Appreciation post: Someone told me to ditch my case studies and I'm glad I listened

A senior designer from a local meetup in Portland looked at my portfolio and said my case studies were way too wordy. He told me to just show 3 before/after screenshots and a 2 sentence result for each project. I tried it last month and got my first freelance inquiry within a week. Has anyone else gotten advice that actually worked against your gut feeling?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylor_moore1d ago

I'm glad that worked out for you, but I gotta gently push back on the "just show 3 before/after screenshots" part. In my experience, that works great if you're doing visual heavy work like UI or branding, but it falls apart fast for service design or research heavy projects where the process is the whole point. I tried a super stripped down version once and a client asked me how I got from point A to point B, and I had to awkwardly explain that I cut all that out for "brevity." Definitely take this with a grain of salt, but maybe keep a one page case study with a bit more detail ready to go for clients who want to see the thinking behind the pretty pictures.

sam_harris681d ago

Damn straight, I've been burned the same way. The trick is to have a slim 3-slide version that hooks them, then a second doc that's like 5-7 pages with the real meat (stakeholder quotes, journey maps, the ugly first prototypes). That way you get the best of both worlds - they see the wins fast, but you've got the receipts ready when they ask "how'd you figure that out?