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Let’s get started!
One of the questions I get on Instagram quite often is: When is the best time to create your portfolio as a designer? Or when is the right time to create your case studies of the projects you've done with how busy you are.
In the last episode, we talked about the imposter syndrome and how many creatives undervalue their work. Or they simply wait for the perfect moment to do something. The answer was very simple:
- Learn that leaving things 6 out of 10 is more than enough.
- Perfectionism kills dreams.
Given the answers we have already given, today's question is: When is the best time for a designer to create a portfolio? Or, once a portfolio has been created, when is the best time to create case studies? The answer is simple:
- As soon as possible.
As a designer, I know you're waiting to publish your portfolio when it's super nice, super well thought out, super well structured, with all the final text, etc.
It's good that you wait until everything is ready to publish your portfolio, but you can't do it in black and white. You can prepare an MVP and think, how can I publish things now without having to wait for everything to be perfect?
Why am I telling you this? I've been preparing my website for months, a good portfolio, with my works, several sections, etc. Everything a portfolio website is supposed to have.
The thing is, I'm not going to hide everything I know from the public just because I'm waiting for the perfect website. So I said, I'm going to create a very simple version of what I want to do. A version that acts like a dashboard and is a quick access to everything, most quick access sites have links to other sites, but at least I already have an all in one site that my clients can go to.
Why? Because you never know who is going to look at your wallet. Because you never know who is going to look at your portfolio. I have my website even with the webflow domain still. But what does it matter? The website looks, works and does its job, right? So I'll make sure what I have is well built and improve it from there. I'll buy the domain, make custom sections, etc. (while I work on the final version of the website).
How can we conclude all this:
You never know who and when may be looking at your portfolio.
Don't wait to publish it only at the right time because as you effectively don't know who and when they might be looking at your portfolio, all this time that your website will not be published, you are losing potential customers.
Even if you finish your perfect website, after a few weeks you will want to make some changes. And it won't be perfect either. It will never be perfect.
From a big, ambitious project, cut it into chunks and prepare a very simple MVP. That is, what is the smallest/simplified and most useful viable version to bring to market. Don't build a car to get around, start with a bike and then build the car (as long as the bike allows you to get around).
Well, the answer to the portfolio is now clear - what about doing a case study? Should I focus on my work and wait until I have time to do the case study?
Case studies are a reflection of what you are good at, because they reflect your creative process, where you document the steps you have taken to solve certain situations. That's what a client values most. It's the most important thing you have.
In an ideal world, I would tell you to try to do it as soon as possible.
In a more realistic world (and I say this among designers): I know you have little time, but make sure you have at least 2 good case studies in your portfolio, and the rest you will do little by little, but at least have 2 that you can show to the planet.
Oh another thing, that "little by little you will do it", you have to take it seriously, and little by little every weekend or a little bit every month, you will make progress.
If you need a bit of inspiration or a guide on how to document a case study, making sure you don't miss anything, you can check out the template I made based on a real project. Several of my students already have it and got the jobs they wanted. The steps are simple, but you need to be clear about them:
With this you will be fine.
Cheers, Jordi Espinosa.