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5 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Portfolio 🪄
Enhance Your Portfolio Experience: Five Practical Upgrades to Stand Out and Engage
Florian Bölter
January 29, 2025
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Hey and welcome back to a new week! 👋
In this issue:
My Top 5 Portfolio Tips: This week I’m sharing my 5 recommendations you can apply right away that will improve your portfolio by a lot!
The Best Place For Design Resources: Make sure to check out Fountn, my absolute go-to website for any kind of design resource
Bryan’s Portfolio: Bryan connects visual storytelling with a knack for the business
Today’s Question: Should I use Behance for my portfolio?
🤝 TODAY’S PARTNER
Easily find the design resources you need
As designers, we often struggle to find the right resources when needed. Whether it’s a mockup, an insightful article, or a matching set of icons, the search can disrupt our workflow.
Fountn is here to help. We provide a curated collection of design resources that are thoughtfully organized, making it easy to find exactly what you need quickly and effortlessly.
Plus, you can bookmark your favorite resources for quick access later on.
✨ Top Jobs This Week
5 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Portfolio 🪄
What makes a portfolio truly shine? It’s not just about dazzling visuals or impressive projects—it’s about crafting an experience that communicates your value clearly and resonates with your audience. Whether it’s helping recruiters quickly understand your work, guiding hiring managers to your strongest case studies, or making your portfolio a joy to navigate, small adjustments can have a big impact.
From analyzing visitor behavior with analytics to creating engaging case study previews, these improvements can make your portfolio a better tool for telling your story and showcasing your skills. Let’s explore five practical enhancements you can apply right away to take your portfolio experience to the next level.
1. A Strong & Succinct Introduction
What Is It?
A brief, impactful introduction in the hero section of your portfolio’s homepage.
What to Include:
Your title (e.g., Product Designer, UX Researcher)
Relevant experience or background (e.g., former marketer turned designer)
2-3 key strengths
Optionally, a niche focus (but avoid being too narrow)
What to Avoid:
Generic terms like "passionate" or "creative." Let your work show that.
Overly long introductions—two sentences or four lines max.
Why It’s Powerful
Your homepage hero is the first thing visitors will see. This is prime real estate to make an immediate impression, set the tone for your portfolio, and start telling your story in your own words.
How to Nail It
Start with building blocks: Jot down your role, background, strengths, and unique elements.
Refine: Use examples like Chenchen Lu or David Shin for inspiration.
Iterate: Use AI tools like ChatGPT to workshop your phrasing, then refine manually.
2. Tracking & Analytics
What Is It?
Adding analytics to your portfolio to track visitor behavior, such as session time, page views, and drop-offs.
Why It’s Powerful
Analytics help you diagnose potential issues:
No portfolio visits? Check your resume and application process.
Low session time? Revisit your homepage structure.
Drop-offs in a specific case study? Tweak the content or flow.
With some effort, you can even track which companies view your portfolio, giving you insights into your job search progress.
How to Set It Up
Use free tools like Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity, or Smartlook.
Follow their step-by-step guides—no coding required.
Consider creating trackable links for applications, as explained in this previous issue.
If you’re using Notion or Framer for your portfolio, leverage their built-in analytics features.
3. Using Videos & GIFs
What Is It?
Incorporate GIFs or short videos to showcase flows, prototypes, or interactions instead of static screens.
Why It’s Powerful
Engages visitors more effectively than static visuals.
Keeps case studies concise by replacing multiple screens with a single dynamic clip.
Highlights interaction design and usability in a way static images can’t.
How to Do It
Record your screen with tools like Loom, Tella, or Screen Studio.
Use the Figma GIF plugin for simple in-app recordings.
Showcase GIFs strategically, as seen in Aran Kim’s portfolio.
4. Engaging Case Study Previews
What Is It?
The thumbnails or cards for case studies on your homepage should entice users to click.
What to Include:
An engaging image or GIF.
A title that highlights impact (e.g., "Increased retention by 25%") rather than just the project type.
A one-sentence description for context.
Why It’s Powerful
Case study previews are often the second most-viewed element after the hero section. Engaging titles and visuals can pique curiosity and help recruiters identify relevant work immediately.
How to Do It
Use visuals that add value, like animations or key screens, as seen in Kaja Skerlj’s portfolio.
Craft titles focused on results or impact, like Samantha Nestman’s portfolio.
