On Portfolios

Posted on 25th April, 2005 at 1:19am by joel

There are three new websites in my websites portfolio as of a few hours ago. These three sites are relatively minor, however. Two of them are really mini-sites and it is quite apparent that they use nearly identical templates. The third one was a collaborative effort with John Whittet and his Basseq Technologies. So, all things considered, these three sites are small pieces, but are still sites that I want to include in my portfolio. It wasn’t a fast or easy decision, though. I pondered for a long time whether or not I should add these. In the end, however, I decided that I had to keep them. But should the decision have been that hard?

When it comes to putting together a portfolio, any artist, designer, photographer, etc. has to make difficult choices. Does he want to put everything he ever created in his portfolio to show as large a range of work as possible and to give the impression that he is a popular and good choice for future work? Should she only choose her very favorite pieces to stress the qualitative accomplishments and shine the spotlight on what she perceives to be the best representation of her abilities? Am I served most effectively by a portfolio that balances both quantity and quality?

Before we get into the answers to these questions (though I suspect they’re painfully apparent already), let’s quickly examine the trains of thought behind them. We have the “quantity question,” the “quality question,” and the “balance it out” question. Let’s take them in that order, shall we?

1. Quantity: The BIG Portfolio

When it comes to selling one’s self, every artist wants to show that he or she has a wide range of skills and has been able to successfully land and complete enough jobs to prove his or her experience, skills, and creativity. Conceivably, my portfolio could contain nothing but this very website you’re reading right now. The designs, in my humble opinion, are excellent representations of my creative skills, the code is clean and valid and [mostly] hand-written, and it is being powered by a successful install of WordPress—complete with a few modifications. This site showcases the very best of my abilities. However—and this is plainly obvious—one site (or painting, or brochure, or…) does not a portfolio make.

If I were to add every single website I’ve ever created, I’d have a wonderfully overflowing portfolio of sites. After all, I’ve been working with websites for over five years and have been at Curtis Marketing Group for over four. As I type this, there are seven entries under “websites” in my portfolio. If I included everything I’ve done, that number could nearly triple. I could then convey the message that “I’m a great web designer/developer because I’ve done alllllll of these”. Of course, no one wants to be written off for lack of experience, so the more the better! Let’s add more sites to the portfolio!

2. Quality: The BEST Portfolio

Well, wait just a minute here. Imagine, if you will, Piet Mondrian promoting himself as an abstractionist by including in his portfolio a bad childhood painting of a tree-covered landscape. “That makes no sense,” you say. Precisely. He couldn’t possibly market himself as a specific talent with work examples showing something to the contrary. See, when it comes to web design and development, I’m identifying myself as a “web standards and cool design geek” who values the beauty of code as much as the beauty of the skin. It follows, then, were I to put up the website I created three years ago with Adobe GoLive for a client of questionable aesthetic taste it would be disastrous to that particular selling point.

I don’t want to imply that I am ashamed of the sites that you don’t get to see (though some of them contain some pretty horrendous code and a few are rather ugly). I merely feel as though an artist has every right to pick and choose the pieces he or she shows to the public. No photographer is going to show the four test shots he took of a landscape before getting the exposure and light settings just right. The potter needn’t display her pot that shattered when fired. I’m not going to add websites that were badly coded or sport garishly outdated designs. In fact, there is a very good chance that a few of the sites in the portfolio right now will not be there in 6 months’ time. However, and this leads directly into point 3 below, I’m not going to throw out every piece that isn’t “perfect.” Some projects may represent a philosophical or technical revelation that cannot be ignored, despite putting on a homely face. Personal milestones are as much a part of one’s portfolio as the finished works.

3. Balance: A GOOD Portfolio

So, this leaves us with the following thought: “I want to show enough pieces that people understand my skills and experience and talents, but I only want to show the best pieces I’ve ever created.” That’s really hard to do—unless you’re one of these incredible creative types who are envied by designers world-wide. Those of us who are merely mortal must choose between a stuffed portfolio filled out with mediocre work (hm, a parallel to the music industry?) or a thin portfolio containing only our best pieces.

My very first reaction to this reality was to allow my portfolio (and this goes for more than just the websites section, though that is the current focus) to be heavy on the “crap” for a while until I can upgrade it with better pieces. After further deliberation, the idea that I should only show my best face despite the smaller quantity proved to be a better approach. The benefit of a few extra pieces is far outweighed by the possible adverse effects of poor representations of my abilities. However, that “all perfect-piece portfolio” can suffer from the negative connotations of having very little work to show.

Armed with this understanding, I threw out a bunch of screenshots of old bad sites and kept a few that were on the fence. I also started rounding up pieces for the other subsections of the graphic design portfolio, keeping in mind that I had to show enough artwork to prove my mettle, yet preserve my qualitative reputation. And so, over the course of this next week or two, I will be adding the best brochures, stationery, folders, etc. that I’ve ever created as well as a few so-so pieces. The quantity will not be overwhelming, but it will be respectable and the quality should take care of the rest.

Compromise is a beautiful thing.

Filed under: art, graphic design, portfolio, webdev

5 Responses to “On Portfolios”

1. 1Shawn sayeth:

   25th April, 2005 at 8:50am

   Good choice. I personally think that an employer would rather see a stunning few peices than a larger portfolio that has, for lack of a better word, “downers” in it.
   They’d rather see small experiece with potential than a lot of experience with stagnant design.
   Now, don’t take that the wrong way, I’m not calling your designs stagnant or downers, but just to say that you were right in your decision.
   At least, I think you are.

   BTW – I’m in the green theme right now but could not hit the ‘submit comment’ button in the other theme while using WinFF.

2. 2joel sayeth:

   25th April, 2005 at 11:44am

   Have you ever written something late at night that seems to make perfect sense, but upon rereading in the morning it comes across as a bit jumbled and confused? Me either 😉

   For the most part, I’m still happy with my choice and the train of thought behind it. Unfortunately, I failed to elaborate enough on one of my points. There are times, I feel, when the person putting together a portfolio needs to show pieces that may not be his or her favorite. There are two reasons. First, a design may be technically solid and very successful, but the designer might hate it. Secondly, (and I did touch on this) a project might represent an important milestone or demonstrate a grasp of a new technology.

   See, frankly, I’m not happy with the TopTenQuestions design (it’s ?ºbercheesy in places, especially the text treatment), but the functionality of that site is what is keeping it in my portfolio (for now). I’m afraid that how it stands right now, it might have an adverse effect on my “qualitative reputation” (now that was a gag-inducer of a phrase). Once I get the supporting information written, it’ll work a lot better, though.

   Speaking of hurting my “qualitative reputation,” that green theme is severely lacking in several areas. I’d better get to work on that CSS tonight. I’ll also look into the Submit Comment button. You said you can’t click it on the blue/black theme? That’s odd.

3. 3joelschou.com v3.0 › journal › Revisionist’s History sayeth:

   25th April, 2005 at 7:49pm

   […] apri tate small text large text journal « On Portfolios • Revisionist’s History Posted on 25th Ap […]

4. 4joel sayeth:

   25th April, 2005 at 7:54pm

   Whoa, cool. I just pinged myself 🙂 Now, I have to figure out how to make the pingback excerpt not contain all that crap from the #head DIV.

5. 5John Pennypacker sayeth:

   26th April, 2005 at 7:59am

   Quality before quantity. I think there’s a call for a minimum number of pieces though, but you’ve got it. I also see that topten is at the bottom of the list, and looks to me like foreshadowing.