What's in today's newsletter?
- 6 things the best portfolios do differently
- Some of my favourite portfolios
- Godly → Recent Design
- World building with a website
- 75 free agent skills for designers
I've seen countless of portfolios.
The bad ones, all make the same mistakes, and when a hiring manager opens it and…
Scrolls for 4 seconds
Brain goes "so what?"
Closes tab
Your portfolio has one job: get you the interview.
But the good ones, they do 6 things well:
1. Think strategy, not scrapbook.
Pick a lane. Fintech person, B2B person, scrappy startup person. A portfolio that tries to be everything gets remembered for nothing.
Pro tip: don't pick the lane from a vacuum — reverse-engineer it from the 5 jobs you actually want.
2. Explain your rationale.
They're not buying your screens, they're buying your brain. Show the messy middle. Juniors show solutions. Seniors show how they think.
Pro tip: "show your process" does NOT mean narrate all 27 steps. Your rationale = the 2–3 decisions that mattered and why. Not the play-by-play.
3. Highlight your impact.
"Redesigned the checkout" is a yawn. "Bumped conversion 23%" is a meeting. Don't have a clean number? It’s fine. You don't need perfect data.
"Killed 5 features, shipped the 3 that mattered" is impact. "Ran 107 user interviews" is impact.
Pro tip: Counting anything drops you into the ~10% who bother. Just don't bury it under marketing fluff. One clear line. Don’t write "leveraged synergies" lol.
4. Remove the noise.
3 killer projects beat 12 ok ones. Hiring managers skim, they don't read. Extra projects is actually a liability.
Pro tip: Curation of the best or most relevant work outperforms spamming how many screens you designed.
5. Paint a picture.
People don't hire portfolios, they hire people. Show where you've been and where you're headed.
Pro tip: Use the the "lesson over win” approach. Summarize with "Here's what I'd do differently" to signal growth. Counterintuitively, the senior who admits what they'd change comes across as more hireable, not less.
6. Build it like a product.
Your portfolio isn't a thesis. It’s a living breathing documentation of your work.
Pro tip: Update your portfolio after interviews, write down the question that tripped you up, and answer it pre-emptively next time.
The best portfolios I've seen aren't the flashiest.
They're the clearest.
They make me go "oh thank god, someone who gets it" before I've finished my coffee.
And I drink my coffee fast.
Wanna hear something funny?
I got into this whole industry by accident. Got fired from my first tech job, built a website in Wix the next day, got addicted. That site was the whole bet. Hiring managers saw the work and said yes.
That's the job your portfolio is supposed to do.
Make it earn its keep.
Want more details? Full guide →
Some of my favourites that hit the mark:
