Let me begin by saying portfolio’s can be great they are an inexpensive & efficient way to showcase one’s work. When you aren’t looking to niche down, or even actively pursue clients or if you just want an online space to show what you know, what you’ve done a portfolio is the way to go. Maybe you’re just starting out or have been in the graphic design game for a long time but you’re non committal, a portfolio will serve your most basic purpose. A single online space that shows your work.

However if your in the freelance game or trying to be then utilizing your portfolio for all it could be (& have it do some of the work for you) is worth the investment of time. Let’s face it, only designers recognize how much work + time go into a design piece. Only designers understand how many times you moved around that block of text & played with color to make it all work. Since the people we are giving the address to our online portfolios are mostly not other designers but instead someone that is looking to pay us for our value, then why only show the end result when you can tell a story. Show how deeply thought out the whole process was from beginning to end. Show ‘em your value!

I get it, its much easier to throw up some screen shots & mock ups & call it a done deal. Mock ups take their own time & finesse as it is anyway! But your viewer is simply looking at finished products. When we go to the grocery store & complain that the avocado’s is too expensive we rarely stop to think about the journey that avocado has taken in order to wind up at our local neighborhood grocery store, al the lives involved in that avocado making its way to you. From the farmer who owns the land, the person that buried that seed, watered it, the picker, the sorter, the packer, the truck driver, the grocery store unpacker, etc. Is the $2 for that avocado outrageous? When all we see is the finished product, we as consumers don’t think about everything that went into that process.

I chose to provide case studies of my previous work despite that it is more time consuming. I chose to tell our story, my clients & my own. If I’m showing off my work, I want to show it off with a commentary. So they grasp at least part of the process, the intentions, the motivation behind that piece. People invest in people, its so rarely the product as much as the instagrammer that tagged it. It’s the story you tell yourself behind why you need this particular item based on the story the company has sold you on. It’s all about the why your life will be better with that specific product. We are emotional creatures, we want a story. Logic makes us think, emotions make us act. What are you calling your potential portfolio viewers to do? Think or act?