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Shoutout to the guy who told me to ditch my Behance clone layout
I used to just copy whatever trendy portfolio layout I saw on Behance or Dribbble because I thought that's what clients wanted to see. About 6 months ago I had a call with a senior designer named Marcus who told me my portfolio looked like everyone else's and that was the problem. He said hiring managers scan for personality in the first 3 seconds and my generic grid with big hero images wasn't helping me stand out. So I rebuilt my whole portfolio around a weird side project I did for a local bike shop in Portland where I used this hand-drawn map style for their site. Now my portfolio is way less polished looking but I've gotten 3 interview requests in the last month compared to zero in the previous 6 months. Has anyone else had better luck with a weird or less conventional layout over the standard clean grid approach?
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schmidt.blake8d ago
Traded that generic grid for something that looked like a messy bulletin board, pinned up screenshots and handwritten sticky notes everywhere. Used a goofy purple color scheme and a font that looked like someone drew it in marker. Got two emails from hiring managers who said they clicked because it felt genuine and not like a template. One even said my portfolio reminded them of a project room they used to work in. Definitely stopped trying to look like a design agency and started looking like a person with a brain.
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betty_shah8d ago
I ditched my Dribbble clone layout about a year ago after 47 rejections. My old portfolio had the same big hero images and neat grids everyone else uses. I replaced it with a layout that looks like a cheap 90s Geocities page because I got bored one night. The navigation is just bold links in comic sans and my work samples are in random jpegs. Got my first interview in 8 months two weeks after I put it up. Turns out clients want to see a human who makes weird choices, not a robot who copies the latest trends.
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