Design portfolios are liars. Not intentionally. They’re just… polished to wow you.
The neat little case study with a beautifully linear process. Slick and symmetrical wireframes. You know this is not reality, right?!
None of my projects EVER started from a blank canvas with a clear vision of what components and colour etc will be need when we launch. In 20 years, hundreds of projects… never happened. Usually the process includes some of those elements…
- no clear brief, you have to dissect it from every decision maker involved (bring me my tweezers),
- work needs to be based on an outdated design (dino ages)
- which is not optimised for usability… but you are not allowed to change it (who cares if anyone can read the text?!)
- working in someone else’s file, you don’t have rights to edit
- no layers, layer names or descriptions in the file (happy hunting)
- the existing screens have different sizes (it needs to be responsive anyway, right?!)
- you need to combine 3 different design systems and templates, which all have different forms (Grrrr!)
- you get the “screen” from the oversees team as a photo (if you can see it, it counts)
- you can only spend 2 days on it (estimated 5)
- …oh no actually we need it today… “I forgot to tell you about the meeting I need it for” (Screaming into the void)
- dev team needs the screens like this and marketing team like that (landing-product-mobile_withoutText_withHeader_noFooter.png)
Reality is… it’s chaos. Starting from day 1. Not intentional, obviously.
Yet somehow… the product ships. Client is happy. You are exhausted… and you wonder how we actually pulled this off?!
I’ve realised that the real skill isn’t producing perfect Figma files. It’s navigating chaos without losing sight of the user and the business perspective… and my standards.
That’s the part portfolios never show. I know you (recruiters) want to see it… and for some projects we can show it. But only because we polished it in a few late night sessions. Outside of the projects time we got paid for. Usually clients don’t care about the neatness of your file. They pay you to be productive and deliver.
#ProductDesign #UXDesign #UIDesign #DesignProcess #Portfolio #FreelanceDesigner #DesignLeadership #ChaosRise