The Ultimate UX Portfolio Resource Guide
A few weeks ago I wrote an article about what it takes to build a stand-out design portfolio. When I perused medium I figured that there were a lot of articles that spoke about the same thing, essentially the theory behind building a portfolio. However, not a lot was written about specific resources to leverage. Here’s an attempt at aggregating them. In this article you will see medium articles, videos, inspiration portfolios and other resources. Hope this is useful.
Building a great portfolio is hard. It requires hours of research, finding the right sources of inspiration and finally using these creative juices to build your own. Here are some resources that I leveraged to build mine…
Medium Articles:
These start with the theory behind what makes for a good portfolio. I always like to start with theory because understanding the principles at a higher level is the most important part. However even within the theory I’ve tried to pick actionable ones — which focus on tricks/tips specifically, as what’s theory without some aspects of practice…
- How to build a UX design portfolio that stands out — I wrote this one. In this I cover aspects that I believe are critical to building a great portfolio overall — and here I go into some of the process stuff like lite vs complete portfolio/how to present case studies etc.
- How to create a compelling design portfolio companies will notice — This one is really well written. Aaron walks through the various aspects of the portfolio that are important in a fun and playful story-telling fashion.
- Avoid these 5 things when building your design portfolio — Tobias gets into the DONT’s with this one. Your best guide to avoid common mistakes.
- How and why I redesign my portfolio every years — As a designer you never stop growing and learning. Shawn’s portfolio redesign process is refreshing, especially to see in senior designers. It gets you to think about being proactive about reinventing yourself.
These 2 are more around practical tips and tricks. Well written and get straight to the point.
Videos of designers talking about building portfolios:
I learn best with video walkthroughs so included links to some amazing design channels. The links below are specifically in relation to portfolio but these designers put out amazing content in general. Highly recommend you subscribe/follow them, to encourage them to do more great work….
- Femke: The portfolio that got me hired at Uber (Focused more on onsite interview prep — love the breakdown of how the portfolio was presented and background on storytelling. Great for early in career designers)
- Femke: Common design portfolio mistakes to avoid
- Femke: The design portfolio that got me hired at Wealthsimple (Update of the Uber version. Here Femke has grown as a designer, so this is a good one for senior designers)
- Chunbuns: How to create your first UX design portfolio website (Great walkthrough of the portfolio website creation process. I personally prefer slide decks over websites. More on this in another article)
- Tony Aube: My EXACT Portfolio Presentation that Got Me Hired at Google, Facebook & Amazon (Very fun and interactive walkthrough. Love how Tony showed his impact on working as a solo designer at a startup and how he had undeniable impact on business outcomes)
- Sarah Doody: UX Portfolio Review: Junior UX Designer (1.5 years experience)
- Futur Academy: Portfolio Tips — Reviewing YOUR Design Work — Part 1 (More focused on visual designer portfolios but good principles to follow)
Portfolios for Inspiration:
I’ve tried to sort portfolios into the following buckets — early in career, mid-career and senior/staff. This distinction is important because hiring managers have different expectations from designers at each level.
Intern/Early-in-career:
As an early-in-career designer, focus on curiosity, interests across design disciplines and ability to understand/communicate overall design process. Showcase authenticity, willingness to learn, adapt and have a vision for what you want to be as a designer.
- Valerie Coll — Product Design Intern at Facebook
- Diana Gonzalez Mejia — Product Design Intern at Facebook
Mid-career:
As a mid-career designer, start honing in on a specific discipline — like interaction design/visual design. Communicate curiosity/learnability along with ability to execute. Focus on showing end-to-end execution, which sets you up for success in your ability to tackle larger-scale, complex projects. Communicating clearly and self-awareness are key traits to manifest at this point in your UX journey….
- Suzanne Choi — UX Designer at Google
- Azba Gurm — UX Designer at Google
Senior/Staff Designers:
As a Senior Designer, you are expected to communicate your deep expertise in the field of UX design. This means, you have a specific strength as a T-Shaped designer, but are also a strong generalist. Ability to synthesize data and make design improvements that can enable the business, ability to influence strategy and work with cross-functional teams are table-stakes at this level. Showcasing your capability to defend design decisions, talk about trade-offs across design executions along with ability to influence product strategy, all while executing at scale are crucial for Senior/staff designers. Designers at this level can also communicate strong examples of enabling team members and coaching/mentoring designers.
- Aaron James — Senior Product Designer at Netflix
- Alex Lakas- Freelance Product Designer (X-Google)
- Simon Pan — Staff Interaction Designer at Google
- Karolis Kosas — Staff Product Designer at Stripe
- Andre Sebastian Pangilanan — Freelance Designer — Xoogler
Visual Design Inspiration:
Here’s are some visual design inspiration examples to get your creative juices flowing. These will enable you to paint your blank (portfolio) canvas, with beautiful elements tastefully rather than just borrowing from existing ones. Nothing is more exciting than originality shining through in a potential tea member. You can find these examples in context in the portfolio examples that I shared.
Typography Inspiration — Typewolf
Color Palete Generator — ColorHunt
Awwwards — Portfolio
Pinterest Portfolio — Inspiration
Design Templates:
Who doesn’t love design templates? Here are a few resources I found were useful to enable you to build your portfolio more quickly. I personally use Webflow or Pitch to build portfolios. The reasons are, both are very easy to use and quite affordable.
That said, you can definitely use Wix.com, Wordpress etc depending on your level of comfort. I suggest building your own website as it can act as your web presence, over using a site like behance or dribbble.
I love Pitch, as I use slide decks to prep my actual portfolio that I use during job searches. That said I do have a website at sindhunarasimhan.com, but I use it more as a web presence, so it’s not updated frequently.
There are many reasons behind why I use a slide deck over a website for my job search. I’ll be writing a medium article about this…so stay tuned :)
Free Webflow templates:
Paid Webflow templates:
Free Pitch templates:
Hope these design resources were helpful to get you on the path to building an amazing portfolio. I can’t wait to see what you will create!
Hey there! I’m Sindhu — A Senior Product Designer at Roku. Previously I built my own startup and worked at a startup studio called PSL. Oh also, I worked at Amazon building Amazon Key :) I love building new products and ideas.
Want to discuss startups and design? I’m all ears! Email me at sindu.ux@gmail.com. I can’t wait to hear all your stories :)
