How to Create In-Depth “Case Studies”

31 July 2017 Catherrine Garcia

As a professional, you must remember that your portfolio could make or break your business. It is therefore essential that you ensure that your portfolio consists of a full range of all your skills and experiences. It should also represent as to how your work would prove to be an asset. A brilliantly created portfolio can, in fact, help you create a good impression before you begin any negotiations with a potential client. Though it would not increase the chances of landing contracts and closing fantastic deals but would definitely help you build a good reputation before actually delivering any work.

However, a poorly created portfolio can irritate the potential clients and can stop them from viewing any of your works. To attract your potential clients, your portfolio must be designed by keeping in mind certain principles which would not only impress your clients but would also ensure that they have a smooth experience. The best way to achieve this would be by creating an in-depth study which documents your creative process and surprise and impresses your potential clients. Also, it is always a fantastic idea to get as creative as you can get when drafting your portfolio.

When setting up a blog or a portfolio website, some tips, tricks, and rules can help you in presenting your skills and work samples in an excellent manner. Let’s read on.

Consider Quality over Quantity

Filling up your portfolio with each project that you have worked on, isn’t a good idea. You must remember that the potential clients do not have the time to go through each and everything. Therefore, it is best to keep everything precisely crisp and to the point. You want to make sure that they get to see your strongest work. Approximately ten to twenty projects would just be enough to showcase your range of expertise and skills. Learn to judge yourself and if you do not feel happy about the outcome of an individual project, do not include it in your portfolio. It is because if your own work samples fail to impress you, there are very fewer chances that it would be appreciated by someone else.

Keep a Strong Objective

Having a strong objective is the key to creating a successful portfolio. It is because it helps you in knowing what you need to do and what the client may expect. Before you begin to design your portfolio, you must locate the primary objective that you need to achieve.

Also, it is much better if that purpose can be described in a single sentence which would make it straight up to a point and very clear. There could be different purposes for creating a portfolio like to sell your works, to get a job, to communicate or to gain reputation.

If your objective, for instance, is to gain reputation, you would be creating a portfolio just to display all the works that you have done and spread a word about the talent that you possess. This would help you in gaining some fame in the industry. You can, of course, choose to define your objectives.

Explain Your Process of Working

Showing only the end results might not be a very good idea. Potential clients would be interested in seeing the method that you adapt to work and the decisions that you have made. The best way to do this would be by including illustrations of what the project was like before you got involved with it. This can be done by including the client’s sketches or the previous website. You could then go on to tell a story as to tell how you reached the outcome while adding relevant mock-ups, sketches, notes, and wireframes. Make sure to use a range of pictures to highlight your creative journey right from the initial research period to the finished project.

Including Testimonial of Clients

In today’s time, social proof does speak volume. You must ensure that each case study on your portfolio includes opinions of your happy clients. This helps in creating trust and convinces the potential clients that you would prove to be a rather valuable asset for their project. Also, do not be afraid to provide the clients a few prompts so as to ensure that you would end up with the best testimonial of all. After you complete the projects of your clients, ask them as to what they liked the best about working with you, what their favorite part was about their project, if they would be interested in working with you again and if there were any quantifiable results that they have noticed.

Be Unique

Let’s get this thing straight – you are building your portfolio so as to impress your potential clients by standing out. You can only achieve this by making it so unique that the clients cannot think of any other alternative. It is up to you to design such a portfolio. Many people are seen to put their work online as soon as they can but what you should do is sit down and then think of a unique design. This would work as a huge benefit when it comes to making a good impression on the clients. Also, remember to avoid standard introductory lines. They do seem good but sound too repetitive that you can find them everywhere on the web with little moderations.

Take some time and think of a creative introductory line which would make the clients perceive that you are a different individual with a unique personality.

Including Your Contact Information

The chances of getting work from the potential clients increase a lot when you include your contact details in your portfolio. To make it easier for the people to get in touch with you, you should include your contact information on each and each page. It could be anywhere on the footer or the side header.

Also, remember to include the most commonly used contact points such as your Email address, contact number, Skype contact or even a Google Map which would help your clients come and meet you in person. Also, make sure to update it if you change your Email address or your phone number. Make sure that you write down your availability if you can only reply to clients on particular business days.

There are various platforms these days where you can present your portfolio. These platforms give you better exposure in presenting your portfolio so that you can impress your potential clients. Behance, Dribble, Physical Portfolio, Cargo Collective, Instagram, WordPress, Jovoto, Squarespace, etc. are good examples of platforms where you can choose to present your work. Most of them provide complete flexibility to the user along with being very simple to use.

Wrapping up

Trends and technologies keep constantly changing. Therefore, you should continually review your portfolio. You should get rid of anything that’s older than three years and looks outdated. This would ensure that you stay on top of the current trends and are open to learning and adapting new skills. If you abide by the above-discussed tips and helpful tricks, you will indeed become a Rockstar creative professional.