Why My Portfolio Is The Most Important Product I’ve Ever Designed
As a product designer, I live in a state of constant self-awareness, driven to question every feature and purpose. It was only natural that I apply this design thinking to my own career: I realized I was the most important product, and I needed a superior platform for my work. This is why I built my online portfolio.
More Than a Showcase: The Need for a Central Hub
The initial spark for my portfolio was simple: I needed somewhere to show off my work. As a designer driven to be recognized, relying on separate PDFs for every organization or project became chaotic and inefficient. What if I could create one central platform to showcase all my work, allowing me to nitpick different projects as needed?
This single platform solved the critical problem of presentation. It instantly professionalized my visibility, making it easy for me to share my skills without fumbling through dozens of scattered files.
The Power of the Designer's Archive
My portfolio quickly evolved into something more profound: an archive. Every wireframe, every design decision, and every lesson learned is tracked here. This archive serves two vital purposes:
My Own Tracker: It's a pragmatic tool for me to track my progress, providing empirical evidence of how far I've come and how I am improving. This gives me valuable self-feedback, encouraging a positive feedback loop.
Practicing Self-Reflection: This tracking is essentially a form of design journaling. For a product designer, the ability to constantly self-reflect is paramount—we must question every feature's purpose. I treat my life the same way. The portfolio is where I practice this crucial skill, truly understanding what I am doing at any given moment and for what ultimate purpose.
Why a Website Wins the Competition
I considered other options, but the limitations quickly became clear. My goal was maximum utility, and a dedicated website is the superior tool for that job.
PDFs / Static Files - A website can be constantly updated in real-time.
Physical Files - It can be accessed by any device globally, and I don't need to download anything.
Template Builders - It gives me a future chance to learn JavaScript if I decide to code my own site, providing both a professional output and a new skill.
Ultimately, my online portfolio is a powerful, self-designed product—it’s an archive for my past, a tracker for my present, and a platform for my future.
