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Portfolio planning guide

How to create a portfolio website with a clear point of view

Choose work for the opportunities you want, decide which projects need context, build a deliberate gallery and case-study structure, and review the complete portfolio before publishing.

By Lindo.ai · Published

Create your portfolio

Bring your selected projects and verified context, then edit the generated portfolio and review every public detail.

Begin with the audience and the next opportunity, not with every project you have completed. A focused portfolio helps visitors evaluate your judgment by showing a coherent selection, your role, relevant process, and enough context to understand why the work matters.

After curating the material, you can describe the portfolio to Lindo and generate an editable draft or adapt a current catalog template. Replace all sample work, credit collaborators, protect confidential information, prepare media, and test the viewing and contact experience before launch.

Step-by-step guide

Build it in a deliberate sequence

Each step is visible so you can inspect the content, replace assumptions, and decide when the result is ready to publish.

Define the next opportunity

Name the specific clients, employers, collaborators, galleries, publishers, or audiences the portfolio should help you reach.

Select evidence with a rubric

Score possible projects for relevance, quality, range, depth, available context, permission, and your ability to explain the work accurately.

Choose gallery or case study depth

Decide which work can stand with a concise caption and which projects require role, process, constraints, decisions, and reflection.

Prepare project source material

Collect approved images, project facts, dates, roles, collaborators, credits, links, process artifacts, and supported outcomes before drafting.

Build the portfolio narrative

Order the work intentionally, write clear introductions and case studies, and connect biography and contact details to the opportunities you want.

Generate and refine the draft

Describe the planned portfolio in Lindo, create an editable first version, and replace every sample item with reviewed material.

Test the viewing journey

Review image preparation, captions, reading order, mobile galleries, links, contact paths, privacy, credits, and the final published domain.

Page map

Plan the structure before writing

Use only the pages and sections your audience needs, then make every next step explicit.

  • Home or selected work: introduce your positioning and lead with the strongest projects for the target audience.
  • Project or case-study pages: explain role, context, decisions, process, collaborators, and supported outcomes at the right depth.
  • About: connect relevant biography, experience, approach, résumé, writing, or speaking to the work visitors just reviewed.
  • Contact: state which opportunities fit, what information to include, and how you will receive the inquiry.
  • Optional archive or notes: include older work, experiments, writing, or process only when it adds useful evidence rather than clutter.

Launch checklist

  • Every selected project supports the next opportunity and has a clear reason to remain in the portfolio.
  • Your exact role, collaborators, credits, dates, and any outcomes are accurate and consistently presented.
  • Permissions and confidentiality have been checked for client work, people, process artifacts, screenshots, and published media.
  • Images are intentionally selected, prepared for the web, sequenced clearly, and reviewed on mobile and slower connections.
  • Biography, résumé, service context, ordinary links, and contact information support the same professional positioning.
  • Navigation, project-to-project movement, external links, contact routes, metadata, and the live domain have been tested.

Mistakes to avoid

  • Publishing every completed project instead of curating evidence for a specific audience and next opportunity.
  • Claiming team outcomes as individual work or omitting collaborators, constraints, permissions, and the actual scope of your role.
  • Using large image files, unclear galleries, hidden contact details, or clever navigation that makes the work harder to evaluate.
  • Writing long process narratives without showing the decisions or evidence that matter to the intended reader.

Copyable worksheet

Portfolio project selection scorecard

Score each possible project from one to five against these criteria, then keep only the set that collectively supports your target audience and next opportunity.

  1. 01Relevance: Does this project resemble the problems, medium, sector, or responsibility you want next?
  2. 02Quality: Does the final work represent the standard you want associated with your name today?
  3. 03Role clarity: Can you explain exactly what you owned, decided, produced, and shared with collaborators?
  4. 04Evidence depth: Do you have approved visuals, context, process artifacts, and bounded outcomes that support the story?
  5. 05Distinct value: Does this project add a capability or perspective that the stronger selected projects do not already show?
  6. 06Permission and privacy: Can every image, name, quote, metric, artifact, and client detail be published responsibly?
  7. 07Narrative fit: Does the project improve the sequence and make the overall portfolio easier for the intended audience to understand?

Real catalog starting points

Compare structures before choosing a direction

These are live previews from Lindo's current template catalog. Use them as starting points, then replace every example with your own content and proof.

Compact selected-work structure

Use this broad creative example to evaluate whether a concise featured-project sequence can communicate your range without an oversized archive.

Open catalog preview

Narrative creative portfolio

This variation is useful for comparing a more editorial flow that gives project context, personal positioning, and contact equal attention.

Open catalog preview

Case-study portfolio structure

A design-oriented starting point for work that needs a brief, role, constraints, decisions, process evidence, and a concise result or reflection.

Open catalog preview

What Lindo supports

  • Generate an editable portfolio draft after you describe the audience, selected projects, desired depth, and visual direction.
  • Edit project text, gallery structure, biography, approved images, credits, ordinary links, and contact details.
  • Use current portfolio templates to compare image-led, editorial, and case-study structures before adapting one.
  • Publish the reviewed portfolio and connect a supported domain through the current workflow.

What still needs your review

  • You must verify authorship, roles, permissions, collaborators, metrics, outcomes, confidentiality, image rights, and all public contact information.
  • Private project access, file delivery, proofing, applications, commerce, commissions, CRM, and scheduling may require manual work or external tools.

Evidence

What these recommendations are based on

These current catalog examples make three different portfolio structures inspectable while you plan; they do not validate your project claims, authorship, or outcomes.

Review the source

Continue planning

Useful next steps

Portfolio website builderMove to the editable builder workflow after selecting projects and preparing the source material in this guide.How to create a photography websiteUse the photography-specific image, gallery, package, inquiry, and performance workflow when client services shape the site.Artist website builderUse the artist-specific commercial journey when artwork series, exhibitions, biography, and inquiries are central.Website templatesInspect current portfolio structures only after deciding what work, context, and viewing sequence your audience needs.How to make a websiteReturn to the broader beginner guide for domain, page-map, launch, and maintenance decisions beyond portfolio curation.

Create your portfolio

Bring your selected projects and verified context, then edit the generated portfolio and review every public detail.

Create your portfolio

Frequently Asked Questions

How many projects should a portfolio website show?
Choose enough projects to demonstrate relevant range and repeated judgment without diluting quality. A smaller, stronger set is usually easier for a specific audience to evaluate.
How do I choose which portfolio projects to remove?
Remove work that is weaker, repetitive, unrelated to the next opportunity, impossible to explain honestly, confidential, or not yours to publish. Keep the selection purposeful.
What should a portfolio case study include?
Explain the situation, your exact role, collaborators, constraints, important decisions, relevant process evidence, final work, and a bounded result or reflection you can support.
Can I include confidential client work?
Only publish what you have permission to share. Remove sensitive material, anonymize context when approved, create a separate private process externally, or omit the project entirely.
Do I need a separate about page?
Use one when your biography, experience, approach, résumé, speaking, writing, or contact context helps the decision. A short portfolio may handle this in a focused section instead.
How should I review a portfolio before launch?
Check selection, authorship, credits, claims, image quality, load behavior, reading order, mobile galleries, keyboard navigation basics, links, contact details, and the live domain.

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