Building the Portfolio

A portfolio is not a website. It is not a gallery of screenshots, or a collection of deliverables. Your portfolio is your portrait.

Signature line

I care about the idea. Of course I do. But more than that, I care about the delivery.

I did not realize that for a while. For the longest time, I believed my value existed inside the company badge hanging from my desk. I was borrowing identity. From places I worked for. Logos I wore behind. Teams I was a part of.

You can do that when you build a career in a machine designed for momentum. Swap out logos and you can convince yourself the goldenrod fleece was you. I fell into that version of existence for years, building portfolios that were dent-resistant enough to survive the system, instead of challenging it.

When I stepped away from that world, it was like leaving the train while it is moving. Everything felt loud in my head. And then nothing.

It got quiet. Quieter than I expected. But the quiet sat with me. And let me tell you what the quiet does. The quiet makes room.

I had a blank page to fill. A real blank page. No more brief. No stakeholder list. No “refreshing” of a system that already existed. I could decide what I actually wanted to say, and how I wanted it to feel.

A portfolio is your space to show up as you actually are.

Leaving the Badge

The old version of this site was safe. Helpful. Polite. As retros went, it showed off the work well. But it left me out. My phone still has dozens of full-screen screenshots where my face just is not there.

So I finally asked myself the question that started the entire rebuild. How do I build a portfolio that feels alive?

Well, if the site was going to feel alive, I had to. I had to show up.

I used to think the work said everything we needed to know. Those badges up top were my voice. They were proof I had been trusted, and earned my way to belong. But muted smiles and handshake photos do not a person make. Logos are not your voice.

Your portfolio will not feel alive until the human behind the work stops hiding.

The Rebuild

With that truth in mind, I started rebuilding from the inside out. Instead of pages, I started with mood.

What I really wanted was a portfolio that felt like walking through a city at night wearing headphones. Quiet intensity. Gentle confidence. The feeling that something is happening around you, even if it is not screaming.

Typography was my first stroke of color. Headlines that spoke with authority without yelling. Body text that felt warmly spoken, not corporately dictated. Familiarity so strong, you trust what is written because it is not trying to rush you out.

Colors came easily after that. Black is my visual home, so I anchored there. Coral is my visual punch, the rhythm of curiosity throughout the site. And plenty of negative space so the words can do the heavy lifting. When your layout slows down, your message gets to breathe.

Each tiny decision to say yes to me. To trust the things I like because I like them. To own contradictions.

The previous version of this site was filled with design choices made to prove I could fit in certain spaces. This new site is decorated with choices that prove I can be authentically me.

And if you are wondering, yes, you are the one holding the reset button.

The New Self

Had I known building a portfolio could give back so much, I would have started sooner.

What I thought would be an exercise in documenting my work actually gave me something far more valuable: trust. In my taste. In my pace. In my ability to create a body of work that feels true to me without the need for an externally validated badge to prove it.

The site you see today is not the lesson. Here is what you take with you.

If you are in a rebuild season too, take your time. Make it beautiful on purpose.