What we’ve learned reviewing 100’s of design portfolios

I have reviewed 100’s of portfolios from all kinds of designers around the world from coaching & mentoring creatives over 20+ years. Here are our top 5 tips for building a design portfolio that will succeed:

1. Tailor your portfolio to the client or market

Before you get started pitching to lots of different companies, take a pause & think for a minute about whether they would be right for your style of work. Not every company will be the right fit will they?

This is where spending some time researching comes in.

Before sending anything out you will need to make decisions on the kinds of products, markets & audiences your work would be the best fit for.

Now that you have narrowed down exactly who you want to pitch to, it’s time to start tailoring your portfolio to these individual companies.

For example, if your archive of work is full of stand-alone illustrations, sending your portfolio to a wallpaper or fabric company wouldn’t be a good fit. In this case greetings & stationery would be more in line with what you are looking for.

If you want to work with a client that favours more painterly style artists, showing a portfolio of graphic styles won’t be received well.

Less really is more & we highly encourage you to show your strongest work & not be tempted to show everything you have.

2. Show don’t tell

We fully subscribe to the idea of creating the work you want to attract. We know a lot of creatives hold back from sending out their portfolios as they feel they aren’t ready without actual product examples to show. We want to alleviate those worries as we can always get around this in many ways by:

Creating digital mock ups of your designs on the relevant products (see our previous article on the best places to find free mock-ups)
Printing out your design at home using a template & making a mock product (gift wrap is an easy one to try)

If budget allows:

Using a local printer or manufacturer to create some sample pieces that you can photograph at home
Using print on demand sites & ordering samples that you can photograph

3. Trends vs self-led vs evergreen design

This is one of our most asked questions from coaching clients, do we design to trends, do we design with self-led ideas or do we design for themes that are always in demand?

Unfortunately the answer for the best, most established portfolio, is all three. But we do recommend in moderation.

Spending time designing spontaneously or with self-led briefs is one of Rachael’s most used pieces of advice. It’s only during this experimentation time that you will truly discover your personal style, what you do & don’t like & what you are capable of.

Trends, as important as they can be, aren’t always going to be the best fit for your style. Some are flash trends that are gone by the time you put pen to paper or stylus to pad. Some come back around each year. Some will be predicted ahead of time. Designing to trends involves a lot of time spent researching & getting familiar with the terminology & learning to recognise patterns. We always do our best to share the top trends we discover to make it a little easier for you. Check out our article on the top trending colours of 2026 & be sure to subscribe for when we write about them next.

If you are just starting out, & only have the time to focus on one thing for now, we highly recommend establishing your portfolio of evergreen designs. This means designs that are needed every year such as for seasons (spring, summer, autumn/fall, winter), or holidays (Valentines, Christmas, Halloween) or events (sports, festivals). Companies will be looking for new talent every year for these themes but it is very important to understand lead times & that these companies are looking at least a year ahead if not more. At the time of writing it is summer, so they will most likely be looking for summer, autumn/fall designs for next year not this year.

4. Website or pdf?

Websites are useful for helping you establish your online presence & reputation, & are a great solution for putting everything you do all in one place. We highly recommend investing some time & research into SEO.

Pdfs however are what will get you interviews & replies. As we’ve discussed your portfolio should be tailored for each company or client you reach out to, & the more curated they are, the more they can get straight to what they need. The easier & faster they can find what they need, the more time & inclination they have to get back to you.

This is why we would advise having both!

5. Format is key

The format of whatever you choose to present is so important. This includes:

Legibility – e.g. choosing fonts that is easy to read (sounds simple, but more decorative fonts are used more often than you think!)
Navigation – e.g. for a website think about the click through journey to get to where a client needs to go or in a pdf you can add hyperlinks to the contents page to navigate to specific pages
Functionality – e.g. what is the purpose of this page on your website or in your pdf? What do you want the client or company to do?

As much as we know it can be tempting to go all out with the presentation style, we would advise keeping any layout clean, just in a way that still represents your personal style & brand. This way your work can speak for itself, rather than the presentation being too busy & fighting against it.

We hope these tips have been helpful to you as you build a spectacular portfolio. Comment below with your favourite. Which will you be taking action on right now?

Looking for more direct 1:1 support for building your design portfolio?

Discover our award-winning online Creative Coaching Sessions. Work directly with Rachael, an award-winning Print & Pattern Designer & Creative Director, supported by Kelly, Studio Manager & Multidisciplinary Designer, to gain clarity, direction & momentum in your creative career.

Receive tailored insights in our Individual Portfolio Review service. Benefit from our expert knowledge & support as we deep dive into your portfolio & help you attract those dream clients.

Explore the soulful career strategy ebooks made to help you build a sustainable creative career. We highly recommend How To Build A Digital Design Portfolio That Gets You Hired for this topic.