stories. We are a species with a deep oral tradition that flows through our veins. Humans have evolved to look for stories in everything, regardless of their truth. People will look for a story in your portfolio regardless of whether you’ve put one there or not. If you don’t shape that story, you might find yourself gathering dust on a shelf.
Project Page Pitch
In your portfolio, the visuals should support the story, not the other way around. Every piece should be a case study with results and insights, not images without context. A good rule of thumb here is to make each project 25% or more text if you’re a UI designer and 40% or more text for UX designers. While certainly not an exhaustive list, here are some elements you can include in the story of each project:
- Key Takeaways: what is the one thing you want them to remember for the project?
- Your Role: were you tasked with UI? UX? Project management?
- Learnings: what would you do differently next time?
- Background: why did you start this project in the first place?
- Problem: what issue were you trying to solve with the project?
- Approach: what methods did you try to solve the problem?
- Conclusions: what came about as a result of the project?
One of my favorite formats for telling a story with a portfolio piece is using a 1920 x 1080 canvas as the basis for my presentation. With each slide, I tell a piece of the story and find an accompanying visual to match. You can use a visual and a block of text for each slide. Arrange your story in Sketch from left to right as you’re working, and it will help you to form a narrative. You can easily stack these together, add some decorative elements as I’ve done in the picture to the left by adding an avatar to tie the two slides together. Once I added a header, I had a nice PDF to use in a job application. Later I could easily separate the slides and show them one by one in an interview as I told the story of the project.
As you’re telling the story of your project, go into details about your process and your findings, but be punchy. Imagine you are pitching the project to one of those Mad Men types. It’s 2 PM, they’re drunk, and they don’t have time to listen to anything but big ideas.
You, The Character
If your portfolio is a story then you are the main character. How would an author describe you if you were a character in a novel? What defines you and sets you apart from others?
An about page is an excellent place to tell this story so please tell me you have one. It’s really the only page you need if you are a UX designer. If you’re a UI designer then you may not need a whole page but PLEASE make sure you have a paragraph somewhere on your portfolio site about yourself.
Tell us a bit about yourself. The author of The Oatmeal describes how that prompt can feel:
How To Write About Yourself
You have to know yourself to write about yourself. The younger you are, the harder that can be. Try this process to ease this unnatural endeavor:
- Write something on a notepad, (you know, the real ones made of dead trees) and let it sit for a day.
- Look at it again. How does it sound? Rewrite it and let it sit for another day.
- Find a friend that knows you well, and ask them if it sounds like you. Push them to be honest.
- Publish it and revisit every few months.
When describing yourself, it can be tempting to get a little carried away so here are some tips to avoid embarrassment:
- Don’t say you’re “making the world a better place,” even if you are.
- Steer clear of words like guru, ninja, Jedi, or anything that would make your little sister roll her eyes.
- Don’t try to describe your skills with infographics as they just point out what you’re weak at.
- Don’t fib about your past experience or your role in a project. The internet is a big place and you will eventually be found out.
If you want to put a little color in there then find a thesaurus or an interesting metaphor, but don’t overdo it. Seeing “I am Sketchmaster, builder of virtual worlds” on a portfolio will definitely get me to smile, but it probably won’t get you a job.
Know Your Story
One great way to show what you are capable of is to describe what you do in your own words. Try to do it in a completely new way. The head of design who is hiring you knows what UX is, but trust me, they will appreciate it if you can articulate it in your own words.
You could talk about why you became a designer in the first place. You could talk about how your previous experience makes you a better designer. Every experience we have builds upon the next, and there is always an interesting story in your past.
Whatever your story, please don’t make yourself seem boring just to seem hireable.
Portfolios Ain’t Easy
I know all of this is hard, and honestly, it’s awful that so much is required to get a decent job as a designer. It can be difficult enough to design visuals that don’t suck, much less find a story in the work you’ve done.
Storytelling takes time. Don’t expect to be able to renovate your portfolio overnight. Take it in baby steps. When you start on your next project, start thinking about the story you want it to tell before you even begin. If you frame things as a story earlier, presenting it on your portfolio will be a breeze.
Empty Again
As a UX designer, I know that polished portfolios are difficult to create, especially for beginners. There is just so much to learn in UX, and it doesn’t help that people judge UX portfolios by the aesthetic standards of UI portfolios. I started out as a graphic designer and moved into UX design, and I’ve always struggled with what story to tell in my portfolio.
A few days ago, I decided to delete all of the projects on my portfolio and replace them with an empty state. I did this to remind myself and others of the need for stories in design. My portfolio is finally a blank slate again.
*holds up fist in solidarity
Ok, time for us to find our story!
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