What are the best tools and platforms for creating a professional portfolio?

4 Design your portfolio

Once you have chosen your platform or tool, you need to design your portfolio in an aesthetically-pleasing, user-friendly, and consistent way. Your portfolio should reflect your brand identity and personality, be easy to navigate and view, and be coherent and cohesive. When considering the design elements, think about the layout - will you use a grid, a carousel, a slideshow, or a gallery? How will you use white space, contrast, and alignment to create balance and harmony? Additionally, consider the color scheme - how will you use color to create contrast, mood, and emphasis? Will it match your brand identity and personality? Typography is also important - what fonts will you use? How will you use font size, weight, and style to create hierarchy, readability, and emphasis? And don't forget about images - what images will you use? How will you use them to showcase your work or tell a story? Make sure to optimize them for speed, quality, and size.

5 Write your content

Your portfolio should not only show your work, but also tell your story. Writing clear, concise, and compelling content is essential for showcasing your value proposition and unique selling point, and for driving action and results. Consider including a headline to capture your audience's attention and interest in one sentence, a bio to summarize your background, skills, and personality, a description of the context, objective, process, and outcome of each work sample to highlight your role, skills, and impact in each work sample, and a call to action to invite viewers to contact you, hire you or follow you.

6 Update and maintain your portfolio

Your portfolio should be dynamic and evolving, not static. It is important to update and maintain your portfolio regularly to ensure it is fresh, relevant, and accurate. You should update it to showcase your latest and best work, as well as reflect your current skills, achievements, and goals. When considering updates or maintenance tasks, you should think about adding new work samples, removing old or outdated work samples, checking for errors or issues, and analyzing and optimizing your portfolio for performance and results. This could involve using analytics tools or feedback to measure and improve your portfolio.