How to make a portfolio as a student: step by step

What a portfolio has to do

A portfolio is not an archive of everything you ever made. It is an argument: this is what I can do, this is how I work, this is the result. Whoever looks at it — an internship supervisor, an exam board, a recruiter — has a few minutes and one question: can this person do the work we need?

Everything you make either makes that question easier or harder to answer.

Step 1 — Select three to six projects

More is not better. Six strong projects convince more than fifteen mixed ones. Choose on these criteria:

• Relevance. Work that resembles what you want to do next. Applying at a branding agency? Your identity projects go first.

• Process. Projects you still have sketches, iterations and decisions of. A beautiful end image without a story says little.

• Range. Show different skills, but never at the expense of the first two points.

• Your own part. Group work is fine, as long as you can say exactly what your role was.

School assignments are perfectly good material. A fictional client is not a problem; an unclear story is.

Step 2 — Work each project out as a case study

This is where most portfolios fall short. A project page with only images leaves the reader guessing. Use the same fixed structure for every project:

1. Brief — what was the question, for whom, with which constraints?

2. Your role — what did you do, and what did others do?

3. Process — research, sketches, iterations, the moments you changed direction.

4. Decisions — why this typography, this colour, this structure? One good reason per decision.

5. Result — the final work, in context (mockup, photo, video, live link).

6. Reflection — what would you do differently now? This separates a student who is growing from a student who is done.

Read the long version in [How to write a case study for your portfolio](/en/guides/how-to-write-a-case-study).

Step 3 — Decide the order

Your strongest project goes first, your second strongest last. The middle can be calmer. First and last impressions stick; what sits between them gets skimmed.

Step 4 — Write a short "about me"

Three to five sentences: who you are, what you make, where you want to go and how someone reaches you. No life story. A good photo helps; a selfie in a badly lit room does not.

Step 5 — Choose where to publish

A PDF is handy for an exam, but a link is easier to share and you can keep updating it. A portfolio site of your own gives you control over order, presentation and address. Compare the options in [Behance, Instagram or your own portfolio site?](/en/guides/behance-instagram-or-your-own-portfolio).

With Folyra you go through step 2 per project in a guided questionnaire, pick one of three design engines and publish at yourname.folyra.nl. The free plan is enough for a first portfolio with three published projects.

Step 6 — Have it read before you share it

Ask someone who does not know your work to look at your portfolio for five minutes and then tell you what you do. If the answer is wrong, that is your to-do list.

Common mistakes

• Showing everything, including the work you do not stand behind yourself.

• Images without text — or text without images.

• "We did…" without saying what you did.

• A portfolio that only works on desktop while the recruiter opens it on a phone.

• An address you cannot remember or pronounce.