Give Your Digital Portfolio A Makeover With These Popular Design Trends

We thought we would post something a little different. This article is aimed at all the designers out there who want to update their portfolios. We found this great article John Young on www.designtaxi.com



As a creative, it’s vital to stay ahead of the competition. That means having a digital portfolio that does not only showcases your best works, but also demonstrates your understanding of upcoming and popular trends.

Your portfolio is an extension of yourself, and should be used to convince prospective clients to hire you—thus it’s important to constantly improve and refresh it.

If you’re planning to do that, here are five design trends that you should be implementing to your digital portfolio to give it a significant edge in 2016.

1.     Give Your Portfolio A New Paint Job With Colors That Are Currently In Favor




Besides altering our minds and moods, colors can be used to capture and redirect attention to different elements on your portfolio.

Use this to your advantage by highlighting your best work or achievements. According to Creative Market, colors that are currently favored in 2016 include soft and dreamy pastels, minimalistic monochromatic shades, and deep vibrant colors that have been inspired by outer space and nebulas.


2.     Clean And Flat Design—Keeping It Simple




Despite being a mainstay in the design industry for the past few years, flat design is becoming even more popular in 2016. Crisp and simple, it makes your portfolio appear less cluttered—allowing visitors to focus more on the content without being distracted.

Doing away with complex effects, textures and shapes, flat design relies on the simplicity of your page elements—it also makes your portfolio more responsive and easier to navigate.

If you’re worried about the hassle of redesigning your portfolio, let Squarespace put your troubles to ease. With an array of templates available, finding a clean and modern design has never been easier. With a simple click of the mouse, you can rearrange page elements, edit your layout, or even change the color scheme. It’s that simple.

3.     The New Serif In Town: The Rise Of Serif Typefaces


 

Just like flat design, we’ve been seeing a rise of serif-related typefaces in the design world. This could possibly be attributed to the prevalence of higher resolution screens.

As digital devices adopt better performing screens, they will be able to handle the delicate and refined nuances of serif typefaces—allowing designers to showcase their distinct personalities.

If serif typefaces are something you’re interested in implementing to your portfolio, Squarespace has partnered Typekit to provide you with a free selection of the highest quality fonts available on the web. These fonts can be used without embedding font kits or paying additional fees.

4.     Create A Memorable and Stylized Personal Logo




As mentioned in a previous article, it’s important to introduce yourself on the landing page of your portfolio. One great way to do so is by creating a personalized logo.

With an easy-to-use, browser-based design tool, Squarespace lets you instantly create a logo for your portfolio. If ideas are what you need, here’s an infographic that highlights popular logo trends in 2016.

Put together by Tailor Brands, it reveals the key aesthetic advantages of logo designs like lettering, negative space, polygon and lettering.


5.     Mobility Is King; Make Sure Your Portfolio Can Be Viewed On-The-Go




Unlike the past, almost everything can be viewed through a mobile phone or tablet these days. That is why it’s important to have a mobile-friendly portfolio.

By creating a functional portfolio for mobile visitors, it ensures a pleasant viewing experience regardless of where they may be accessing it from.

Since mobile viewing is probably here to stay, why not revamp your portfolio and tap into a wider audience and reach.

Creating a mobile-friendly site is made easy with Squarespace. Every design automatically includes a built-in mobile version, and will remain completely responsive on any device. Rest assured that your content will always look great, regardless of screen size.


To find out more about what Squarespace has to offer, please visit its Full Feature Index. Trust us, you won’t regret it.

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