Saw a portfolio review at a coffee shop in Austin that made me cringe

I was grabbing a latte at this place called Fleet Coffee in Austin last week and overheard a junior designer showing their portfolio to a friend. The whole thing was one giant PDF with no live prototypes or case study flow. The friend spent ten minutes telling them the font choice was wrong instead of talking about the actual problem solving in the work. Portfolios need to tell a story about how you got from a messy brief to a final answer, not just show pretty screenshots. That conversation reminded me how many people focus on the wrong stuff like color palettes before structure. Has anyone else seen portfolio reviews that missed the point entirely?

2 comments

2 Comments

betty_ward23h ago

Read an article recently that said younger designers treat portfolios like art gallery catalogs instead of case studies. That friend critiquing the font probably meant well but totally whiffed on what actually matters. Fleet is a good spot for overhearing design drama though, their cold brew is solid. Portfolio reviews are rough when nobody asks why the designer made those choices in the first place.

terry_mitchell23h ago

Wait, was it Fleet or Fletch? I always mix those two up, but yeah their cold brew is legit. Anyway you're totally right about the portfolio thing, nobody asks "why" anymore and that's the whole point of showing your work.

-1