6 Things you SHOULDN'T DO on your Portfolio

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-- Today, I'm checking out various things that you shouldn't do on your (design OR code) portfolios. Like for instance, progress bars that represent your skills? DON'T DO THAT. Find out way and watch!
Let's get started!
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Who is Gary Simon? Well, I'm a full stack developer with 2+ decades experience and I teach people how to design and code. I've created around 100+ courses for big brands like LinkedIn, Lynda.com, Pluralsight and Envato Network.
Now, I focus all of my time and energy on this channel and my website Coursetro.com.
Come to my discord server or add me on social media and say Hi!

[@DesignCourse]

What did I leave out? What else should you not do on your portfolio?

[@codingmasteryt2021]

If your a front end developer, don't use a web builder like Wix to make your portfolio website.

[@naikaayush]

Please wear a non green t shirt 😂 you're transparent

[@ShivanshSen7]

Nearly Headless Gary Simon, No offence, just Joke. Good work, I enjoy ur videos, it helps

[@AmoghHarish]

This might not be for a personal portfolio, but I've seen it on quite a few of them: don't put the number of pizzas you've eaten, the cups of coffee you've consumed, the amount of hours you've coded, or the amount of projects you've worked on. The one thing that's going to stand out when a potential client or employer sees that is that you are not confident about your work and that you are using numbers to impress them. Also, one other thing I'd like to add on to what you said about the portfolio bit is that you need not have 30 or 40 different things up on the portfolio. Have 5 or 6 of your best ones, and let each of these be in a case study format where clients / employers can get an idea of the way you work. This will really help out in the long run because your client or employer can glimpse at what you can offer before getting in touch with you as opposed to having to look through 40-50 portfolio items without much explanation.

[@codingmasteryt2021]

@@AmoghHarish yes, don't put too much of your hobbies

[@willmakk]

this floating head makes some good points

[@alvisf4643]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@AmoghHarish]

Nearly Headless Gary

[@Daniel_WR_Hart]

When you take being a "talking head" very seriously

[@allywithextral7960]

69 likes, I dare not to like .. not today

[@jitendraasole5827]

No doubt

[@aftabk1013]

No one : Literally no one: Gary : wears green shirt while in green screen

[@SashenMe]

He looks like a ghost here!

[@raju_rapper7544]

ikr

[@Your_Degenerate]

Literally every highschool media class: Does that to make their school news show as floating heads and think they're original

[@yamanosu9463]

I though his shirt was black

[@fredhair]

head.in-this-video { float: left; background: transparent; }

[@averagewojak2623]

position: absolute; bottom: 0; left: 0;

[@DuyTran-ss4lu]

Lmao

[@CristianSerran0]

.mic { position: absolute; top:0; display: yes!; }

[@gamasierra]

@@CristianSerran0 😂😂😂

[@Kendrip]

"Emphasis your strengths and don't talk about what you don't know" - Gary Simon This tip applies for almost every situations that exists so am taking this one serious, you should too.

[@Kyrmana]

I should print that out big and hang it on my wall 🤦‍♀️

[@juangalicia4155]

my summary 1.you need to give somebody a place to click, like a navbar and make sure you giving them a relevant direction. 2.nobody is going to contact you they first look at your work and also before they first learn more about more you(in others words, dont put "Contact me" in the principal page, put something like "Check out my work"). 3. If you are going to put your achieviements, provide a little bit of details about what do you do and put logos about your achieviements. 4. Dont use progress bar about your skills (who do this wtf). Emphazise the strength, something like:"i pretty strong in javascript". 5. "About me sections": Nobody wants to read multiple paragraphs before they are able to see your work. In others words, first put your projects or works and then your "About me section". 6. If you are not a web designer, you can use templates for your portfolio. But if you are a web designer it is contradictory that you use templates, since you are going to offer someone to design UI.

[@Nevarek_]

Thanks! I disagree with 6 simply because people who know when to use themes versus reinventing the wheel are better suited to save time and money. It's more of a "read the room" situation. Being comfortable with others' work is also highly valuable.

[@ShogoMakishimaxx]

Ah. I like this.

[@remy0demy]

Next video: 6 Things you SHOULDN'T DO while using a greenscreen. 😂

[@codliverwell1832]

Deserves more likes. Underappreciated comment.

