If you’re a developer, designer, video editor, photographer, or pretty much anyone who creates things, at some point you’re going to need a portfolio. And then you open a blank Figma file, VS Code, or whatever tool you’re using and think:
“Okay. What the hell do I actually put here?”
I’ve been there.
And honestly, if I were to make my own portfolio website from scratch again, I wouldn’t start by thinking about sections. I would start by asking myself what kind of website I actually want to make.
First, figure out what you want your portfolio to feel like.
Before writing your About Me section or adding a bunch of project cards, find references.
I would probably spend time looking through GitHub, Pinterest, Awwwards, Dribbble, or even random websites I find while scrolling. Not because I want to copy them. I just want to figure out what I like.
Do I want something cutesy? Do I want something futuristic? Do I want something extremely minimal? Do I want it to feel like a personal website from someone who codes? Do I want recruiters to look at it and immediately understand what I do?
Or maybe I just want a centralized place where I can put all the things I’ve built and show it to my friends.
All of those are valid.
Your portfolio doesn’t have to follow some universal “professional portfolio” formula. It just needs to make sense for you and what you want the website to accomplish.
For example, my own personal website is focused on me as a developer. I wanted it to feel like a personal website rather than another freelancer landing page.
You can check it out here:
I went with a relatively simple direction. A short introduction, my projects, some information about what I do, and a way to contact me.
That’s intentional.
I don’t need twenty sections just to prove that I have a portfolio.
But what should actually be on it?
If you want the easiest possible answer, I’d start with three things.
1. A short introduction
Tell people who you are.
You can include your face if you’re comfortable with it. You can also leave it out. There’s no rule saying every developer needs to have a giant professional headshot at the top of their website.
Just make it clear who they are looking at.
For example, on my own website, I have a simple introduction:
What’s good? I’m Kester.
Then I explain that I’m a Computer Science student and full-stack developer and what I actually care about building.
That’s enough.
You don’t need to write your entire life story in the hero section.
When choosing a reference, look at how much text is above the fold, whether there is a photo, whether the person’s personality is obvious, and what immediately tells you what they do. Look at whether there’s a button, or whether the site is intentionally more exploratory.
You can use these references to figure out what works for you.
2. Show your work
This is probably the most important part.
If you’re a developer, show your projects. If you’re a UI/UX designer, show your designs. If you’re a multimedia artist, show your artwork. If you’re a videographer, show your videos. If you make social media content, show your social media work.
The job of a portfolio is pretty simple:
Showcase what you can do.
You don’t necessarily need twenty projects either.
I’d rather see three projects that someone is genuinely proud of than twenty random GitHub repositories thrown onto a page.
For my own website, I have projects like AgriKA-GIS and the DJIHS Enrollment System. I also included Praferosa Web Works as one of my projects because it is something I actually built and operate. (Kester Praferosa)
That is another thing worth remembering.
Your portfolio doesn’t have to only contain “client work.”
Personal projects count. School projects count. Open-source contributions count. Experiments count. A redesign you made because you thought someone’s website was terrible can count too.
The important thing is that there is something worth looking at.
And don’t just put a screenshot and call it a day.
Give people a little context.
What is it? Why did you build it? What technologies did you use? What problem were you trying to solve?
You don’t need a 3,000-word case study for every project.
Sometimes a few sentences are enough.
3. Make it easy to contact you
This sounds obvious, but I’ve seen portfolios where I have to hunt around just to figure out how to contact the person.
Don’t do that.
Put your email somewhere obvious. You can also include your phone number, LinkedIn, GitHub, Instagram, or whatever social accounts actually make sense for you.
And if you’re trying to get hired, make that obvious too.
Something as simple as:
Want to work together?
[Email me]
That’s enough.
Honestly, if you don’t want to overcomplicate things, those three things can already make a perfectly usable portfolio.
Introduction.
Work.
Contact.
That’s it.
But what if you want more?
You can absolutely add more.
If you want to dive deeper into your projects, make case studies.
This is where you can actually explain your thinking.
Why did you choose that design? Why does the system work this way? Why did you include that particular feature? What problem were you trying to solve? What went wrong while building it? What would you do differently now?
This is especially useful if you’re trying to get hired as a developer or designer because you’re not only showing the final result.
You’re showing how you think.
And honestly, that can be much more interesting than another project screenshot.
You can also show your tools
Another thing you can add is your stack.
For example, I use things like Figma, Canva, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and other tools depending on what I’m working on.
You can simply show the technologies you actually use.
Add their icons.
Make it visual.
If you use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini as part of your workflow, you can even talk about that if it makes sense for the kind of work you’re showing.
Just don’t turn it into a giant list of every piece of software you’ve opened once in your life.
If you used something once for a school assignment three years ago, you probably don’t need to put it on your portfolio.
Show what you actually use.
What if you don’t have projects yet?
This is probably the hardest part for students and people who are just starting.
You look at other portfolios and see ten beautiful projects and think:
“I don’t have anything to show.”
Well, make something.
Seriously.
Think about the things that bother you in everyday life.
Maybe there’s a website you use that has terrible UX. Maybe the menu on your favorite restaurant’s website is annoying. Maybe your school still uses an ancient enrollment system. Maybe there’s a business in your area with a website that looks like it was made in 2009.
You can build something around that.
You don’t even need someone to pay you first.
You can make the project yourself and explain why you made it.
That’s actually one of the reasons I like personal projects.
You’re not just saying:
“I know JavaScript.”
You’re showing someone:
“Here’s something I actually built with JavaScript.”
There is a big difference.
And please don’t make your portfolio something you hate looking at.
This might be the most important part.
You’re going to spend a lot of time looking at your own portfolio.
So don’t make it purely because you saw someone on LinkedIn say that “every developer portfolio needs these 12 sections.”
You don’t have to follow that.
Make something that fits your personality.
Make something weird if you want. Make something extremely minimal if that’s your thing. Make something colorful. Make something boring. Make something futuristic.
Whatever.
Just make something that you genuinely like looking at.
Because at the end of the day, your portfolio is supposed to showcase you.
Not some imaginary perfect developer.
Not whatever template everyone else is using.
You.
And if you’re proud enough of it that you actually want to send the link to someone, then I think you’ve already done a pretty good job.
