Building a lean product design portfolio
Life is short. So be scrappy. But maybe not always.
Ever since I started my journey as an aspiring product designer, I’ve spent countless hours chasing perfection while building out my product design portfolio. I am sure many other designers have done the same.
Now I wouldn’t say all that time was wasted — it actually helped me learn how to design for the web, learn amazing tools like Webflow, and set up and launch a polished website. But when hunting for product design jobs — which is usually the point of a portfolio — these things matter less. The designer’s case studies and submitting an application on time matter much more.
This is why, when hunting for my first internship, I designed a lean design portfolio, and would recommend the same to anyone who is under a tight timeline.
So what is a lean design portfolio?
I like to define a lean design portfolio as one that automates a content management system (CMS) and a visual design system so that the designer can put all their focus on well-crafted and thoughtful design case studies.
Why is this important? Because most recruiters and hiring managers look for your design process and visual design skills when looking through your case study work.
I think I should clarify that your case studies have to be great if you are to use this approach. If they aren’t, you are probably better off using your website development skills as a “compensator”, although great recruiters can usually filter through that.
But if you have work that you are proud of and think has high standards, the lean design portfolio is for you. In fact, it can also work in your favor because it is scrappy, entrepreneurial, and shows ruthless prioritization on your part.
Why I personally built a lean design portfolio
As someone just starting out in an HCI program and having limited experience in design, I had less work to show and realized I was better off making extraordinary case studies rather than designing an extraordinary portfolio website. It just seemed more practical from a learning perspective as well as a recruiting perspective.
In fact, I set up my design portfolio on Notion in less than a week! My primary motivation was that I had just been referred to Meta by a Cofolios mentor — Zain — who saw potential in me. I had to apply within a few weeks and I could not miss this opportunity because of not having a finished portfolio — that would really suck. So I quit working on my Webflow site and moved over to Notion to ship my portfolio as soon as possible and apply before the referral expired.
This was definitely a risk, but I trusted that completing work submitted early would at least get me noticed rather than perfecting work that was submitted late. In a way, it was also a personal experiment to see if this would work out. Well as luck would have it, it did work out in the end. I got a call back from my Meta recruiter — Sarah — and eventually got hired as a product design intern at Meta.
How to build a lean design portfolio?
I personally used Notion to do so. I think it meets both of the criteria that I previously outlined:
- A good CMS
- A good visual design system
Notion is block-based, so creating and managing your content is easier than anything else I have seen. It is basically typing out your case studies, modifying text styles for headings, quotes, etc., and then dragging and dropping the case study page around. There are also many ways to showcase this database of case study pages. Way faster than something like Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, UXFolio, or Framer.
Secondly, Notion has this minimal and canvas-like aesthetic that is very pleasing and uses whitespace really well. This saves on the time that you might spend to style your layout, and choose certain typography.
Here are two templates I have made for anyone working on building a Notion portfolio. Feel free to duplicate them and use them!
Template 1
Template 2
One thing to note, however. While you might benefit immensely from a lean portfolio, you might not always want to go this route.
When to go all out and build a killer website?
You should go for a polished website when:
- You have enough time to create your portfolio before you start recruiting
- You plan to interview with companies that want web design experience
- You are a designer that wants your portfolio to be indexed on Google
None of these things fit me at the time, so I went with Notion. You can also explore some other basic no-code options like Read.cv or Coda, or even platforms like Dribbble or Behance. But I am personally biased towards Notion.
Don’t stick with it for too long though!
With portfolios there are always tradeoffs, so building a lean design portfolio can also be a disadvantage. The main idea with the lean portfolio should be to use it as a way to show work WHILE you work on your actual polished portfolio website.
I realized this a little late, unfortunately. I relied on Notion for far too long and got passed for some amazing design opportunities because of it. I think the one that hurt most was getting rejected from Figma in spite of getting a referral there from my friend Oscar.
A lot of mentors told me after seeing my revamped portfolio on Webflow that I had a very high chance of getting the opportunity at Figma if I had used my newer site.
It was a humbling experience, and I got to know that different companies look for different things. Some more so for visual excellence, some more so for strong product thinking. And especially in this economy, it is best to showcase everything.
TL;DR
If you have the time build a Webflow site, if you don’t set something up on Notion because it will at least give you a chance.