[@nuelcee9906]

😂😂😂

[@hmod7389]

This channel is like an older brother telling us how to not embarrass our selfs 😂

[@francescob.3019]

the reason why you should use a template or smth if you're not a good ui designer is because it's much more important to show that you UNDERSTAND what a bad UI looks like, so you know that your work would not be good enough for it. If your portfolio looks bad, not only you're demonstrating that you're not a very good designer, but that you can't tell a good one from a bad one, which is much more important.

[@warrenarnold]

underrated comment

[@TennisonBabu]

💯 Wow!! Well said.

[@johngudelj1962]

Speaking as a graphic designer, "taking on too many hats" is what a lot of employers are looking for in their job postings. Keep up the great work. I'm learning a lot from your content. Cheers.

[@cheqitout]

Man i love your style! the advise is always practical and understandable, you're one of the clearest design youtubers out there! keep up the good work!

[@chrishuhn5065]

5:00 Regarding context and case studies: With these companies he probably can't talk about that because of a NDA, especially with security related work.

[@nathanielkelly6160]

I have been away for awhile and I just came back to check a few things out... You are looking JACKED. Congrats def a huge difference from the first videos.

[@joekliws8732]

I'm starting now as UX designer and your channel has been of great help! Thank you so much and keep up!

[@t20sgrunt36]

Love that you review and give Real World examples. Thanks for the content!

[@CortiBeats]

Bruh, some day I'll recommend your KZbin channel, you helped me a lot man, thank you!

[@CoolScratcher]

You're a huge inspiration Gary! You're amazing! :D

[@TimHunold]

Status bars are common to those who get burn out when screener calls ask you to rate yourself 1-10 on a skill. I see them often as years of experience and self rating. If I use them, it is for comic relief

[@husseinkizz]

Thanks, Gary, I have watched it comparing my portfolio, and lol I did well at most but thanks for the tips!

[@aayushjain2438]

7. Make single page portfolios instead of 3-4 page.

[@Bic4Colours]

Yeah then your SEO is shite. Almost no internal backlinks. Don't do single page anything, people.

[@sonicevostator]

@@Bic4Colours You hand portfolios personally, SEO doesn't matter at all. Also, SEO is designed so that the most important factor in your webpage is that it is good and it attracts attention.

[@17thirty72]

Don’t forget to double check everything! You missed the white outline on your thumbnail! Try using a magnetic lasso tool instead of quick selection when selecting a certain part of an image 😉

[@JohntheFistah1]

On point as always! Gary is a professional at every level.

[@sabirnawaz1304]

Thanks Gary I was just about to create my portfolio and got your video

[@antons7210]

I've always wondered about that skill bar thing. Great tips!

[@PetersonJoseph]

Not gonna lie, I thought this would be the same regurgitated stuff as other sites, but the advice here is really solid, good work and thanks dude.

[@brockman562]

I've seen a ton of UX and webdev portfolios that were just hard on the eyes.

[@ward7576]

9:15 that is seriously A GOOD point. But, when you say "especially if the UI is not so pretty" - doesn't it kind of get your expectations up with that professional looking graphic, then you open that project on live demo and it's pretty "meh"?

[@techwake360]

Thank you so much for you helpful advice and i learned a lot of things that what i have to do or not. 👍

[@marcelnunez1658]

This is gold, thanks Rayman

[@abhinavsharma2522]

Your last advice really was very helpful for me!!👍👍

[@ademineshat]

Very useful information! Thanks

[@agk2011]

Very useful video. Thank you.

[@mrpanicattack6688]

I love that invisibility shirt 😍

[@harishraju4321]

So satisfying to see your shirt color change dynamically tho....

[@carldressler3262]

Thanks for your videos! :)

[@fwd79]

"What does he sucks at the most" - lol brilliant 😂😂

[@koladeafeez7209]

Thanks for the tips..

[@rexrex8664]

Thann you for the awesome tipsss@@

[@pinkcat3060]

Hi I have 02 questions ... im new to this channel and I already know html/css and little bit vanilla js but from where is best to start watching this channels videos ? Bc I watch videos randomly and practice ...i wanted to know whether there is a specific part of the play list I need to start with bc I love ur videos And the second one is ...how can I make watermarks for a web page? 😅

[@rahulphogat9324]

True I agree with you 😊

[@hifaothman5278]

Thank you, could you please leave the links of the projects to recreate.

