I am so glad you're so honest in your reviews! Please make more of those series, I will be building portfolio soon, and this content is just pure gold for me. Thanks for your high efforts! 🤗
Hey, thanks! I am really glad my content is helpful. I plan to create more videos around creating a portfolio, because I see that it is a big issue for junior-mid designers. Honestly, it is a struggle for senior designers as well :D
Was not aware of this. Thanks for sharing this. Even though that makes sense, I would consider putting user above the bots and make sure user finds it easy. Any extra step that you put in front of the user is extra reason for them to leave your site. I have seen users leave sites for less than that. Every detail matters.
You really tried to work around just saying "plain ugly" in the first case. But it exactly what it is. Going against design principles for no reason will not get anyone the good kind of attention. There is a great spectrum of subjective preferences (colors, shapes, fonts, old/modern/corporate styles, etc), but most of the design work requires a lot of discipline and complying with rules, and the first portfolio fails exactly at that, the objective part. And when you fail at the basis, very few people will make the leap to actually spend more time with your design. You just scare off most.
It is very tricky to create a portfolio that is somehow unique to you while also checking all the boxes. You want to appear professional, trustworthy etc while also keeping some of your perspective and personality. Made a lot of mistakes myself. The only way to get it right is to test it. Ask your potential clients or someone from the target audience share their view of what they are looking for. That can be very eye opening.
Also, I try to avoid words like "ugly" or "beutiful". It would only represent my personal taste, and the goal of a portfolio is to appeal to a wider target audience. As you said, it is much more useful to focus on the core of your work, making it follow the best practices.
