How to land your dream design job

Part 1 – 9 Tips for creating a kick arse folio
Part 2 – A brief guide to writing a killer resume
Part 3 – Job Hunting, Research and the Cover Letter that sells.
Part 4 – The Interview (Coming Soon)

You’ve just spent 3 to 5 years at university studying for that degree. You get up on that stage, collect your piece of paper and after getting over the traditional shock of finishing uni and confronting what I like to call “now what?” syndrome, you think “hmm I think maybe I should get a job”. Unfortunately for many design graduates this is a harder road than uni and many experience more than their fair share of job hunting pain. It is also tough for those who are changing jobs or returning to the industry after a bit of timeout. The following four part series is by no means a guarantee that you’ll get your dream job, but hopefully the advice, tips and tricks that follow will help.

9 Tips for creating a kick arse folio

Every designer needs a portfolio, almost every designer has one. But do they all understand the true nature of what a folio actually is and its purpose?

A portfolio is more than just a book of your work. A folio is a tool that is not only meant to showcase the visually appealing designs you have produced, but also communicate to potential employers or clients the depth and breadth of your experiences, your core abilities, the level of your technical skills, your design ability and your potential to fill the role they are offering.

1. A portfolio needs to be self explanatory

A Folio must stand alone and be able to speak about you as a designer. You will not always be around to explain your projects in your folio to the people viewing it. Maybe it has been sent to a prospective client or employer for their viewing, or they have asked you to leave it so others in the company can view it. Utilize visuals to tell a story about each project, such as how it progressed or what problem it may have solved. Keep text explanations short and sharp, distill the project down to its essence and core ideas, or to the core bits that you want to communicate.

2. How many pieces of work/projects should I put in my folio?

This has got to be by far the most asked question about folios, even by seasoned professionals. The answer is not written in stone as it is dependent on many variables including, the industry you are in or the position you are going for (they may specify how many they want to see). A general rule of thumb is about 10 -12. This amount should provide a prospective employer with a well rounded picture of the depth and breadth of your experiences, your core abilities, the level of your technical skills and your design ability, without overloading.

3. When in doubt. Take it out!

When putting together your folio remember that if you have doubts about a project or piece then don’t put it in. You will also want to pear your folio back to the best work you have done. Its better to have a folio of your best quality projects than a folio stuffed with half baked attempts. Your folio is a representation of you as a designer and you want to cast yourself in the best possible light through crafting a stunning portfolio.

4. Get organized.

It is important to keep well sorted, updated and comprehensive archives of all your projects, whether they are digital, hardcopy or both. This allows you to be able to do two important things. With well organized archives you can now pick and choose your best projects because you know where they are or you are easily able to locate them. Meaning you can pull together a folio quickly, before applications for the job close. This one is often learnt from experience. Lets say you find a job advertisement. The deadline is tonight. The only problem is you haven’t properly archived or kept records. You either take two days to compile a folio that is strong – but the job closes tonight so you can’t even apply. Or you rush and chuck in the only projects you can find at short notice – you don’t even get an interview because they weren’t your best projects. With well kept archives you are easily able to pull out your best work and tailor it to the job. You get an interview and ace it, landing your dream job(for interview advice, tip and tricks see Part 4 of this series).

The second important thing this allows you to do is tailor your folio to the application. Tailoring your folio to each job application becomes increasingly important the further you get out of school or university. If you are going for a Fast moving consumer goods(FMCG) job they are more likely to employ you if you can provide them with examples of your FMCG work, as oppose to rocking up with a folio full of automotive work. When you are just leaving university it is acceptable to have a folio that is more broad, but still make the effort to tailor it to each job application or the industry you see yourself working in.

5. Giving credit where credit is due.

One of the biggest mistakes designers make, especially graduates, is not communicating that a project that they worked on was done as part of a team. Imagine this – you rock up to the interview and begin to talk about the work in your folio. They ask about a particular project, which you worked on as part of a team. You don’t explain this and it is not indicated in any of the material in your folio. Your colleague or fellow student who worked on that same project rocks up to an interview for the same position and does the same thing as you. It now looks like both of you potentially ripped off the others work. You think you would get employed?

6. What should my folio look like? What format should I put it in?

Your folio could take many looks and guises. The best thing to do is to keep the layout of the folio simple/minimal so that is doesn’t detract from the work. You don’t want to spend hours or days crafting a fancy layout and end up with a folio that makes it look like you care more about the folio layout than the work it houses.

7. Contact details

Don’t forget to put your contact details in a place where they are easily found and clearly visible. Like the front cover or the index page.

8. Get feedback

Show your folio to friends, family, work makes or anyone whose opinion you respect. This will help you see the strong and weak points of the folio. It may even help with those hard decisions, like which project/s you need to cut out.

9. Protect it

Remember to keep backups and copies of your folio. If you create it digitally burn a copy off to a disk and keep it somewhere safe. If you created it the traditional way, photocopy or photograph it. Keep it in something that will project it. A black folio case looks quite professional, is easy to carry and is tough enough to protect it from being bent or having things spilled on to it.


Hopefully you have found a small droplet of advice or information in this article that will help you get that dream job. If you did please be generous and share this article and/or subscribe to the design droplets RSS Feed to keep up to date on the following articles in the series and other free tips, tricks, articles or advice on design droplets.