Avoid generic phrasing like "Pet adoption app" and aim for specificity and intrigue.
5. Showcasing Small, Impressive Work
What Is It?
A dedicated space (e.g., a "Playground" section) to showcase smaller, high-quality experiments, prototypes, or explorations that don’t fit into full case studies.
Why It’s Powerful
Adds personality and showcases diverse skills.
Demonstrates craftsmanship and passion beyond structured work.
Can leave a lasting impression on hiring managers who appreciate experimentation.
How to Do It
Create a dedicated section, as David Shin did with mini case studies.
Alternatively, append these works under your main case studies, like Richard Du.
Focus on quality and relevance—2-3 polished examples are better than a large, inconsistent collection.
Summary
Improving your portfolio doesn’t always require overhauls or massive time investments. Small tweaks like a strong introduction, analytics, engaging visuals, impactful case study previews, and showcasing experimental work can make a big difference.
These adjustments not only elevate your portfolio but also help you stand out in a competitive market. Take these steps, refine continuously, and let your work shine!
💼 More Jobs
⁉️ Q&A
Today’s Question
Should I use Behance for my portfolio?
👀 Portfolio Showcase
Today: Bryan Huang
This weeks showcase features Bryan’s portfolio who is hailing from New Jersey and currently on a contract with MetLife. Before that he worked with a couple of startups to redefine their products which resulted in amazing case studies. Originally Bryan comes from architecture which is a background I see a lot and that just makes sense due to it’s strong overlap in terms of skills.
Bryan perfectly tells the stories of his projects with the help of an effective combination of visuals and text. What differentiates his case studies is something else though. Let’s take a look.
The Good:
Mentioning Business Needs: One thing I immediately noticed scrolling through the case studies on some of the startup work he did (specifically Plutofy & Connektd) was how Bryan not only included the business perspective of the project in the beginning like it’s pretty common to do. He sprinkled these aspects into his case study as well e.g. by introducing API costs as a challenge in the Plutofy case study. This gives a good edge as it shows that Bryan does zoom out occasionally when he works on a project which is a very good thing to do as a designer.
Visual Storytelling: Bryan’s case studies aren’t too long or short. And more importantly, they balance visuals with text very well. While the layout isn’t always 100% perfect, it was still always a scannable and well-balanced read for me which isn’t as common as it should be with earlier-career portfolios. Each visual serves a purpose. There are no dumps of dozens of screens without any explanation as to why those are relevant to show. Yes, some visuals serve as clarification or overviews and those are maybe the most questionable ones but I still think that they are warranted in the context. All other visuals are either directly connected to the content or have their explanation implicit.
If I were hiring for an earlier stage startup design role I would absolutely invite Bryan for an interview. He is showcasing so much that is relevant in that space. Yet, I can always find a bit to polish for maximum impact. Let’s see what that is.
The Potential:
Reducing Case Studies: You know my rule: 3-4 well-polished case studies. Now If someone presents me a portfolio with 2 or 5 case studies I’m not gonna discard it. This isn’t a hard criteria by all means. Still I usually try to see if the reason I recommend 3-4 applies and for Bryan it partially does. Bryan has 5 case studies consisting of 3 (real) startup cases, 1 hackathon outcome (that won) and one fully fictional case study. Now I have to be fair here: all of them are high quality in my opinion. I often see case studies with lower quality because they are much older. This isn’t the case here. Still I do think that the fictional case study can’t live up to the other ones simply because they are real projects done in collaboration. Therefore I’d recommend considering at least taking that one out.
Impact Feels Forced: Now a lot of the impact of Bryan’s work is in my opinion implicit in his case studies. To see that he worked for a startup on a contract for a couple of months and managed to get the work done he is showing is clearly showing an impact for those early-stage businesses. Yet, there is obviously potential for more. Bryan tries to showcase more impact e.g. by stating that the founder liked it and 5/5 tests came back positive. However that feels forced at times. Other case studies don’t talk about impact at all. I’ve talked in the past about how you can use user testing to measure impact more realistically and this is exactly what I’d recommend here.
Bryan’s portfolio is another great example of storytelling, showing understanding for the business side of things and generally great execution. I’m urging you to take a good look!
That’s it for this week—thanks so much for the support! ♥️
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Keep kicking doors open and see you next week!
- Florian