It’s never easy to know how to present your work.

Especially in the digital age, where there are a huge number of options available. But it seems that the front runner is the website, with the portfolio increasingly slipping by the wayside.

After all websites are easy to set up these days and they mean that the works comes to you. There are significant disadvantages in not being able to send out examples of your work easily though. It’s often a case of the quick and the dead, if you’re not quick with your portfolio then you’re dead in the water. But how do you put together a portfolio? Read these five tips to help you find out:

1. Brevity is the soul of wit

Your portfolio should make an impact and it can’t do that if it’s large and unwieldy. It depends on how confident you are in your work but ideally you shouldn’t have more than fifteen examples in your portfolio.

2. Impress the viewer

If all your pieces of work are exceptional then you can just skip this point. Unfortunately most of you will have some pieces that are stronger than others though, and then you get into the question of which order to put them in. The best rule of thumb is to put strong images in the beginning and middle with the strongest at the end. Research has shown that people remember the beginning and the end so if you’re trying to make a point do it then as it will have more chance to impress them. Of course you should have have vetted your work before you start including it, so if you have a weak piece you can’t think where to put them then it’s time to start asking yourself if it belongs in your portfolio.

3. Use text wisely

Some designers believe that their work should speak for themselves.  This is a dangerous assumption to fall into, particularly if your portfolio is going to be viewed by people who haven’t trained as designers. A short piece of text explaining key information about the design can help the viewer understand what you were trying to achieve (or did achieve) and also goes along way towards humanising you. The brief bits of text can also serve to address issues that the client might have. If they’re looking for someone who has experience of integrating social media into website design then don’t just show them a screenshot, explain how you did it as well.

4. Look at the overall theme.

Print your portfolio out and blu tack it to the wall in the order that you’ve got it in. Take a good hard look at it, what themes do you have running through it, does your work flow from one example to the next. Move things around and see if it works better. This is a variation upon something that the writer P. G. Wodehouse used to do; where he would take the pages from his latest story and pin them round the room in sequential order. The higher they were up the wall the happier he was with them, with those up near the ceiling being ready for production. You can apply both methods to your portfolio.

5. Update it regularly

As you grow in experience and capability so should your portfolio reflect this. Get into the habit of checking through your portfolio every month or so and seeing if there’s anything that you want to add or take out. As you become more capable you might want to consider creating several different portfolios as well as a general one, so if a client or future employer asks for examples of a specific work you’ve done you can send it over immediately. Confident that it’s up to date and exactly what they want to see.

If you need something designed then why not submit a brief on the Creative Service Exchange.