Portfolio v5.0
The constant iteration helps me push myself forward.
It’s been four weeks since I’ve been working on my portfolio and focusing on my career. Well, I learned a lot of little and big things during this time. Sometimes starting fresh and even thinking wider will clear your mind and tend to solve problems.
In this time
I redesigned my portfolio five times.
I used to showcase my portfolio in Coda/Notion docs. At first, I thought Woah it’s great now I don’t have to manually build everything and it saves a lot of time.
But the thing/feedback I received earlier was, “Yeah a page opened, what to do with it?” I kind of disappointed but walked them through it. But it felt like a lot!
I’m not saying that these are not ideal. But some people judge this differently.
While trying to set up a portfolio this time I decided to try again Framer and it really keeps my graphs high every day. First I started to design a basic single-page layout in Figma that doesn't need much responsive work. There is this plugin built by Framer to ease the process, but I like to custom-build each div using my senses. It gives me more freedom I guess. So in order “to save time”, I chose the shorter containers.
After developing the v1.0 in Framer I gave it two or three days and slept on it but then I thought something. Why limit myself when it is easy to achieve something better?
So I began to work on my v2.0
It was in a pastel theme. I initially liked the design while in Figma but after developed something didn't feel right.
So started to look for inspiration and thought everybody is busy now building a Twitter clone, so why not try something like a social profile?
The idea first sparked in me in a great way. I thought let’s give it a shot in some dark theme and let’s see how v3.0 goes.
Yeah, it went well. The easiness of building a limited width, resolution-centered design is, that it will be automatically responsive and a little effort needed in some breakpoints. But only if you initially stack up those columns and rows perfectly.
I completed the work and waited to see its outcome. However, the idea feels odd now, and I'm not getting any sparks from it.
Started to look around again.
Created a new Figma file v4.0 and rough designing started. But here I made a mistake - maybe a learning curve. I jumped into production due to the excitement of trying this layout even before finalizing the design.
It went terribly.
I’m aware of a saying in the industry that “We don't spend time designing things, we design using code”.
Well, some people may win it, but it is not for me. Before having a rough idea about the overall layout and other important things, do not ever start the development process, as it may completely go rogue sometimes.
But we learn things when they happen to us, right? (Not talking about Agile.)
Framer is not Figma, it’s not that cool to move things around like in Figma, but Framer gives me a complete idea of how a developer sees things when I’m handing off the designs. They were all looking at it like how can we develop this, how is this going to be in this breakpoint and what happens when on hover, etc.
Truth be told not every developer cares about the design.
I slept again. To refocus myself. What is my vision or what is something pushing me forward?
Started to ideate v5.0
I made sure one thing this time. First I’ll design a web and mobile layout and only after I’ll open Framer. I had temptations but focused on myself.
Finding a font is never easy. Only designers will understand the real dilemma behind this I guess. Anyway, this one font kept in my mind from the beginning started to come back. And it started to grow on me.
Having a lot to choose from is exhausting. But this time I found a perfect color palette.
I went straight and finished both layouts and made sure myself that I’m happy with what I have now and I know that this may change tomorrow or the day after that. But at the moment I’m convinced with this design. Began to develop it in Framer by setting all the foundations.
Explored other emerging tools in this path and it all helped me in some way. I like how things going and the final out. I guess I'll settle on this for now.
Portfolio building is a time-consuming process. Which is why most of the designers don’t like it I guess. I’m also on this side. But it opens a path. Maybe when most of the work you ever did is legally binding by NDA, this site is all that matters.
Framer’s free and the next affordable plan only offers 1GB of bandwidth. So I’m planning only the landing page and redirecting the detailed snapshots to Coda docs. I think this is more convenient and secure. I don't want Google to index everything.
