9 design portfolios to inspire you

Q: How can I make my portfolio stand out?

When I started in recruitment, I remember seeing mainly “pure” UX and UI portfolios. I remember UX portfolios being process-focused, like a science experiment at school, but not appealing to the eye.

Since then and the emergence of the product design job title in digital, expectations regarding portfolios have changed slightly.

If you do not have a “top” brand on your resume, your portfolio is vital.

Chris Andrews who, heads up design recruiting at Notion, paints this perfectly.

What the best product design portfolios have in common:

• They are visually appealing.

A lot of hiring managers these days are not designers. They don’t think in service blueprints or IA (all very important, of course); they think in visuals, business outcomes, and whether person can help us solve a business problem. Make it look nice. Focus on visuals. The majority of us think visually. We process images thousands of times faster than text.

• The work does the talking

People want to see what your outcomes and to see live work or the impact your work had on the business.

• Easy to digest, not chapter and verse

I know as a recruitment person I do not read masses of text on portfolios, I want to see live work, some data and options to see more understanding of the process later. I can’t see many busy hiring managers taking the time to read every case study in detail.

Ok, let’s dig into some portfolios:

1. Julius Gehrig and Portfolio here

What I like:

• Visually appealing
• Links to live work
• Video intro - very cool
• Strong testimonials
• Not got reams of text, options to view more

2. Robin Noguier and portfolio here.

What I like:

• Links to clients he’s worked with and what he’s done for each, so you can check out live links.
• Shows more about Robin and what he gives back to the community through talks etc.
• World-class work for top brands and agencies.

3. Luke Taylor and portfolio here.

(UX focus)

What I like:

• Decent visuals, but as a UX Designer, does a solid job of explaining how we works through processes for range of different clients.
• Very clear outcomes. I can imagine reading this as a client, you know what you will get.

4. Abdus Salam and portfolio here .

What I like:

• Tangible outcomes and success on each project including press coverage. The work does the talking!
• Demonstrates how he blends leadership topics with hands-on work

5. Jeremy Stokes and portfolio here .

What I like:

• Distinctive portfolio style, showing personality and natural flair.
• Clear understanding of his role on each project
• Links to live work - the work does the talking!

6. Fabricio Teixeira and portfolio here.

(Design leadership focused, so not examples of hands-on work)

What I like:

• Shows his leadership credentials through the talks he’s linked
• Clear to see links to the community work he does through UX Collective
• Well designed, and the landing page makes it clear even though he’s a leader, he is a designer at heart and is still great at craft.

When you get to a leadership position, you still need a “portfolio” as such, but it’s more about your teams work, ROI of design in the business over-time, retention of team, running P&L’s etc. All the things that non-design executives care about.

7. Will Hepworth and portfolio here.

• Strong dashboard/data design
• Solid walk through of how he/team got to the final outcome
• Talks through 0-1 work, which is in huge demand right now .
• Appeals to B2B/SaaS type companies, 100%.

8. Alex Vilinskyy and portfolio here.

• Alex knows his super power, and he’s super clear (pun intended) on his offering to clients on his website.
• Links to previous work and outputs.
• Video to show how he works, who he works with and shows more into how Alex thinks.

Note: I got these portfolios from various "top portfolio" articles or know them well.

What portfolio would you add? Would love to hear thoughts in the comments.