No online identity is complete without some key elements – we round up 10 that you should seriously consider including as part of your portfolio.
You need a strong online presence as a designer, but what should that involve? Although you need to be distinctive and unique, there are some key elements that you must include in order to exist online.
Here we list the 10 critical pieces of your online identity, and explain why they are essential elements of a designer’s web portfolio.
01. Homepage
It may sound obvious but an online portfolio needs a clearly identifiable landing page. What you do with this page is up to you – you can introduce yourself, include examples of your latest work, have a huge logo, introductory video, menu… the options are endless. Squarespace’s portfolio templates give you the ability to tailor your homepage – with the rest of your site – to your needs with ease, meaning your only headache will be deciding what to put in it!
Plus, if you want to freshen up the look of your site, you can seamlessly switch to another Squarespace template and let your design skills do the rest. Even if you’re not particularly handy with code, you can make tweaks to fonts, colours, layout and more to get your portfolio exactly how you want it.
02. Contact details
There is no point in having your best work samples as part of your online presence without telling interested visitors how to get in touch with you. Therefore you require a page that clearly informs them of your contact details – some people put this on the homepage, some put it on every page, but it is still good practice to have a dedicated Contact page.
Different people prefer different methods of contact, so supply a couple of ways that they can do so – and don’t forget social media of course, with Squarespace providing integration for everything from Twitter and Instagram to Tumblr and Dribbble, so interested potential customers can get in touch with you anywhere on the web!
03. Logo
Having an identifier on your portfolio aside from your name is something that you may want to include as part of your online portfolio’s header area. You may have a logo or some form of brand identity such as your signature, but this may not be something that you have previously required or considered.
Squarespace can help if you do not have a logo and would like one, but don’t know where to start. The Squarespace Logo tool is an easy-to-use, browser-based design tool that lets you instantly create a basic logo for your business or project – and it’s free if you’re a Squarespace customer.
As a designer, of course, you are likely to want to create your own logo, and in that case you could use the free logo maker to put up a placeholder logo should you want to get a portfolio online quickly, before you’ve had the chance to design your own logo.
04. Endorsements
Testimonials from your previous clients are incredibly valuable and as such you should ensure that they feature prominently as part of your online identity. Having a page dedicated to client endorsements is one way of doing it, including recommendations in the form of quotes on your homepage is another, but wherever you include them you should make sure that they are visible to visitors and shout about your ability on your behalf.
05. About Me page
One of the most important pages on any portfolio site is the About Me page. Visitors to your site – be that potential clients, customers or interested browsers – not only want to see your work but also want to discover a bit about you – where you’re from, what your qualifications are, what your design philosophy is and how that has come about, and more.
This doesn’t have to be a matter-of-fact resumé, just something that imparts a bit of your story and personality. Be as honest and open as you like, keep it brief or give the visitor your life story – but put your personality on the page!
06. Example work
Okay, so you’ve created your site using Squarespace or another website builder. Now, it’s time to put some examples of your work onto it! Keep your content fresh and regularly updated, and remember to promote it using social media. Your portfolio website will be a presentation of your abilities – think of it as the ultimate client pitch, demonstrating your professionalism and talents.
You should also include some background and a few tantalizing glimpses into your design process. There’s no better way to include this than a blog – you can also keep people up-to-speed with your latest projects, opinions, and anything else of interest. Squarespace portfolio sites come with fully-integrated blog features so visitors don’t even have to leave your site to read about your design process.
07. More example work!
With your physical portfolio, you must trim down your example work to the very cream or it will get very bulky indeed. Not so a website – you can pack in as much as you want, plus add extras like a blog, so why not max out your online portfolio! Don’t include everything – those early pieces of work may seem a little bit naive now – but you can include everything that you think demonstrates your range of abilities.
Uploading all your best work to a website will be aggravating, time-consuming and complicated though, no? Not with Squarespace, thanks to its brilliantly simple drag-and-drop interface, which allows you to organise your images as you upload them to your portfolio. But this simplicity doesn’t mean that your work will be ruined by compression – with Squarespace’s Lightbox image presentation and built-in Aviary image editing, you can easily ensure that the visitors get to view your best work as it was intended.
08. Menu
As outlined above, you should pack your online portfolio with as much as you can – so a well-ordered menu system is crucial. Ensuring that all your work and information be easily accessed is fundamental to any website design, and your online presence is no different. And visitors won’t tell you if they can’t find something, because they’ll simply leave and just won’t return.
If you’ve never set up a website before, organising menu systems could sound a touch intimidating – not so with Squarespace. They have made the task of building a fully-functioning online portfolio – menus and all – just about as simple as you can get, meaning that you can spend more time being creative.
09. Descriptions
Filling your portfolio with images of your work is all well and good, but visitors will want to know a bit about them. However you decide to set up your online portfolio, remember to add a description to each of your images, even if it is just its name and a little description of how it came about. You should also include details of the client that commissioned the work, and drop in links to the clients’ sites too…
10. Links
Linking to existing pieces of work that your clients are currently using further demonstrates your prowess as a professional. Showing that other people are invested in your skills and trust your work can help to reassure new clients or employers that you really are as good as you say you are.
Words: Craig Stewart
Squarespace is a website publishing platform that allows anyone to easily create professional portfolios, pages, blogs, and galleries without touching a line of code. The completely inclusive, all-in-one service provides content management, hosting, domains, social integrations, e-commerce, and 24-hour customer support.