Familiarity Between Design Portfolio and Job Opportunities

Original image: unsplash.com

"Because I enjoy it"

That is the simple sentence that I will say whenever someone asking me why I choose "Design" as one of I give my best for and make it as my income paths.

That sentence may just an ordinary one. But the impact for me is really big when we do something that we really enjoyed it. The time passed when we learn and doing failure multiple times will not feel long. I have felt this myself for around the last 7 years since I started to learn design in senior high school by self-taught.

Later, I feel blessed that I already started it for a long time ago.

Because of it, especially to learn deeper about the design application (such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, and so on), now I have a bunch of design portfolio that I can share on various creative site (Behance, Dribbble, etc).

For someone who got the income from design works, having a portfolio is a must. It's really important to show our works first before we can make a deal with the prospective client with their project.

Imagine, if we are a client with a project that will give a job and fee to someone working for us, we need to know the candidate first, especially their experience that matched with our project. After that, if the candidate's experience matched with us, further negotiation and deal can happen.

I have experience with this that I want to share with you.

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So, over the past year and a half, I dedicated myself to learn more about UI/UX Design. For you who still unfamiliar with this, in my opinion, UI/UX Design is a design field that focuses on developing the flow and interface of application/website.

In the beginning, I started to seek the information from my colleagues that already started their work on this field. After I got all the information that I needed, I decided to create a Dribbble account as the main place to show my UI/UX portfolio.

And because it's nearly impossible to get a real client without any portfolio, I use the solution that almost every designer used when they started their career: by working on personal project or project challenge from the fictive client.

And there it goes, I created various designs from fictive client routinely and upload it on my Dribbble.

In the process of creating a design portfolio, I also created a Fiverr account after suggested by my colleague so I can offer my freelance service to design the User Interface of apps/website.

Time passed by, in around three months since I was active on Dribbble and Fiverr : The Opportunity Came !!

There is a client who wants to use my freelance service on Fiverr to redesign his website. In the first place, he asked me to show my Dribbble profile as his feasibility test. Great. I show him my Dribbble profile, he liked it, and the deal happened !!

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That is my story about the good relationship between the design portfolio and the job opportunities that will be opened.

It doesn't matter which website you will use to show your portfolio and offer your service, or the application you will use to create the design. Everybody has their own choice and consideration. I just shared the experience that works for me. Maybe you can try that too and we can share our story.

Conclusion:
The point is, as a designer, showing your portfolio is a must. Because that is your first step to open many job opportunities that still closed because we still not showing any works.