Introduction to portfolios

Portfolios communicate accomplishments, works in progress, or personal history. You can use a portfolio when applying for a job, pitching to clients, or applying for higher education. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a portfolio ready to showcase your work.

Historically, portfolios were physical books containing samples of an artist’s work. Portfolios are now mostly electronic and web-based, easily and quickly shared with anyone in the world. An online portfolio makes it easy to frequently update your content as you learn and create.

Portfolio types

Depending on the audience for the portfolio, your goals, and the length of your career, there are different approaches you can take to portfolios. The two most common approaches are:

• Showcase portfolios, which highlight expertise by showing examples of the creator’s best work. These often include a selection of finished images, designs, and projects. They might also include reflections on the work, or documentation of the process.
  
  
• Skill growth portfolios, which show multiple samples of work in the same project to demonstrate increasing skill. For example, you could include several versions of a project to show how it evolved. This type of portfolio can also include reflection and discussion of redesigns.

Portfolio tools

There are lots of online portfolio services that make it easy for you to create and host your portfolio. You can also create your own custom website. Options for you to consider include:

• Community portfolios: Services such as Behance, ArtStation, and Sketchfab allow you to quickly create a portfolio of projects and get feedback from the community. Community portfolios allow for direct networking with potential collaborators, clients, and employers.
  
  
• Custom portfolios: You can create a website where you can post your projects, specific information about the project, and your contact information. Integrating your social media presence into your portfolio is an ideal way to market yourself. Portfolio websites can be as simple as a customized blog (utilizing a platform like Squarespace) or as complex as a fully custom-coded website.
  
  
• Portfolio alternatives:
  • For programmers, your github.com push/pull history can be enough to show your code as well as your engagement, commitment, and time management
  • For game developers, itch.io can be seen as a portfolio page where you upload all the various games you've made and share the game jams you have participated in.

Most portfolios share similar features:

• A portfolio introduction provides an overview of your skills, training, career interests, goals, and relevant professional experience. It also outlines the projects included in the portfolio.
• An image or representative visual is featured on the welcome page of the portfolio.
• Narrative introductions to each project explain the ways the work demonstrates the critical skills for your chosen career areas.
• If the portfolio is focused on skill-growth, a learning plan identifies skills or concepts you might be lacking now, but want to gain in the near future.
• A download option is helpful, for either the full portfolio or an abridged version, in case potential employers, investors, or educators want to share your work with others.

Research some great portfolios

Now that you know more about portfolios, take some time to search online and review other portfolios, especially in the career areas you are interested in. Evaluate:

• The purpose and audience
• The overall look and feel
• The target job role — is it clear what job role(s) the creator is qualified for?
• How well the projects and narrative highlight the creator’s relevant skillsets.

Bookmark some portfolios you think are especially good. As you build your portfolio, return to them for inspiration.

Tip: To get to you started, explore the portfolios of some Unity Creators:

• Joy Horvath, who is a Unity developer
• Chris Castaldi, an XR developer
• Maarten Braaksma, a programmer and Agile Scrum Master

Next, take a moment to consider the work you’ve done in this Pathway, other projects you’ve created, and the career research you’ve completed to determine your areas of interest.

Reflect on what’s right for you now

With this in mind, start to think about the type of portfolio that would best suit your needs:

• Who is the target audience?
• What is your portfolio goal? Is the purpose to provide evidence that you are ready for a job role, or to create a shareable record of progress so far?
• Do you want to use a community portfolio tool or create a custom one?
• At this stage in your journey, is a showcase or a skill-growth portfolio the best fit?

Take some time to consider the projects you’ve completed that represent your best work and highlight your skills.

Plan out your portfolio

Let’s start to plan your portfolio content, design, and flow. Using a document, paper, or sticky notes to organize your thoughts:

• Create a list of the files and assets the portfolio will contain, and organize these into categories (for example, by skill, career or industry).
  
  
• Determine the design and navigation style of your portfolio.
  
  
• Draft an introduction or mission statement for your portfolio.
  
  
• Identify the additional content you’ll need to create or curate for the portfolio. For example:
  • Text descriptions and reflections for each piece in your portfolio
  • A learning plan that identifies skills or concepts you might be lacking now, but want to gain moving forward
  • A slideshow on the front page or as part of the menu that briefly highlights the portfolio content

Now that you’ve identified content you want to include in your portfolio, plan how you’ll organize it using the categories you defined. You can use pen and paper, sticky notes, or a digital tool such as Lucidchart, Mindmeister, or Figma.

Take some time to:

• Model possible ways to organize the content, showing where everything links.
• Consider the user journey and how viewers will be able to navigate through the information in the portfolio.
• Create organized lists of content and how it connects.

Using your flowchart, organize all of your files and assets and start to create your portfolio. In addition to the flowchart, you might consider using some of the project management strategies you explored in Introduction to project management and teamwork, and create a design document and project plan for your portfolio.

Portfolio guidance

Use the following questions to help you create, review and refine your portfolio.

Content:

• What is the purpose of the portfolio? How does the purpose affect the type of content you should include?
  
  
• Who is the intended audience for the portfolio? How does the audience affect the type of content you should include?
  
  
• Can you identify any gaps in the available content?
  
  
• Consider how you expect a portfolio to change over time or how you might create several versions of the portfolio to accommodate different audiences.
  
  
• If you have an existing portfolio, is the current content relevant to the purpose and audience? If not, what should you remove, and what other projects should you include?
  
  
• Will your portfolio have a narrative? What story is this collection of projects, media, and content trying to tell? Should content be presented in a particular order?
  
  
• Where will the portfolio live? If the portfolio will be posted to a website that can be accessed publicly by anyone, take into account government regulations, school policies, and best practices with regard to your personal identification and information. It’s appropriate to consider what personal information to include or exclude, since a portfolio may be forwarded to unknown individuals.
  
  
• Is the language level appropriate for your intended audience?
  
  
• Does the portfolio’ written content have any spelling errors, punctuation errors, or grammatical errors?
  
  

Design:

• Uniformity and Consistency: Are elements repeated on content pages to help identify the portfolio as complete? What attributes of the portfolio maintain or violate consistency?
  
  
• Universal navigation: Where is the main navigation for the portfolio located, and does it appear universally?
  
  
• Layout: Is the layout logical, or do elements appear to be placed randomly?
  
  
• Links: Are links labeled clearly?
  
  
• Usability: Are portfolio visitors able to find information easily? If online, does the portfolio load quickly?
  
  
• Readability: Is there formatting that improves or reduces readability?
  
  
• Accessibility: Are all images labeled with alternative text (alt-text)? Are the text and titles clear and easy to read for all viewers (color, size, and so on)? What features can or cannot be read by screen readers?
  
  
• Because a portfolio constantly evolves, be sure you plan the portfolio structure to allow for easy changes and additions.

Now that you’ve created your portfolio, ask your friends, classmates, or colleagues to review it for you and give you some feedback and give yourself time to make any revisions required to improve it.

Once you think it is ready, publish it and start sharing it with the world!