How Many Pieces of Work Should you Include in your Web Portfolio?
It’s hard to decide on how many pieces to showcase in your web portfolio. As a designer I know there are lots of factors that go into choosing the work you decide to display… versatility, creativity, exciting clients, recent challenges, technical capabilities, and experience. While I had been advised in the print world to limit my work to 10-12 pieces it is incredibly common to find web portfolios that feature 25+ projects. As a web designer it is very tempting to add EVERYTHING one may have done, especially when the web provides an interface that makes it so easy show years of experience in just a few clicks. So how many pieces of work should a web designer include in their online portfolio?
I have asked tons of designers, art directors, and creative professionals for answers and had lots of discussions. While the answer is a matter of opinion, the most impressive response was from Greg Johnston the Senior Vice President and Creative Director of Ogilvy PR’s Creative Studio in Washington DC. Greg is an old school Bad Ass (Matthew Carter style). He knows his stuff, has a pony tail, rocks out, and has played a leading creative role on many big-name accounts that make me drool. I asked Greg to sum up his response for this post because it is the best I have heard yet, not only because he has the experience to back it up, but because he provides solid reasoning.
I just saw someone’s portfolio who had brought a lot of stuff to show. I gave them a break because they were from out of town and wanted to make sure they “didn’t forget anything in case they needed to show me more of their work.” That’s usually a sign for me that someone thinks that all their ideas are good ones.
Editing your own work is probably the hardest thing to do. Your work is like your children––you love them all equally. So you have to really remove yourself from all the special circumstances that lead you to create your ideas. Yeah, like I said, it’s tough.
I believe you should showcase 10-12 samples of your BEST work, regardless of how you got there. That’s all I show after 27 years of creating ideas. (And I believe just because you’ve been doing something for 27 years doesn’t mean you’re good at doing it.) My best work. Some of it I did over 20 years ago, because the ideas still hold up. Some of it I just did last month.
Having looked at hundreds of portfolios––online and offline––I usually can tell after 5-6 pieces if someone is good. I judge their work not only on the quality, but their ability to know the difference between really good work and stuff that’s just OK. You don’t need to show everything you’ve done since kindergarden. That’s what Mom’s fridge is for.
Be hard on yourself. Be objective. Act like you know nothing at all about what you had to go through to get to that idea. Now you ready to edit your own work.
Which is what you should be doing every time you create ideas.
I want to thank Greg for the time he took to write all of that down, and I hope that advice helps others struggling with making those decisions. I will be taking all of his points into much closer consideration for the redesign (re-align) of this site… that I am working on right now.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Even as a designer browsing around online portfolios I feel like the all you can eat buffet approach is overwhelming. Instead of thinking, “wow these guys can do it all!” more often I end up seeing how similar all their stuff looks. (”Look they did that same swishy letterhead effect!”). Often, big companies want to show off all their clients, with multiple views of multiple examples and typed case studies. A little of this goes a long way!
April 10th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Intimidating?!?!
April 11th, 2008 at 11:00 am
tedious
April 13th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Samantha, what are you thoughts on interactive work being printed? Printing at 72dpi will show pixilated distortion and I’ve found that resizing the work to 150dpi will make the piece very small.
Is it okay to show interactive work that is printed at 72dpi in your portfolio or should people do the latter of the two?
April 13th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Nick, I’ve had to print a lot of work in the past, and I find the best method is to make an alternate version of the original comp and size it up to 300 dpi. If the pieces has lots of hard edges, you might want to size up in bicubic mode, which preserves a lot of the crispness but won’t blur the pixels in your photos. Then, I just go through and replace any obviously blurry elements with larger versions (if I have them). Even if you don’t replace any elements, resizing a Photoshop comp should make it totally printable, because the type will look much better.
My opinion has always been that 10-12 pieces is enough, less if you’re showing other categories (I like to show a page of logos, a page of photos, a page of photographed print samples). Any more than that, and you risk a) boring the interviewer or b) betraying your “core style” by showing too many pieces with similar solutions.
April 13th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
@Nick Whitmoyer
Personally I am not a fan of printing interactive pieces at all for sharing with a client or perspective employer. If someone is viewing a piece for the first time, it should be seen as it was designed to be viewed. Sending someone to a URL first, walking them through the URL via a computer, sending the work on a disk, or carrying a laptop to share the work are all better options than printing an interactive piece.
I have carried small print portfolio as worst case scenario back-up ( like the electricity in the whole city has gone out) or had a piece printed as a leave behind after the person has viewed the work on screen. In that scenario, the piece needs to just be clear enough for the person to recall the experience of seeing it displayed , so I think 72 DPI can work . If someone ever asks you why you won’t send an interactive piece printed for a first time viewing, explaining the importance of the experience should help them understand.
I wouldn’t buy a car based on a picture… because you can’t experience first-hand how it was intended to perform.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I think the “less is more” can really engage the viewer/interviewer: they end up wanting to see more of your work and wonder what else you could get up to, given the chance. Great post.