Crafting a Great Portfolio
Portfolio’s are so important to a freelancer, and we’ve had a few great articles on the ‘Switch covering them like Portfolio Zen and Build a Killer Online Portfolio. Recently Digital-Web Magazine asked me to write a piece on portfolios for their site and it’s been put up now on the site.
It’s called Creating the Perfect Portfolio and here’s a quick extract:
A web portfolio represents a wonderful marketing tool; whether you meet a lead and refer them to your site, or they simply find you through Google, your site needs to seal the deal and win you the job. To frame your portfolio to a freelance lead, once again you need to ask yourself: what does this type of person want to see?
… A typical lead may be uncertain—unless they have a referral, they are looking at you out of the blue. Moreover, they may not even be sure of what they need beyond a vague idea that they “need a website”. And, of course, just like those potential employers a business lead is short on time. So how do we address these concerns?
The article deals with both freelancers and career portfolios, and hopefully you all find it useful! Read the Article
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Good article …I will certainly take tips from it.
Thanks for contributing a great article to Digital Web, Collis – and if any other FSw readers or contributors would like to write for us, I’d love to hear from you!
Matthew Pennell
Editor in Chief
Digital Web Magazine
pros and cons of online vs document portfolio?
i do a lot of sketching and ‘thinking on paper’ that needs explaining in my portfolio and so I like having a PDF that can be downloaded from my website.
also found it easier to manage.
Thank you very much Collis for the article.
I am looking for changing my portfolio into a better one and this article will come in handy.
Constantin
Thanks for the tips! It really helps a lot.
Keep Rocking!
Aloke Pillai
@ Collis—-The article was great except for the part where you talk about telling clients “Who else have you worked with?” or for us to “Provide testimonials”. I mean that’s all well and good if you have experience, but how does this work if your a new freelancer and you’ve never worked with clients before and your armed with nothing but mockups to show people what you can do?
This for the tips! Will – starting out I recommend building a website for just about anyone who needs one to get your feet wet. I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning but my clients were small, weren’t paying much and really needed a website. I got the experience, and they got the website so it ended up working out for both of us.
@Bonnie—-Thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it.