If you are a UX/UI Designer, you need a place to keep track of the work you’ve done, and you want to be able to share that work with hiring teams and other designers. The way to do that is through an online portfolio and possibly a website.
Getting Started
There are many portfolio and website building programs geared toward designers and artists. Which you choose depends upon what you want to do. If you are interviewing for jobs, a digital portfolio is a must, but that might be all you need. If you are looking for freelance work, a website lets you have a portfolio and other necessary information. You can also communicate with clients easily and have a web store if you sell your work. And besides portfolios and websites, establishing a social media presence can help you increase your network and build a brand.
Social Media Spaces
The top social media platforms to establish a presence for your design work are Instagram, Dribbble, and Behance. These sites allow you to post your designs plus other interests and to share these images with anyone, for the most part. Instagram is the most general and is useful for building a brand, while Behance and Dribbble are more design-oriented.
Instagram is one of the most popular social media communities in the world with over a billion users every month. This makes it a great place to display your style, connect with other designers, and interact with people. It is completely free and very easy to use. Create a bio that introduces you and what you do and also pay attention to hashtags. Create some unique hashtags that identify you and then use some trending hashtags to popularize your account.
Dribbble
Dribbble is another community but one that is specific to designers and artists. You can get a free account on Dribbble but to use all of its features, you need an invitation from someone who is already a member. You can explore other designers’ work, search for jobs, sell your work, and network with other designers. Dribbble Pro is $5 a month and Pro Business for freelancers and agencies is $15 per month. If you pay the monthly fee, you don’t need an invitation.
Behance and Adobe Portfolio
In 2013, Adobe purchased the social media network Behance. At that time, the professional version of Behance was discontinued. This can be confusing to new designers building their first portfolios because Behance is easy to use and you can create a portfolio for free, but if you want a dedicated URL to give to prospective employers, you will have to upgrade to Adobe Portfolio. Portfolio is included with a Creative Cloud subscription, so if you are using any other Adobe products, like XD or Photoshop, you won’t have to pay to create your site. Portfolio has many more features than Behance and is a good choice for design portfolios because it is easy to use, customizable, and displays photos and videos well.
Free and Easy-to-Use Website and Portfolio Builders
If you want to create a portfolio for free, there are many options. One benefit of going this route is that you don’t need to do any coding. A downside is that you won’t have a dedicated website name, rather something like www.yourname.weebly.com, but that is not that important to recruiters. Another point about these is that the free option is not nearly as powerful as the paid options, but it will get you started and you can upgrade later after you begin to get paid design work.
Wix
Wix is well-established and has been around since 2006. With the free version of Wix, you can create a portfolio and a blog, but if you want to sell your work through an online store, you will need to upgrade to the paid version, of which there are many to choose from. They start at $14 a month and go up to Business VIP for $49 a month.
Weebly
Weebly is very easy to use. You trade off some features for ease of use, but if your goal is to get a portfolio up quickly and do it for free, Weebly is a good choice. Weebly has a more structured editor than Wix, meaning that in Weebly you can only drag and drop items into columns and rows, but that is fine with many people. If you are looking for more creative scope, go with Wix. It has an unstructured editor.
Cargo
Cargo bills itself as a website builder built by artists for artists. Started in 2005, Cargo lets you have a blog, a magazine, and an online store in addition to a portfolio. You can get started for free and use various templates to organize your work. The cost for a standard site is $99 per year or $13 a month, and an ecommerce site is an extra $66 per year or $9 per month (but there are no transaction fees).
Pixpa
Pixpa gives you many options for displaying your images and does a good job of balancing text with images. It’s easy to drag and drop images to set up your portfolio and it is easy to share your work with others. Pixpa has a 15-day free trial and you can choose plans from $3 a month to $10 a month for an expert level account. Pixpa makes it easy to sell your work, too.
Some Programming Helpful
While it is not absolutely necessary, if you can do some programming, you can create a fantastic website with either Worpress or Squarespace. These are what are known as “software as a service” or SaaS website builders. For a monthly fee, they will host your website, provide storage, and offer many templates, plugins, and features for creating and maintaining your website.
WordPress
If you are comfortable with some coding and want a lot of creative options, building a WordPress website will fit the bill. Not only is WordPress a powerful website builder, it has a worldwide community of coders, designers, writers, and other creators who get together at Word Camps (many virtually) to share ideas and techniques. WordPress has a free version with ads, but most people choose one of the paid levels that go from $4 a month for a personal site to $45 a month for ecommerce, billed annually.
Squarespace
Squarespace is also a SaaS website builder, but you can create a very nice site without doing any coding. It is easy to optimize your site for laptops, tablets, and phones, and you can edit from a mobile app. After a two-week free trial, you can sign up for a plan ranging from $12 a month through $40 a month.
And Then There’s Google Docs
While Google Docs is neither a portfolio nor a website builder, it can be useful to UX/UI Designers and other creators. One of the issues with digital portfolios and websites is that they can be difficult to customize quickly. Sometimes you need to tweak your portfolio to highlight your abilities for a particular job application, and if you have your case studies in a Google Docs folder, it is easy to put together a more specific portfolio in a pinch. Google Docs is, of course, free and can be used from any device anywhere. You can even use files offline if you want.
Learn UX Design
If you are new to UX design and thinking of switching careers, one of the best ways to collect material for a portfolio is to sign up for classes. Bootcamps and certificate programs are intensive training courses that run from a few weeks to a few months. Not only will you learn about all aspects of UX/UI design, but you will also leave class with a professional-quality design portfolio that you can show to prospective employers. You can choose classes that meet in-person or online to learn design software and other applications. Some people prefer to attend brick-and-mortar sessions when learning new information, but that isn’t always available. Live online classes have a similar set-up with a real-time, remote instructor who can answer questions and take control of your monitor—with permission—to show you how to do things. Training is part or full-time and available weekdays, weeknights, or weekends to meet anyone’s scheduling needs.
It’s easy to learn UX design and start a new career. Check out Noble Desktop’s UX design classes. Choose between in-person sessions in NYC at Noble’s location or sign up for live online UX design courses and attend from anywhere. Use Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me to find other UX design bootcamps in your area.