Graphic Design Pdf Portfolio Layouts

Putting together a kick-ass graphic design portfolio isn’t just something you need to worry about when you’re a student. You need to think about maintaining, improving and evolving your portfolio throughout yourgraphic design career.

The main strength of this graphic design portfolio template is its organization. The sections are well separated, the large numbers are helpful, and the bold typography enhances the efficient structure. The Multi-Page Simple Portfolio Layout Capture your true professional essence with the help of this simple portfolio. If you want to create a high-quality brochure-style piece showcasing your best graphic design work, create a single PDF. We use software programs from Adobe such as Photoshop, InDesign, Stock, and Acrobat Pro to create and export a design as a high-quality, high-resolution PDF that can be emailed to anyone you want to demonstrate your work to.

We all know a winning portfolio is vital when you’re going for a new job. But that’s not all. You might be called in at a moment’s notice to chat with your art director to discuss a promotion opportunity or a hot new project you didn’t even know about. And you don’t want to be caught short by a graphic design portfolio that’s not all it could be.

Graphic Design Portfolio Pdf Template. Page Free Graphic Design Resource Portfolio Pdf Template Download. Use it to present your photos products. Graphic Design PDF Layout of Portfolio on Behance (Bill Griffin) In our all-inclusive collection of the best website templates for portfolios you will find such for personal Glint is a modern.
GRAPHIC DESIGN PORTFOLIO Welcome to Lagrafica This portfolio is a collection of five years worth of design work including branding, literature design, packaging design, design for the web, illustration and exhibition graphics. Lagrafica is the ultimate in fine design. Brimming with passion and bursting with.

If you’re looking to get your portfolio to the next level, then below you’ll find a selection of 35 graphic design portfolio websites to inspire you, curated by our team at Shillington. We also offer our very best graphic design portfolio tips to help you raise your portfolio and make it your best tool for career success.

List of graphic design portfolio examples

1. Kate Moross

2. Lotta Nieminen

3. Maria Vazquez

4. Mike Kus

5. Jessica Walsh

6. Shanti Sparrow

7. Jonathan Barnbrook

8. Lauren Hom

9. Juliette van Rhyn

10. Malika Favre

11. Craig Black

12. Hattie Stewart

13. Mr. Bingo

14. Dutch Uncle

15. Anthony Burrill

16. Lisa Maltby

17. Sam Hewa

18. Mike Perry

19. Anton + Irene

20. Gavin Strange

21. Tobias Van Schneider

22. Studio Chen Chen

23. Unspoken Agreement

24. Pawel Nolbert

25. Magda Ksiezak

26. Xavier Cussó

27. Leslie David

28. Snask

29. Carmijn Dura

30. Marleigh Culver

31. Yul Moreau

32. Olly Gibbs

33. Leta Sobierasjski

34. Indre Klimaite

35. Sylvan Hillebrand

Tips for putting together a great graphic design portfolio

Inspired by these amazing graphic design portfolio examples, and ready to start improving your current portfolio? Well, follow these expert graphic design portfolio tips, and you shouldn’t go far wrong…

1. Let go of lesser work

When you’ve put a lot of time, effort and emotional energy into a particular project, you naturally want to show it off to people and include it in your graphic design portfolio. But if you want your portfolio to be the best it can be, it needs to be ruthlessly edited. And that means being tough with yourself about only including the very best work.

There’s no hard and fast rule about how many pieces to include, but remember that you can’t predict what people will dive into, and so your reputation is only as good as your last good piece. More reason, then, to ditch the weaker pieces, and only include the work you can be truly proud of. Since you have a short amount of time to grab the art director’s attention, ideally, you should include 10-12 top quality pieces that highlight your best work to make the most impact.

As Shanti Sparrow, head of teaching at Shillington New York points out:

You are only as good as your worst project, so you must learn to edit and let go. By including projects of varying quality, an employer may think you are inconsistent. Ask a peer or mentor to honestly critique your work and either ‘improve or remove’ the problem areas.

2. Include the kind of work you want more of

There’s a qualification to the idea that you should only include your best work. Even if a particular project is brilliantly worthy, it’s still worth considering leaving it out if it’s the kind of work you want to move away from in the future.

