Easy ways to create your portfolio

Not just an image, also an inspiration.

Creating a portfolio for the first time can be quite overwhelming, no doubt. The first portfolio I created, it took me nearly a month, because I was too obsessed about making it perfect. I needed the right colours, fonts, images, and language too! I wanted something complicated enough to showcase my skills, but not too much that would take me too much time. I wanted to get it out there, but I kept on changing from one to another.

Depending on what is your goal, the impression you want to give, or time you have to spend on your portfolio, the choice regarding the approach might vary. A lot! But don’t stress out, you can do it.

First of all, determine what you want to do. I know. Many developers prefer to dive head into the code first and then realize that it was not the best idea, but my recommendation is to spend some time researching what you want or get inspiration. Ask yourself: “What do I want from my portfolio? A static website to showcase my skill set and projects? Or I want my users to log in to download my resume?”.

You might need to try a few times

Depending on your answers, you can choose what suits best for your needs.

Another piece of advice is, consider a template. I know you want to showcase your skills to the max and say that you did that proudly, but if you are pressed by time, which most of us are when looking for employment, then this is the best option. Be aware that templates are often done by other developers or designers that assume that you know what they know. So please spend some time reading their documentation. If it’s not clear, probably it’s not for you. Especially if you are paying for it.

Here are some free options:

• Html5up OR Startbootstrap — these two are my favourite when it comes to simple HTML, CSS and JS structure. One-page website, clean, straight to the point and quick to implement. You need to edit your details and presto; the portfolio is complete.

If you are a bit more adventurous, then here are some attractive options:

• Gatsby.js — it’s a framework built on top of React that generates your site. It’s incredibly performant, and that can give you an edge. Recruiters or employees need to get a pleasant experience while browsing your website. Nothing is worst than clicking and have to wait for large images to load, animation to start, and so on. Gatsby preprocesses all your images, minify files, so you don’t have to, and it has many plugins that can equip and make your life easy. If you are not familiar with it, the drawback is that there is a “Gatsby way” of creating a website and therefore you need to learn how to use it.
• GoHugo — it’s a framework to generate static sites built using Golang and takes everything in the source directory and templates and generate the website. It uses markdown’s syntax, and in few minutes you can be done creating your portfolio. The documentation is excellent, and you only need to choose a template from their library, follow the instruction for set up, and after updating your information, you are good to go.

Regardless of what you choose, you can implement your portfolio in a few hours.

My choice at the end of my trial and error journey, was Gatsby. I choose a theme from their website and after getting a hang on it, it took me just a few hours to put all my content inside and setting up the hosting.

Now go, explore the possibilities and create your amazing portfolio.