: What to put in my portfolio if I have not had any clients yet? I am a newbie self taught web designer. My skills are HTML/CSS web designs. My problem is, how do I start marketing myself

@Si6392903

There is something that worries me more than the lack of clients.

Are you good? Are you good enough to have a first nonprofit client?

Do you have a personal web page? I do not mind if it is on a free hosting service. I do not mind a couple of ads at the top.

Do you have some screen captures of design ideas, as a single jpg posted perhaps on deviantart.com?

I do not mind a portfolio of fake clients. That is totally fine with me, as long as the work looks good (and it is well structured) (Guess what... that could be sold as a template)

So, the first client you need to have is yourself. Then you can make some variations on a "Your company name" "template". Then, I could see if you actually know HTML and CSS, and actually know how to "design" a website.



This "templates" could be business oriented too.

A template for dentists where you actually analyze what a dentist could need, for example, a form to appoint a date, A photographer's portfolio with some categories for different types of photos, etc.



P.S. "Web designer" is a pretty complex term.

It could imply:


Designing the structure, the flow, the content architecture.
UX interfaces, assets, look.
Tag coding.
CSS/Frameworks usage.
Adaptable design.
Development skins for specific platforms.
JavaScript programming.
Some basic understanding of backend programming.
Etc.


So, you probably need to learn a couple of things more.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Shelley591

I am a newbie self taught web designer. My skills are HTML/CSS web designs


A few things to parse there.

First of all, being self-taught, you're lacking the typical portfolio fodder of a design education. A big part of design school is building up a portfolio of student work.

You can do that yourself by giving yourself projects. There's lots of ways to do this, but one fun way is to focus on outside interests and hobbies.

For example, these are actual projects I have done for myself over the years:


personal branding/identity (ie, a logo for yourself/your company)
I coach youth sports. I, of course, also always have to design a team logo. :)
I enjoy exploring public trails and paths. Just for fun I've created logos for several of them.


And other ideas along those same lines:


Design a web site for a photo essay of something that interests you
Design a web site for some personal passion cause you have in your community
Create a web site as a guide for your region


The other answer mentions doing free work for organizations. That's an option, but often a real pain-in-the-ass. The catch is that clients that aren't paying you are often really lousy clients as they have no skin in the game. And what work you end up doing for the is often an ugly compromise of egos and opinions rather than a well crafted, targetted solution to a specific business problem.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Miguel516

You should create items for a portfolio then. Buy some stock photos (or get them for free but hey, it's a design board and paid photos are usually very designable), set some goals and create few pages.

For example: Imagine having a client from medical field that want's to have parallel webpage with switch for English/other language and 4 sub-pages. Fill it with photos and "lorem ipsum"

Try to recreate some pages from scratch to understand how they coded it and think if you could make it better.

A good place is to try to work for some non-profit organizations. First you can help the cause you like (dog shelter or soup kitchen) and because it's a non-profit organisation you don't undermine the rest of us offering your work for free for a paying customer. And third with such organisations you have more freedom so you can discover new ways of doing things instead of copying others solutions.

And after that you have at least 3 pieces you can show in your portfolio.
You can even create your own portfolio site, showing your design and code literacy (put a Pacman there, everybody likes to play Pacman).

Vote Up Vote Down