Another year has come and gone and your Portfolio is looking a bit stale?? It may be time to enhance or even re-design! This year, social integration is a must– not a trend. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin are pivotal tools that recruiters and potential employers expect to have quick access to. Make sure your tapping into these channels while not overpowering your important objective of getting your creatives in front view.
This year, social integration is a must–
not a trend.
I took the end of this year to update my aging portfolio and integrate a wordpress blog, and take a fresh look at it.It took me two weeks from start to finish (well, is it ever “finished”?)– the following tips may help inspire you to stay on track and keep your Portfolio relevant and truly yours.
1. Prioritize toward specific Dates
Put dates around tasks and think about your game plan. Don’t be afraid to be a little aggressive with yourself as far as what you can accomplish. Sometimes having a little too much to do will motivate you to get things done! Projects usually come with their fair share of things that need to be done with not a lot of time to finish it in.
SO – get used to that!
I have found management tools like BaseCamp truly invaluable.
2. Be Realistic
You may need to be realistic, although you have big ideas for your new Portfolio- think phases if you can’t take it all on at once. Your design can evolve over time, the important thing is to get something out there. Your the only one that’s going to notice the line is off by a pixel in your interface in IE7. Take inventory and define the important milestones and meet the objective– Relaunch.
3. Alternate Tasks
Don’t go all over the place. But if your involved an a highly creative task – like nailing the details in a photoshop comp – don’t burn yourself out. Take some time off and research that jQuery function you’ll need later to pull it off.
Why? You’ll probably get to a point where you’ll need a creative break – and you’ll get more done by resting on that task. Plus, by taking some of the coding effort up front – it will make the development effort less daunting.
4. Tackle Something New
In web development you need to constantly learn. New technology, trendy styles. Take stock in an area that you’d like to explore and find a way to use your Portfolio Re-design to introduce it.
5. Learn from the past
Hopefully you’ve been asking for feedback, taking note of criticism and documenting what needs to be re-tooled and what’s been working in your layout, navigation and design. Perhaps you have some great content that seems to be buried within your design. Now is the time to turn that around.
For example, after taking a closer look at my interface I realized I had obscured creative projects across too many categories. My re-design was not only a “look and feel” transformation, but it got down to roots of the architecture.
In conclusion, be aware of what your objective is. Manage your time and stick to your plan with specific reachable milestones. Keep an eye on what others in the design community are dong with their portfolios– but more than anything else...make sure your site is your own. This represents you so tailor it to showcase your work, your personality and the kind of work your tying to go after.