[@nerminskenderovic]

Do you have any links where one can find such portfolio templates? Especially for a frontend or backend developer, it doesn't have to be too fancy, just decent.

[@elwinjyothis5388]

Wtf he can change his t-shirts color with the screen! Mind Blowing dude

[@edwarddaniel7206]

I would use drop shadows for thumbnails. It would give it some depth and not too much of a drop shadow just something nice and subtle but noticeable.

[@TheJP100]

Very informative video, the talking head thing is kinda funny

[@shagunbhardwaj2040]

Can I use my figma play link as my portfolio? Or I have to create alternate web portfolio? My only need is that I wanna add it to my resume

[@roshanbandara5395]

Thank you.

[@liaxo6555]

I feel like Linode is your permanent sponsor lmao

[@DesignCourse]

They've been with me for about a year now!

[@SashenMe]

Haha yes! That ad is annoying now. We better find another sponsor for him :)

[@juraev0056]

@@SashenMe But it's influencing me! 😃

[@13aaryan]

@@juraev0056 true. Started using Linode now.

[@nivinps2437]

Thank you

[@notokkid01]

Personally, I never understood how these progress bars should even work. What does 65% JS mean? You know 65% of all JS? You feel like your mastery of JS is 65%... what? It doesn't mean anything.

[@satellitesage2487]

It's probably just a self-assessment indicating how comfortable you are working with a certain technology.

[@athavy92]

Question about logos: Is it okay to use company logos or add them on your portfolio site? I've always gravitated towards using freely-usable images, but would like some clarity on logos and/or company images. Of course, social media logo links are the exception. In addition to that, how would I go about showing work if I've developed enterprise applications for a company that may or may not considered intellectual property?

[@CathyLarkinWebSavvyPR]

When I worked for a museum in PR/marketing, and a photographer whom we hired used our logo on their portfolio, we send a letter asking him to remove it ( I also called him as I didn't want to screw up the relationship, we liked his work) It was fine to say we hired him, and we did often, but our logo implied endorsement, and the logo is used for licensing of products, and we also had strict visual guidelines of how it can/can't be used.

[@gamingmode8942]

10:06 🧡 11:10 totally agree!

[@AeronGamesStudio]

Playing for a while the red guitar for inspiration 0:18

[@raresdumitrica7465]

Hei, nice vid as usual but it would be really nice to have like a good visual example for every bad habit on the portofolio. Something like "don't put progress bars, use something else" and a good example. Anyway really nice work. Keep up the good job

[@CathyLarkinWebSavvyPR]

I will say yeah, larger companies aren't so likely to come after you for logos, but I would still be hesitant

[@itzzvale5397]

would it be a problem if i use a page for my mock-ups to not do it by myself?

[@BakvasProof]

Nice music at the end

[@astrofx6717]

Good point 😎👍

[@febrikurniawan7276]

thank you :)

[@schaafman]

Can someone post a link to the full ui course?

[@user-oh3ke5id8i]

If you're a UI person, but don't know how to code, then what are you meant to do? hire a developer? Or use a template and alter it?

[@example7091]

Can you make a series where you review portfolios?

[@XbattlepopeX]

When you see someone with a progress bar hit them on a head with a newspaper "NO,NO, Bad Boy"

[@serhiisietrin9314]

pony

[@choolakejinendra9652]

I`m coming out of university looking for an internship.Should I delete my "not so much great" skills list or is it fine to keep them to make my chances of getting an internship higher?I am pretty good at React, Vue and React Native but not so much with java.Should I keep it there or delete?

[@jhomkarlopatinoperez3]

If you want to work in Java projects you should put it there, but in like a interest to work, or saying exactly that you are beginning to learn Java.

[@officialsatisfyingvids8296]

Hey man, I want to start a portfolio business and I’m having this problem. How can I accept payment from customers after them seeking a service they wants done...

[@pexeixv]

Can someone give me the link to the video Gary is referring to at @14:07?

[@GAMESSPOT01]

amazing..........

[@viallymboma9874]

From 0 to 21 sec lemon green T-shirt...from 21sec to...black shirt 😊👍

[@guusgeluk3693]

Also make a video on what you should do

[@afsanazamannipa7711]

thanks a lot for this eye opening video :) Need to update portfolio

[@sadatnafis2032]

Gary : "Im just a talking head, a zombie floating" Eminem : Whoah man you took it literally!

