The Designer’s Guide to Building The Portfolio You’re Proud Of
Episode 008: The Podcast Designer
James Cabrera was most recently the Design Director at Gimlet Media, a digital media company. Today, he is the Head of Design and Special Projects
at The Block. He is a self-taught designer who was born and raised in New York. Growing up, he found a liking in numbers, calculating things, and playing with legos. Fortunately enough for James, his parents didn’t put so much pressure on the courses he applied for in college. This gave him the chance to navigate his own way through school, eventually choosing a double major in Mathematics and Physics. On top of being really good at numbers, James realized that he flourished even more in the concept of problem-solving, thus explaining his decision of taking a Physics major.
Designer Origin Story
Design, for James, was always something he was interested in. It was a hobby he liked to delve into from time to time. His first real design project started when he and his friends started playing Counter Strike. They wanted to make a website for their clan and James was hooked. He really enjoyed creating and designing websites — all of which he learned on his own. Unlike nowadays where learning pretty much anything is easier since there are so many resources you can access online, James only had HTML and a notepad.
On his web design journey, James stumbled upon many forums where designers sold templates of old versions of their work. He quickly realised he could sell old versions of his Counter Strike clan website. This was his first real taste in being paid for design, though he didn’t care much for the money. He saw it as a means to pursue other forms of creativity and hobbies, such as playing video games, photography, and hockey.
In his junior year of college, James was offered a job by one of the people who bought his templates. He was launching his own company and wanted James to be their designer, since he liked his work. This made James contemplate dropping out of college because he liked what he was doing and to get a job without graduating college was a huge feat. However, James was the type to finish whatever he started. He managed to get a part-time position at the start up, but he had to adjust his classes, turning his Physics major into a minor. This was a huge adjustment for a part-time job, but James liked design. Around this time, he realized that he wasn’t a man of numbers anymore. Design called out to him.
Early Career
After graduating, James then pursued the job full-time. Due to an unfortunate financial crisis, the company didn’t do so well and James lost his job. So it was back to unemployment for James. He went back to school, attempting to pursue that Physics major for a while, but it only reaffirmed that design was, in fact, for him.
It took James months to find another job. It was especially hard since he was looking for job listings for design, which was not so common back then. He then decided to make good use of his time and experience in job applications — he decided to create a portfolio. Here are some tips he shared with us about building a portfolio with no professional work experience:
- Always save your work — you can always use it for your next job. Save copies of your files and take screenshots of relevant features. This way, you will save time should you find yourself doing the same thing.
- Work on side projects — without any significant work experience, your portfolio might be too bare. Working on things you’re genuinely interested in while applying (or improving) your design skills are good ways to build your portfolio. Start with simple prompts like redesigning your favourite websites or apps into your own liking.
- When applying for jobs, your portfolio is your hypeman — the recruiters might not even ask you about your job experience, just your skills. Based on his experience, the recruiters will ask you about your thought processes, what was going through your mind while working on the design, and certain technical things.
His portfolio got him a job at Footlocker, where he worked as a web designer for over three years. James realized that he needed to grow elsewhere and then he found himself at Say Media, a digital publisher that posts many articles, where he worked as a Visual Designer. This was James’ first job in true product and UX design.
At Say Media, James was tasked to help create various designs for the articles they published, while running on the same exact code. It seemed like a daunting task, considering the amount of articles he had to deal with. He started slow and simple by varying the fonts, colors, and backgrounds. It was a lot of coordination with the designers, but it was good work.
After working at Say Media for a while, James moved on to Refinery29, as a Product Designer. His job was to make the UI not clash with the graphics the artists made. He focused on the reading experience of the audience. It was no longer about the specific design details, but the UX of their content. He asked himself ‘how do you make the experience of reading articles better both on desktop and mobile?’ It was all about the user, which came easy to James, a UX advocate. It was his goal to ‘marry both the business goal and the UX.’ in his jobs.
“I actually focused on that problem a lot — to marry both the business goal and the UX.”
Working at Refinery29, James found himself doing the one thing he doesnt want to do — compromising the UX to hit business objectives. It was not what he wanted to do. He wanted to chase more meaningful work.
Gimlet Media
Working at Gimlet Media introduced James to a new world — the world of podcasting. This niche form of content helped him learn a lot of things considering how concentrated and focused podcasts are. He was their Director of Design, the first design hire on staff.
This meant anything and everything design was under his scope of work. His being at Gimlet opened a lot of door for them. It made them wonder what they can do now that have a full-time designer on board? What were the creative things they could do? Since James was in charge of figuring out how visual design can popularise their podcast, and he was their first real designer, he had to do a lot of trial and error.
“Just do it. If something come up that didn’t go well, then you revise your process to catch those things next time.”
We’ve heard such saying before but it’s still so true. Keep on learning and stick with that works. James found his groove but it meant more work. This was when he decided to pitch to the company about hiring another designer. He saw this as an uphill battle. It did take the company a few years before hiring James. He had to do a lot of defending. Other than how this would help take a lot of load off his shoulders, he had to prove financially how beneficial another designer on the team would be. James got the green signal to hire another designer, which meant his scope of work now included training, mentoring, and strategising. He was now a manager — a role which he really enjoyed.
Values are key
After everything James has been through, with a very impressive portfolio, what he would like to share with up and coming designers it to put care into the work that you do.
“Whatever you’re working for…the more you care about the work you do, the better your work is going to be.”
You may not have the chance to have such a mindset early on into your design career but it’s something you develop along the way. James urges you to do a bit of introspection and think about the following:
- What your values are
- What kind of difference you want to make in the world
- What you can do to make those goals come true
Once you have even the tiniest idea as to what it is your values are, the next step is to put yourself out there. This means creating work you are proud of.
“In every single project, you should have that mindset that this is something I want to include in my portfolio,”
Aside from your portfolio being one of the important documents you’ll be submitting to the companies you apply for, it will also show what kind of designer you are. Putting much care and effort into your work will not just improve your skills, but also your mindset as a designer.
Start by aligning your values with your goals. That will bring you very far.
