What do customers look for in a portfolio?

[momo_the_monkey]

I’m a junior web designer and I have to make a portfolio site for school, I was just wondering if you could give me some pointers, and I’m going to start working on it in awhile so I’ll come and link it for you guys to see it, if I get a good portion of it done.

I’ve been in web design classes since January, and its really cool. But I just finished up Dreamweaver cs5 and hated it, seeing how I love to code by hand and not menus.

Thanks for your effort and time!

[soap]

Hmm. How did you do a whole class on Dreamweaver CS5 and not realize that you can code everything by hand in Dreamweaver and it’s glorious. Most of us that use Dreamweaver don’t use the what you see is what you get editing tools. We hand-code.

Anyway..

I’ve never been a customer myself but I would say they are mostly looking at your ability to design well. Uneducated people don’t care how you code.

If a potential customer sees a lot of beautiful designs, he will most likely reach.

[momo_the_monkey]

Yes sorry I didn’t really explain myself to well, I had to go through the adobe certified book that had me going through all the menus when I knew I could do it by hand at anytime I wanted to. I knew before I started lol.

[soap]

Oh sweet. Yeah I prefer Dreamweaver to anything I’ve tried thus far. Mostly for the organization and plugins.

[momo_the_monkey]

Before I was using it I was using Gedit :)

[sliver37]

Yeah create a nice clean design that showcases your best work, only include the designs you feel really stand out.

An about section telling everyone who you are and what you do best, a couple of call to actions (contacting you, viewing more portfolio pieces ect).

Just keep it simple and focused on your work.

Also as far as Dreamweaver is concerned, yes you can hand-code everything with it but it is a resource hog compared to standard non-WYSIWYG editors and takes a while to start up. WeBuilder is nice, it’s what I currently use.

[Historical Forums User]

On the topic of favorite code-writing program, I’ve used many, but am very pleased with Komodo Edit on the PC. I have Dreamweaver as part of CS5, but I find it to be too bloated for my front-end work.

[drake]

I look at portfolios of other companies for an idea of what people like.

As for tools I use: Photoshop + Firefox/Firebug + (Notepad++) + Xfresh plugin

I find it easier to hand code than learn a complex program.

[momo_the_monkey]

Dreamweaver isn’t so bad, as for resource hogging I run it on a intel atom 1.3ghz 2gb ram running windows 7 ultimate. Maybe I can just defy reality lol.

and works when I have other apps running at the same time such as:
Photoshop cs3
IE, FF, Chrome, Safari
WMP

as for my portfolio site I’m slacking off. But I’ll blame it on Call of Duty Black Ops. :)

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