I have made maybe 5 portfolio websites from scratch since I've learned how to program. Before then, I had made multiple in Framer, Wix, Squarespace, etc. But it never felt quite right.

I have a BA(hons) in Fine Art. I spent a lot of my degree trying to work out a visual style I felt actually represented me, something that resonated. During this time I fell in love with comic art, much to the chagrin of my lecturers who saw it more as a method of illustration rather than fine art, a position I went on to spend my dissertation disproving. In the end I think I found my artistic voice, but learning to code brought me back to square one in a whole new artistic space, except this time I new the finish line at least existed.

With that said, I've been programming for around 7 years now and I've only just landed somewhere with a visual language that I'm happy with, and it's not what I expected.

As we all know, practice makes perfect, and going through near on a dozen different portfolios with different styles and visual languages, I have had a lot of practice, but limiting myself to portfolio design was never going to get me very far. Only by diving into different projects with very different requirements and demands did I even begin to develop an adequate sense of digital aesthetics. I have a certificate in UX design, but UI is truly its own beast, and you don't know the challenges UI presents until you face them head on.

I have found there are 3 kind of digital products, and a small selection of use cases, that comprise the necessary knowledge base to work on pretty much any product without being blindsided.

  1. 1.

    The Desktop Application

  2. 2.

    The Mobile Application

  3. 3.

    The Web Application

Of course there are edge cases that site outside of these, but they are truly unique in each of their requirements and considerations. Mobile is its own challenge because you have a lot more fine grain accessibility requirements to maintain, you have to consider the position of the persons hand, how information presents at smaller scale, and the overall use case of mobile interaction.

Desktop is fairly easy for anyone computer literate. We've all used a thousand different apps and we inherently know when they're good or bad, and if you're paying attention then you can build an instinct for what elements of each to use and avoid.

Web is the most interesting to me because it kind of falls in both. I am a desktop native kind of person, I would much sooner browse the internet on a PC than my phone, so I default to that perspective, but web apps should work for anything that can potentially access it, from PCs to phones to smart TVs to jailbroken graphing calculators. Seeing as my portfolio lives on the web, this was something I had to think long and hard about.

There are also the use cases and experiences within digital products that kind of define what visual language you should expect, these include but are not limited to:

  1. 1.

    Immersive Interaction (full screen, usually games)

  2. 2.

    Passive Immersion (full screen, videos, hands off)

  3. 3.

    Indexed Content (blogs, YouTube, etc.)

  4. 4.

    Data Dashboards (account settings, analytics, etc.)

Each of these can inform the others, and few places will be limited to just the one use case. For example, streaming services like Netflix or Disney+ will transition from 'Indexed Content' to 'Passive Immersion' when you begin watching something, whereas a video game will run through 'Immersive Interaction' while also including elements from 'Data Dashboards'. So needless to say, these are not mutually exclusive, but do exist as their own digital languages. You expect to see things like an 'active player count' or 'more info' button/widget on a full window browser game, but the same would be invasive on Netflix. Similarly, it would seem out of place when looking at YouTube video analytics.

By understanding the differences between these use cases, you can begin to plot out a small library of components for yourself in something like Figma (an Immersive Interaction app) even just as a skills building exercise, then you can get to the fun part.. Styling.

I have multiple Pinterest (an Indexed Content app) boards for digital design, graphic design, etc. and will sift through them fairly regularly looking for inspiration. Often times I find a design has stuck in my head and I get it out onto paper or in Figma and it'll be basically a copy of the design I saved months earlier. Frustrating, but gives way to an interesting challenge.

We assume that the professional work we see is the best it's going to get (at least the work we appreciate and respect), but who's to say there isn't a more effective, or at least subjectively more appealing, solution out there. If you treat design as a problem to be solved, the best outcome will be the one that solves it more gracefully, more efficiently, with enough confidence so as not to show off technical ability and let the solution speak for itself.

A mathematician doesn't need to give any more complex an answer to '2+2' than you or I, but they are equipped with the knowledge and tools to solve things at a much steeper complexity curve because they are firm on the ground work. There's nothing to prove by using complex tricks for simple tasks. Real expertise shines through when you use simple tools to solve complex tasks.

There's a fantastic example of this in measuring the circumference of the Earth. An insecure scientist might use a ring laser gyroscope and other fancy technology and maths to find the answer, when in reality it's as simple as going to the coast and watch the sun set over the horizon while prone, then as it dips below the horizon you stand up and take not of how much of the sun you can see from standing. No tools, a few basic measurements, and suddenly you have two tangent points on a circle from which you can work out the rest on paper.

I didn't intend for this to be a lecture on design, because ultimately I'm not expert. My portfolio exists now in a few different forms, tailored to each of the projects but the home page is essentially indexed content. I'm a developer, but I'm also an artist, and trying to reconcile that seems simple but in reality is incredibly hard, but understanding what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and striving for the simplest solution is how I continue to move forward which is especially valuable seeing as how tightly I've held onto my history.

I've done so much over the years, I've worked so hard and made a lot of cool stuff that has existed almost exclusively in my head and on my screen, but now I have a format where I can share these ideas, these products, and put them out into the world on a web page I can be proud of. I can point to it all and say this was me. Here I am, still doing stuff. Still moving forward, and being able to plot that record of the past makes it a hell of a lot easier to take larger steps in the right direction.