one of these graphic design how-to videos,

but it is the new year, and some of you guys

may have resolved to make a portfolio website

for yourselves, or you may be applying to college

or to jobs and really need to get it sorted out.

So, I thought I might give you a couple tips.

Here are a few ideas on how to present

your portfolio website in the best way possible.

The number one tip that I can give you

is context, context, context.

I was talking to someone who was applying for jobs,

and I looked at her website, and it had really nice pictures

of her projects, but no information about

what the projects were actually about.

So let's say you're including this T-shirt design,

and you only upload this picture with no other information.

I mean, it's a nice design, but I know nothing about it.

Was it a school project, a commission?

Were there any restrictions?

Could you only use a certain number of colors?

How many revisions did you go through?

Is it part of a series?

But then, let's say that you uploaded all of these photos,

and explained that it was a self-motivated design

that you sketched out a year ago and finally produced,

and then somehow it became

your best-selling merchandise item.

For every single project that you post,

your audience cannot judge your ability to solve the problem

if they don't know what the problem was to begin with.

There might be some projects where you have a ton to say

and you don't necessarily want

a crowded portfolio page with tons of text.

In that case, I suggest you keep a blog

where you can ramble off about your projects

as much as you like.

And then, also, have a separate portfolio page

with a one- or two-sentence description

that links to the blog post for more information.

Along the same lines, put together a substantial About page.

This is your chance to really show off your personality,

so include a picture or even a video, if you're a YouTuber.

Keep it casual.

Don't just rewrite your resume in paragraph form.

If you're looking for a job,

plainly state what your goals are,

where you're located, your e-mail address,

and a link to your resume.

If you're active on Twitter and Tumblr and Instagram,

include links to those, because employers love to see

that you know how to use social media.

However, I would advise against including your phone number.

Think it through.

Why does anyone really need it, in this day and age?

E-mail is so much more convenient, because you can reply

to it on your own time, and if it's someone

you don't want to talk to, you're not forced

to be sitting there on the phone with them.

If you need to give someone your phone number

after talking over e-mail a couple times,

it's totally fine, but no one really needs it up front.

Overall, though, the main thing to keep in mind is,

"If I didn't know me, and I was looking at this site

"for the first time, would I hire me?" slash

accept into college, slash whatever your situation is.

"Do I get a complete picture of who this person is

"and what their skills are?"

If not, you may have a little bit more work to do

fleshing out all of the details that you want to share.

Okay, so when it comes to the actual navigation

of your site, don't get too fancy.

Keep it simple.

The design of your site is basically

another portfolio piece, and you wanna make it easy

for people to find your work.

Don't make your visitors chase the navigation

around the screen or make it a code that you have to break

before you're allowed to enter the site.

Just keep it simple.

As for the portfolio page, there is nothing that I hate more

than having to click a tiny little thumbnail to see

the whole piece for every single photo that's on the site.

And yes, that is a screenshot

of my own website from years ago.

Don't make the same mistakes that I did.

Instead, I suggest what is currently on my own site,

obviously, which is just one big long page

of large images that you just have to scroll through

so that you don't even have to click on anything.

But, if you don't like that approach, that's totally fine.

You do you, just make it easy for people to find your work.

So when it comes to actually creating your website,

we're all designers here.

We're not necessarily the best at code.

There is no shame in having somebody else code your website.

My current website, I paid one of my friends to code,

and he did a great job and did it in way less time

than it would have taken me.

I just gave him detailed PSDs for every single page

that was on the site, and even though it was

a pretty simple WordPress-based design,

I consider that money so well-spent,

because I avoided so much frustration

if I had tried to just do it myself.

If you don't have any friends who know how to code,

there's this site called PSD2HTML, which Hankering uses

all the time, they do really good work.

But, if you don't have a lot of money to spend,

or you just don't want to design a custom layout,

there are plenty of template sites out there

where you just upload your images,

and then, you're done.

I have personally never used any of these sites,

but I asked on Twitter which ones you guys use,

and these were your suggestions.

First is BehanceProSite, which seemed really easy to use,

and the results are just beautiful.

Plus, they let you build your site without paying anything,

so it's easy to see if it works for you and your work

before handing over any money.

Carbonmade is also a great one,

and their website is so cute.

Their sites are a little more simple,

but maybe your work is really complex

and you don't want it competing with other things

on the screen, so simple can be really good.

If you don't have a lot of work to upload,

you can get your side for free.

But, if you want the more robust package,

it comes to 12 dollars a month.

SQUARESPACE is another good one,

and they have a lot of really

professional-looking templates to choose from.

They are either eight dollars or 16 dollars a month,

depending on how much storage space

and how many pages you need.

Or, if you want to stick with something

you're already familiar with, apparently deviantART

also does portfolio hosting, and they have

both free and paid options.

Or, you could just set up a new Tumblr to use

as your portfolio.

I'll link to a blog post down below

all about really professional-looking Tumblr themes

that you can use specifically to make a portfolio site.

So I know you're going to ask, but I cannot tell you,

objectively, which site's the best since, number one,

I have never used any of them personally,

and number two, they all have their pros and their cons.

So you guys just have to do your own research

and figure out which one is the best one for you.

So, I hope that helped you guys out, at least a little bit.

I'll link to everything that I just talked about

down in the description, including my own portfolio site

which, I know, isn't perfect.

I haven't updated the portfolio pages in forever.

My blog is really disorganized.

But I am not currently job hunting,

so it's not at the top of my priority list.

So, let me know in the comments if you have any questions

or if you have any more suggestions

for templated portfolio sites

that you can suggest to all of us.

If you're new here, I have made plenty of videos

like this throughout the years, all about designing

resumes, business cards, YouTube thumbnails, logos.

You can watch all of those videos in a playlist right here.

Or, if you are done with boring design talk,

and you just wanna make something,

I put up a video last week about three DIY projects

you can make with old business cards.

You can watch that video right here.

Oh, and if you're applying to art school right now,

I've made a lot of videos about art school over the years.

You can watch all of those videos in a playlist right here.

So, thank you guys so much for watching.

Don't forget to hit Like and Subscribe,

and I will see you all next time.