What do clients expect from a web designer's online portfolio

Community
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Hi Guys

Just wanted to direct this question to all web designers out there, I am currently working on a web design portfolio at the moment which I see as a demonstration of my current design and interface capabailities , all of the work that I am showcasing will be screenshots of all my submissions for clients I have worked for on 99 designs. None of those submissions were picked as the winner unfortunalty but I’m still going to use them as portfolio pieces anyway.

What I wanted to ask is, do you think it matters that these will be just static screenshots of each client project without the option to view the live working demo? It’s just that to be honest I don’t have time or the skillset to build live working demos of each of these designs, right now I just want to wrap all these images up in an online portfolio and get it out there for employers to see and use a means to get job interviews.

Have any of you guys landed design jobs just by showing static screenshots of your work and not the live working versions in your portfolio?

Regards
Consecca

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That is a terrific question. Does it matter?

Well, since places like themeforest and other similar sites got us used to the live preview, yes, I would say it matters.

And it matters because the boundaries between “designer” and “coder” are being blended bit by bit.

So the next question would be… Is it essential? No, it isn’t.

At least no if you’re open and honest about it. Your forte is design, not coding.

I would suggest that you do explain the goals of each request and why your design satisfied that goal and even went the extra mile to do so.

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Thanks for your response Molona, I was fearing an overwelming response that would suggest it’s essential to have live previews of your work. Which would of made me question the strategy’s I was using up until now, (that I outlined above) to fill my portfolio with work and weather or not I would have any hope of landing a web design job.

It’s not that I don’t know a lick of css or html, I have picked up lots from books and tutorials, but I just don’t feel confident right now to code complete working versions of all my designs, make them responsive AND test them in all browers, that is a ton of work to do if you times that process by 6-8 projects! and as there not going to be used in the real world I don’t see the point really. if I did go down this path I’d probably still be working on my first project 4 months after I started it, where as just by doing the design part I am already working on project #4 and my goal is to do 6 so that makes me feel good in that I can see the finishing line on the horizon.

I hope you and all the other readers can see my point here in that I want to get this wrapped up in a reasonable amount of time so that I can get something out there to show the world. A portfolio is a means to an end after all it’s not supposed to become a lifetime project.

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I don’t have personal experience with this, but my question would be what type of jobs are you applying for? If they are straight design jobs then statics should be just fine. If you are applying for front end dev jobs, then as a prospective employer I would expect to see some level of functionality.

Best of luck finding something. :slight_smile:

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Well, it is a lot of work but it is much less if you use a framework which is what most of us do. Also, this is something that you may want to start doing from now onwards :slight_smile: