Your work is only as strong as its presentation. No matter how brilliant the idea, how thought-through the decision-making, or how great the execution, it can never outshine the lowest common denominator, the finalized presentation.

Having reviewed many student design portfolios, I have seen some of the same mistakes and oversights happen over and over again. Many of these reviews resulted in some difficult discussions with these students about time management, craftsmanship, and professionalism. I find myself explaining time and time again that every professional in the field is expected to, at the very least, prepare a professional quality finished product. Detail work is at the heart of design work. We owe it to our clients and our colleagues to set, project, and maintain high standards.

Below I’ve outlined some common problems and some suggestions for creating a more professional portfolio.

Image & Print Quality

Whether your work is print or digital, make sure to avoid any issues that cause deteriorated output. Watch out for things such as pixelation, color inconsistency, paper quality, or stray printer marks. Make sure that your work is created and exported at the appropriate resolution and color mode for the end medium. A common problem to watch out for is color shifts between individual pieces in a single campaign. Make sure that all related pieces are color matched and when possible, ensure that they use the same paper color, finish, and texture.

Consistency

Whether your portfolio is a set of mounted boards, a bound book, something digital, or a combination of these, make sure that there is a sense of consistency across all pieces. For work that shares the same medium, set up a template. If you work is on boards, for example, keep consistent margins and board color at the very least. When possible, keep boards at consistent dimensions and orientation.

Size & Scale

Along the lines of creating consistency in your portfolio, you’ll need to carefully consider both your work and your audience when preparing the work. It can be very distracting and even frustrating to an audience if they cannot clearly see the particular features being described during a presentation. Knowing this can help you determine the appropriate size for your portfolio deck.

First look carefully at all work you intend to include. Try to identify the piece or pieces that will suffer the most if presented too small. This is usually the work with many components or very small details. Focus on those pieces and determine the most appropriate scale and method of presentation. You may use a single image, many small images, or a combination of large and small. A common technique is to use one or two very large images as focal points and use many smaller images to focus in on specific details within the same project.

Any size or arrangement of images is fine if it can meet the presentation goal of properly illustrating the talking points you have planned, so long as it is also large enough to do that point justice. Think of the images as visual cues for the specific things you want to say. Put them in the order you hope to say them and use the work itself as a cheat sheet for your presentation.

Once you’ve determined the best scale and arrangement for the most difficult piece to present, you can use that as a template for your other projects. Keep as much consistency as possible.

Clean Cuts

Make sure that all of your printed work is neatly trimmed. Any mounting boards should be carefully measured, have clean edges free of any fraying, and all four corners need to be sharp. Never leave the white edge around a printout left by the printer. A designer can spot a default printer margin from a mile away. Walk by any wall designated for event advertising and you’ll see them by the dozens. I guarantee that the ones that have been trimmed will easily stand out as the most professional.

Professional Mounts

Double check that all cuts, be it board or paper, are both straight and parallel. It can be very distracting if there is a clear mis-measurement or misalignment during the mounting process. Be sure that no extra glue is left on the board or is seeping through your printed work. Leftover glue blobs or greasy glue stains make your work look very rushed and unprofessional.

Make sure to erase any pencil marks leftover from the measuring process. I use post-it notes rather than pencil to mark my corners and edges as I’ve found that erasing can sometimes cause more distracting damage than leaving the pencil marks. Neither needs to be there.

You might think that a crooked trim or a defect in your presentation board is no big deal, or not worth the time or cost to fix, but you’d be dead wrong. These might seem like small things, things that can easily be overlooked, but these things actually represent a much larger issue. They highlight a lack of attention to detail, to craft, and to your professionalism in general.

Setting high standards for yourself and your work ensures that your work will not be judged for it’s poor craftsmanship, but instead for its merit. It should be your ideas, your problem-solving ability, and your attention to detail that is being evaluated, not your commitment to craft as that should be a given. There really is no excuse for lazy presentation. Best case scenario, it shows poor time-management or poor-judgment and those are certainly not attributes you want to project to your potential employer or client.

Just like a dirty glass can ruin an otherwise perfectly delicious drink, a dirty presentation of work can ruin an otherwise very impressive portfolio.