Clare Terry, director of Shillington Australia, puts it bluntly. “Like attracts like, so ask yourself: does your folio reflect the work you’d like to attract? If not, add more of those clients and projects in.”

For example, if you’ve done a lot of digital design projects, but you want your next job or freelance gig to be focused on print design, then you need to tailor your design profile accordingly. People are not mind-readers, and you have to tailor your brand visually, just as you would a brand you were working for.

As Jimmy Muldoon, teacher at Shillington New York, points out:

Does your portfolio reflect who you are today? As people and designers, we’re constantly evolving. Make sure your portfolio authentically represents who you are now.

3. Showcase your personality

Pdf Portfolio Layouts

It’s one of those annoying pieces of advice that’s easy to dish out, much more difficult to do. But in reality, numerous employees have told us they want to see “some of your personality” come through in your portfolio.

Don’t go over the top with this: it’s the kind of thing that can backfire if done casually or thoughtlessly. But it’s worth considering if there’s any way you can show a little of who you are through your portfolio, whether that’s through the work you curate, your personal branding, the way you present it, the copy you write, or any other method.

4. It doesn’t have to just be client work

When you’re still a student on agraphic design course, it can be tricky to find enough work to fill a portfolio, and tutors will usually advise you to generate other design work outside of normal client relationships, including side projects, pro bono work and competition entries.

And in principle that doesn’t stop when you finish your course, either. Later in your career, even when you’ve had years of experience in a design studio, you may still find these approaches useful in making your portfolio better. Especially when it comes to highlighting the kind of work you want to do in future, which your current employer may be preventing you from doing.

5. Focus on the process, not just the finished work

The biggest mistake many graphic designers make with their portfolios is only showing the finished work. That’s frustrating for many potential clients and employers, who typically want to know things like who else was working on the project, what your contribution was, what the brief was, what the challenges were in fulfilling it, and how you went about overcoming them.

Very little of what can be seen in one glossy final image, so make sure there’s extra content that shows the process you went through to get there, including sketches, screenshots and other works-in-progress where appropriate.

Designer and illustrator Jane Bowyer stresses that not every project you include needs to have been a success from start to finish:

Don’t be afraid to discuss where things went wrong with a piece of work, but consider talking about what you learned from the experience, rather than focusing on the negative.

6. Think about formats

Nowadays, a portfolio typically appears in the form of a web page or series of web pages. But there may be times when that isn’t the best solution.

For example, you might be having an interview or meeting in a place with no Wi-Fi and where mobile internet is choppy or non-existent. So it’s always good if you can put together a PDF portfolio that you can store on your laptop or tablet, and put on a USB stick in case the other party wants to have a look through too.

Also, while a physical, printed portfolio is no longer expected by most, it certainly won’t harm your prospects to produce one, and may well help endear you to the other party, who’ll appreciate you going the extra mile.

It’s also useful to have a presence on an online creative platform like Dribbble or Behance—but don’t spread yourself too thin; only commit to one of these if you can devote enough time to do one well. An outdated profile is only going to worsen your chances of consideration.

Employers will also be expecting you to have some kind of social media presence, too. Again, focus on one or two platforms you can consistently maintain, rather than trying to populate all of them. But it’s important to have a design-specific account that’s separate from your friends and family images.

7. Check your spelling

While a graphic design portfolio is primarily about visuals, don’t think that words aren’t important. When people spot a spelling mistake in your work, it’s usually taken as a sign of sloppiness, laziness or a don’t care attitude.

That might seem unfair: after all, everyone lets a typo slip once in a while; if they claim they don’t, they’re simply lying. But harsh judgements like that are simply the world we live in, so it’s vital that you double- and triple-check every word you write, and then get others to do so too (as they will inevitably spot something you’ve missed).

8. Ask for critiques

Of course, spelling mistakes aren’t the only reason to show other people your portfolio. One of the most straightforward and reliable ways to improve a graphic design portfolio overall is to get it critiqued by others, whether that’s a colleague, your creative director, a tutor or even just a friend in a related profession, such as the media.

Not everyone does this because quite frankly no one likes to be told that the thing they’ve poured their heart and soul into isn’t perfect. But isn’t it better to be told that by someone who doesn’t have a big influence over your future, and rather than finding out when it’s far too late?

