About the site

Designing your own portfolio when you’re just starting out is weirdly hard. You’re supposed to stand out, but you don’t have years of client work or fancy job titles yet. What I’ve learned, though, is that it’s not just about showing the work, it’s about showing how you think.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been building my first portfolio site, and while I’ve had my fair share of "should I even have an About page?" moments, I’ve come away with some big lessons on how to make it personal, purposeful, and honest, even with limited experience.

1. Looking like a designer without overcompensating
   It’s tempting to lean on super slick UI or flashy animations to ‘look professional.’ But the best advice I read (and felt!) was to prioritise clarity and story over polish. I started asking myself: What does this actually say about how I design? That question changed everything.
   
2. Showing my process without making it boring
   When you’re early in your career, it’s easy to overexplain or throw in every screen you’ve ever made. I realised that showing my process wasn’t just about diagrams, it was about sharing decisions, not just outputs. What problem was I trying to solve? What did I learn? What would I do differently?
   
3. Standing out without pretending to be more experienced than I am
   It took a while, but I realised I didn’t need to fake seniority. I needed to reveal what makes me different. For me, that’s a systems mindset, a bit of obsessive curiosity, and a belief in sustainable, meaningful design.

I spent time digging into what makes me unique, not just as a junior designer, but as a person. I looked back at where my curiosity started and why I care about making things make sense. This came to life most clearly in the About page, which became the foundation for the rest of the site.

Instead of just listing tools or soft skills, I used this simple, three step approach for the About page:

1. Start with my why
2. Show my origin moment
3. Define my unique edge
   
   This lead me to the three words that I think describe me:
   

• Curious – always asking how things work.
• Precise – thoughtful about every element.
• Principled – design with purpose, not just trends.

Alongside designing the site itself, I also explored how AI tools could help me build faster without compromising the personality or care I wanted it to reflect.

I used tools like Figma Make, and David, who developed the site, used Vercel to scaffold layouts and speed up prototyping. Vercel's code-first approach was great for generating clean React and Tailwind components, turning prompts into usable layouts.

These tools helped build momentum, but I quickly learned that AI can only take you so far. Prompting well is a skill, and the first output is never the final answer. I still had to refine every letter, word, space, and component, and ask: Does this feel like me?

AI gave me a head start, but the final experience, tone, and polish came down to human judgment.

• You don’t need loads of experience to make a portfolio meaningful, just a clear story and an honest explanation of how you think.
  
• It’s okay to not have all the answers yet, but showing how you approach problems really matters.
  
• And while polish is nice, it’s the thinking behind the work that helps people understand what kind of designer you might become.

I’m still figuring things out, but this process helped me realise that your point of view can be just as valuable as your portfolio pieces, especially when you’re just starting out. Let's hope so!