5 Tips to Create an Awesome Portfolio

Make sure to check out these tips to help improve your portfolio and really wow your audience!

1. Show the process

Not everything that you show needs to be perfect! Share your early brainstorming or thinking, your initial sketches, and even some ideas that didn’t work out (of course include why they didn’t work). Although it should still be relatively clean, people want to see the journey that you took to arrive at your final solution. We want to see the places where you were challenged and obstacles that you overcame!

2. It’s your story! Bring our your personality

Since this is your story, make it your own! Personal writing can be hard, but it can come out through jokes, quotes, or even images. This can be super important too, as potential admission officers or employers will be looking to see what kind of person you are. Highlight important qualities that you showed, skills you developed or used, as well as listing your roles and responsibilities if it was a group project.

3. Use a variety of formats

A great thing about Medium is the variety that each story can hold. Use photos and videos to show rather than tell. You can even use the “Add Media” button to find great stock photos. If you have links to other slide decks or project reports, feel free to include them in your portfolio!

4. Get feedback early and often

One of the easiest ways to improve you portfolio piece is to get feedback on it early and often. Create a rough outline and see if it makes sense and is interesting to friends, teachers, and parents. As you finish your initial drafts, don’t be afraid to share it with others to see what they liked and what could be improved. Other people can notice things that you might have missed, or ask for clarification on parts that were clear to you.

5. Quality > quantity

While it’s important to show your process, you also don’t overwhelm your audience with pages and pages of text or images! It’s important to strike a health balance and make sure this story is manageable to read. Medium has a great feature that tells you approximately how long it takes to read an article before clicking on it, so you’ll definitely want to aim for under 10 minutes (ideally 5–6 minutes).