How to Make a Portfolio that Trailblazes an Entire Industry
I admit I’ve been a little lost.
I’m looking for work. I’m a brand new Ph.D. that specializes in researching, facilitating, and conducting innovation practice. After I moved to Botswana, I’ve connected with hundreds of people and organizations — both inside and outside the country — aiming to find ways to transfer my experience into skills they can use. Needless to say, it’s been a hard journey.
I’ve even been trying to start businesses from my research findings. I spent my research unpacking the complexities in the Botswana Innovation Ecosystem. I started the study expecting to learn about how innovators track success in the country, and I came out reporting on how adopting healthy innovation systems requires shifting entire cultures, systems, and institutions.
However, hidden in every problem lies an opportunity. On the whole, the country treats innovation as an activity that supports business development. However, there are real opportunities to support innovation in alternative sectors: health, education, and even government. if someone does it right, innovation activities can turn into sustainable businesses.
Getting a job is one thing. Starting a new business that creates an entire industry is even harder.
Look, someone has to be the trailblazer. Though they might not think so, all these organizations already have the built-in capacity to address some of their most complex problems. Like a chemical reaction, sometimes all it takes is a catalyst to shift some mindsets.
Why shouldn’t I be the catalyst?
How Should it Look?
First, I have to show why I deserve to catalyze.
As you might have guessed, my work, and how I present it, fits in a unique space. I’m not a trained graphic designer, I’m not a full-stack developer or acclaimed UX designer, nor am I a photographer. This portfolio, however, is deeply influenced by those fields: it represents what I’ve done and what I offer in a uniquely vibrant context. However, making a portfolio is a simple way to present my unique expertise to these worldwide companies.
My consultation activities have mainly focused on making innovation practice useful to anyone, anywhere.
At its core, I intended for the reader of this portfolio to see their professional selves in my previous work. It tries to convince communities that, maybe they too, can innovate to solve their own problems,
To do so, I needed to make sure the portfolio had a few qualities:
It must be easily understood.
I speak to the professional layperson. They need to understand what I offer: tools, mindsets, and activities which help them creatively address problems without difficulty.
It must represent diverse fields and interests.
I show the many types of customers I’ve helped, to show how the design tools I teach are applicable everywhere. If villagers in the Kalahari Desert and professors alike use the tools, why can’t anyone?
It must show different types of successful processes and outcomes.
Different stakeholders, while innovating in similar ways, have different roads to travel and destinations to reach. Undergraduate researchers require different methods than Oakland unhoused communities, and their definitions of success differ as well.
However, they can all benefit from a curated collection of innovation tools, and space to develop their own outcomes. By telling these different stories of success, prospective clients learn more about how innovation practice can help address their complex problems.
It must reflect the unique expertise I offer.
Many designers conduct unique work in places where innovation activity is already considered a norm. This portfolio aims to trailblaze: to show that I not only can help you innovate, but I can convince you that the practice is essential for your organization’s needs.
Let’s see what went into making my first portfolio.
Pinterest continues to be my best graphic reference material. You gain the opportunity to become inspired by extremely talented graphic artists and photographers, in order to find your own space.
The best looking portfolios, for now, let the work do the talking: instead of wowing by unique graphic placements and interesting fonts, they let the placement display the work in its best light.
So, as you can tell, I decided to develop keep my introduction simple: come see who I am, and learn about how I can help. A simple color scheme, vibrant pictures, and easy-to-understand text in Garamond and Brittania fonts.
One of the most useful activities I did while working through my Ph.D.? I hoarded and organized media. I have an immense amount of pictures (most of them horrible, some of them passable) that represent my unique journey through design and innovation research.
When I took these pictures, I had no idea how I was going to use them. Now, I’ve put these resources in my Ph.D. colloquium, my curriculum vitae, and on my website.
They offer life and perspective on the variety and usefulness of innovation practice in a variety of contexts. That’s my first piece of advice: collect good media of your work, even if you don’t know what use it offers.
I also co-founded an organization that used and honed my facilitation skills across the Bay Area. Early during graduate school, I connected with like-minded graduate students who saw space in equity and design practice.
By developing our organization, Reflex Design Collective, we developed equity-centered innovation spaces in issues related to homelessness, women’s health empowerment, academic-NGO collaboration, and much more.
This taught me the next lesson: Work with others. They’ll teach you what you don’t know, and introduce you to opportunities you’ll use in the future.
What’s the Structure?
I had to make sure my structure is based on the needs of my stakeholders. They need to know what I’ve done, what I offer, and where my expertise comes from. So, there are four sections involved in this portfolio:
Services. I do much more than what’s mentioned here, but these are skills related to catalyzing successful and unique innovation.
Projects. I harnessed medium-depth case studies of previous work and offered further explanations of my more complex design projects.
Research. Most designers don’t research innovation, and it’s a skill I can leverage effectively. My dissertation work, my education assessments, my social network analyses — they all offer diversity to my skillset.
Contacts. This is the most important point: this portfolio is only successful if they know how to connect with me!
It’s only the beginning. Although there’s much work to do, these lessons I learned while carving out this portfolio will help you during your own professional exploits.
Let your work speak. Right now, minimalism is king. Before I made this version, I was about to learn Adobe Indesign to make a portfolio like some of my favorites from Pinterest. As a researcher, it’s much faster and easier to let my work be the focus, and keep everything else simple.
Keep your stakeholders in mind. It’s not about me; it’s about my future clients, the prospective innovators. By making sure they’re attracted, I keep the focus off of myself and keep learning more about how their needs can be served — even while designing my own portfolio.
Keep creating. A year from now, this portfolio might be ineffective. By continuing to create, you stay abreast of current graphic trend and learn to adopt them towards your own style and needs.
I’m glad you’ve gotten this far.
If you’re interested in the full portfolio, it’s available here. I’d love to hear what you have to say.
I admit I don’t have all the answers. If you’ve gotten this far, I’m sure you have some of your own.
If you liked what I wrote and want to support, hit that ‘applause’ button as many times as you want. The more it’s hit, the more people my writing will reach.
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