9. Practice talking through your portfolio

However awesome your portfolio is, if you just walk into an interviewer’s office, show it to them, and sit back waiting to be praised, you’ll probably be waiting a long time. In reality, you must walk them through it, step by step, explaining what they should be looking at and why it’s relevant.

Again, this is something that’s best practised beforehand, so you don’t stumble over your words or get lost halfway through. We’ve all done that at one stage or another, so the maxim ‘practice makes perfect’ really does apply here.

10. Put in the hours

If all this sounds like a lot of work, then you’re correct: if you’re doing everything right, it will be. But equally, you will get back the time you’ve spent tenfold in terms of the career and freelancing opportunities that a killer portfolio opens up.

It’s natural to feel occasionally feel aggrieved about the hours you’re putting in. After all, why can’t they just take your word for it that you can do the job, or complete the freelance project? Whenever you feel like this, though, think about how they see it. They’re considering investing their hard-earned money in you, and they don’t want it to go to waste.

You’d rarely spend even a few pounds on, say, a hardback book or cinema ticket unless you’d seen a nicely designed book cover, movie poster or trailer. So someone is willing to put shift tens, even hundreds of thousands of pounds your way throughout your career, they’re going to need selling to in the same way.

Amazed by these portfolios and would love to create one of your own? Study graphic design or upskill at Shillington with our online graphic design course. Follow this guide on how you can get started as a graphic designer, even if you’re a total beginner.

The PDF Portfolio creation process has been simplified in the current release of Acrobat Pro. You no longer need the Flash Player installed on your system to create or view portfolios. You can easily create folders within your PDF Portfolio, delete component files and folders, edit component filenames, and add and edit descriptions of component files.

Start Acrobat and choose File > Create > PDF Portfolio.

Drag files into the Create PDF Portfolio dialog box.

Alternatively, choose an option from the Add Files menu. You can add a file, folder of files, pages from a scanner, web page, or items in the clipboard.

Click Create to add the files to the PDF Portfolio.

The selected files are added to your portfolio and a toolbar along with the thumbnails of the files is displayed in the left pane.

a - PDF Portfolio’s secondary toolbar, b - The left pane with files' thumbnails

Note:

In Windows, the AcrobatPDFMaker in Outlook and Lotus Notes cancreate PDF Portfolios when you convert e-mail messages.

Note:

As you cannot change the order of files in the PDF Portfolio, it is recommended to add the files in a sequential order. Also, if you add a folder, the files in the folder are added in the alphabetical order.

From an open PDF Portfolio, do any of the following:

In the left pane, click Add Files and select Add Files, Add Folder, or Add Web Content.

To create a folder, click the Create Folder icon in the secondary toolbar.

To add files from your computer, drag any files or folders into the PDF Portfolio workspace or onto a folder, which is available in the left pane.

Note:

For best performance, keep the total number ofcomponent files at 15 or less, and the total size of all componentfiles under 50 MB.

In the navigation pane of a PDF Portfolio, do the following:

Drag to rearrange files within a folder of the PDF portfolio.
Drop files to folders, or folder to another folder provided both are at a same level or folder.

You can link to websites or embed video tags.Linking to web content is useful when you want to reduce the filesize of the PDF Portfolio.

In the left pane, click Add Files and select Add Web Content.

Enter a filename and description for the web content that gets added to your PDF Portfolio. This web file links to the web content you specify.

To link to a website, select Add A Web Link, and then add the URL.
To embed a video tag, select Add An Embed Tag, and then paste the video’s embed code. Video-sharing websites usually include a way to copy a video’s embed code. For example, a website could include an Embed box that shows the code and other embedding options.

Convert multimedia files in a PDF Portfolio (Acrobat Pro)

You can convert multimedia files like mp3 to PDF within a PDF Portfolio. You can also convert these files to PDF if they are encoded in H.264 (with AAC audio): MOV, M4V, MP4, 3GP, and 3G2. (H.264 and AAC are encoding and compression options for movies.)

From an open PDF Portfolio, right-click/Control-click one or more multimedia files in the PDF Portfolio and select Convert To PDF.

If a dialog box appears, specify the options as needed and click OK.

Remove or extract files and folders from a PDF Portfolio

If you delete a folder, all of the files within it are deleted from the PDF Portfolio. You can also extract one or more components from the PDF Portfolio and save them separately.