Screenshots or Live Pages for New Designer Portfolio

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1

When building my portfolio do I include screenshots or live functioning pages of my work?

I am a new web designer with no professional experience, all of my work is generic website designs: e-commerce, hotel site, travel agency site, etc. I have designed and built the pages with html, css, and javascript, so I could show live sites or would images be sufficient?

Most portfolios I’ve seen are by pros who have screenshots and links to real sites.

2

Hi @Andrew_,

Normally I’d use images, with a live link to the external site as well if you choose. :slight_smile:

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You can use Images and you can link description of your project in detail.You can add live pages if you have then.

4

So why do you normally use images and not a link?

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When I used to do this sort of thing, I used both.

These days, it’s found to be more effective to present “case studies” for your best projects, detailing interesting aspects of the project, such as challenges that were faced and how you solved them. That shows potential clients how you work, and how you deal with situations.

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One thought on links - if you add links you need to make it a recurring task to return to your portfolio and test all of your links. As some projects are not interacted with after completion, you may not realize that they (stop paying their hosting, change their URL, get the site redone by someone else, go bankrupt… etc). In that case, obviously, an image would be better than a link.

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One reason is that sites change over time. The screenshot shows how the site looked when you finished your work on it. The screenshot doesn’t include all of the things the owner and other people they have employed have added to the page to mess up the way you designed it to look.

8

Okay, let’s see if I got this right:

Maybe I should,

  1. have a page of screenshots and descriptions for each of my website ideas (to demonstrate my design ideas).
  2. And a corresponding link to pages that I built and host myself (to demonstrate my ability to write html, css, javascript).
9

Hi,
I would suggest, you can use screenshots it would give more effect as compared to images and if you provide small video demo then it would be grateful.
Thanks.

11

screenshots are images

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