“A really well curated deck will have the impact you want”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question:

“Lets be real, building a portfolio website is convenient but having to pay regularly for the website to seem ‘professional’ without the watermark of the website on which the portfolio was made, is quite expensive. Especially if you're just starting out and trying to get into the creative industry. And plus, does it even matter? Maybe how the website is designed does, but does the mark above your portfolio telling you its an unpaid website really set the design studio I’m applying to off?

I’m a graphic designer just starting out in the industry, struggling to get recognised and I sometimes wonder if it’s because of my unpaid website. I believe in my work, and I know that the industry is hard to get into, but if such a trivial thing might be an actual reason, I would want to know. I see my peers have the paid version of websites, and they’ve recommended me to do it as well, it’s even been recommended by recruiters.

Does paying for a website really matter over the work that’s actually in the portfolio?

Katie Cadwell, co-founder of branding studio Lucky Dip and The NDA Podcast:

You’re right, it shouldn’t matter. There are lots of subconscious cues that creatives pick up on when looking at applicants – things like spelling or grammar in your project descriptions, or how up-to-date your mockups are. So it’s possible that the badge might be one of those cues. But honestly, I doubt very much that is enough to put off potential employers.

Ultimately, where your portfolio is hosted is less important than your portfolio itself. It should demonstrate your thinking, give a clear description of the brief, celebrate your ideas (and of course, have some beautiful visuals!)

This doesn’t need to be a website. Cloud based programmes are brilliant as you can use videos, there are no file size limits or heavy downloads in someone’s inbox. Just a handy link. Figma/Google slides are great free options. A click-through portfolio gives you control over how someone views your work, and allows you to tell a story. You lose that control on a website.

A really well curated deck will have the impact you want. I’d suggest building a new portfolio in one of those formats and heading to some reviews. There’s nothing more valuable than other creatives looking over your work. Practicing how to talk through it, making sure it’s easy to understand the brief and your solution. Creative Lives In Progress hosts portfolio reviews, and has a very handy guide on where to start creating your book.

If you’re looking for an alternative public portfolio, you could try creating a designated Instagram page for your work. That’s a free way of building your online presence — more often than not, if you Google your favourite creatives, their Instagram page is the top result. This allows you to send your page over to studios and they can get an instant idea of who you are as a designer. Then you can follow up with your full portfolio to blow them away.

I hope you find the right role for you.

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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