[@tomfrakey6335]

8:50 I don't want to put words in his mouth but what I feel like he's talking about here is presentation skills. Suppose we were making a powerpoint presentation instead, we may want to go beyond simple screen shots and really style it up to emphasise certain aspects (such as, this is a phone app, see it's on a phone, not just a screen). This is showing two skills in one

[@maciejka1]

your t shirt is awesome

[@kshitijj2]

Grooming your biceps 💪

[@didiermeynders]

Especially that last one "hire someone if you suck at it".

[@kirayamato6128]

On the thumb part. I think it was good cuz he/she showcasing a system, not a ui/ux design or landing pages or a just a website

[@ronaldkawatsky407]

Which or your UI design course is best for getting started?

[@mihailodukic601]

My about me is about 3 lines long . Basically short and sweet and to the point . Is that fine ?

[@bluecherry-hart4786]

Are you allowed to use another company's logo? I am always cautious about this because of trademark and copyright laws :/

[@Bajrang.707]

You're the Jessie of Web. Even you look & sounds like him. (Jessie - the car expert in fast and furious 1)

[@nuelcee9906]

😂😂😂the Hall of fame part is hilarious

[@esportsnexus]

You're awesome

[@dontnocode]

The Progress bars bit got me livid.. lol

[@adeshkantha7034]

What is swags?

[@decodewithdipanjan]

love from India

[@PestisNonSapien_GMO_exHuman]

9:16 So the opposite of what you would do in a mobile app store. I never download an app that only shows me pictures of a phone instead of screen shots. Really hard to see what I'm looking for in those fake phone pictures.

[@kabilan__v]

Made the like button to 700

[@landryplacid4065]

😂😂😂 almost a little bite too ......6:05... The truth is as developers we hate lies but never get to say the complete truth.

[@superdupercozywozy]

Damn! I like your transparent shirt, where can I buy one?

[@hustlershorts]

green t-shirt again your head is cuting out every time you scroll hhh :D

[@saltydunmer3453]

Don't ever put company logos on your portfolio without written permission. Even then you can get a lovely letter from a lawyer. Be careful with that

[@XbattlepopeX]

Well good opportunity to teach us how to make our thumbnails for portfolio without downloading photoshop templates

[@KevJaques]

It's all about context, no ifs, no buts ;)

[@trafficface]

I do logos and websites, 3d and other things, despite my headshot I'm 30 years old (to lazy to update) and have about as much experience programming as I do in the art space. That said I'd consider a template would save me time, time is money and that is what companies care about, they don't care that I'm creative, they care that you are efficient. It's taken me many many years to build up my portfolio design but every time I am ready to build it. I get a job just on my interview. I am either really good (which is funny to even entertain, nobody is good at anything) or a reasonable person, I could be? Any ms and mr junior developer I'm going to tell you a secret, you can get a job without a portfolio, you just need to know what your talking about and put yourself forward and make opportunities for yourself. My first job was with Dyson, you know that rather large British company, I got the job because I asked for the job.

[@nikitarudenko2465]

"Make beautiful project thumbnails with skew and stuff" Got it. But I'm not a UI designer. Is there any tools that will help?

[@aldocaamal7740]

I am neither a UI designer, and haven't used those flashy dribble designs but there are multiple websites on were you can download mock-ups for Photoshop or illustrator, for example www.mockupworld.co/all-mockups/page/2/

[@amongdoomers9464]

this guy has a dope muscles 😳

[@Mark33090]

Dang. I still haven't finished my portfolio page. I keep working on it, then I watch these videos and see all the crap I'm doing wrong lol. Very good points, thank you....

[@kirayamato6128]

Note that Making a system is not about a ui/ux or a responsive or a beautiful on your eye. It should be functional, resuable and feasible.

[@AmandaVieiraMamaesouCult]

But if you're trying to market yourself as a UI designer... That would be weird to use a template

[@ianzhengUX]

Is there anyone like me that feel making the t-shirt transparent, only head on the neck floating around, sometimes arms also, is creepy?

[@AnvildevilGq00]

Garry why you are wearing a green tshirt 😂

[@gamingmode8942]

6:35 emphasize your strengths