Example Lecture Content: Design Elements

In the creation of your portfolio, you will use different design elements. You will have an identifying logo, fonts, and different color choices that will all need to work harmoniously together to successfully establish your brand.
While creating your portfolio, consider these elements carefully.

Logo

Your logo design is the calling card of your brand. It should be distinct, relevant to your work, memorable, and be just as effective in grayscale (on your business card) as in color (on your portfolio). Think about the iconic logo that Starbucks uses. It is immediately recognizable and communicates a consistent, professional company image that is associated with a quality product. Also, remember that a logo has to look good and small on your business card or portfolio as well as large on a banner or a signpost. You want the flexibility of using different sizes of your logo for your marketing materials.
The logo is the signature for your brand and should therefore be a clean, simple visual statement that at a glance distinguishes you from your competitors. A logo is not necessarily your name but can be and is a graphic representation that is used to tie all your marketing materials together, including your portfolio.

Font Choice

Font is a complete set of individual characters that make up a typeface. The font family includes all iterations of the font in the typeface including bold, italic, lowercase, uppercase, and other variations.
Keep in mind the following guidelines while selecting fonts for your web portfolio:
  • Remember to keep it simple. You want your work to speak for you and not your font choices.
  • Look for classic styles when selecting fonts. If you can't tell whether the typeface was designed somewhere in the recent past or one hundred and twenty years ago, then that's a good sign.
  • Don't complicate your portfolio and marketing materials with a lot of outlandish, overly designed fonts. These elements will distract the audience's attention from your work.
  • Don't use more than two font type families (including the bold and italic versions) in any project. This is another element to keeping it simple and avoiding a visually complicated portfolio. You can draw attention to certain parts of the portfolio by using up to two font families. Use fonts as a device to direct the viewer's attention to areas of emphasis.
  • There is a fine line between picking a display font with character and using an overly designed cheesy font. Fonts can be quickly overdone like Adobe Photoshop filters. Some fonts to avoid are Comic Sans, Bradley Hand (or any handwritten font family), Papyrus, and the over-used Trajan. Do not use cutesy image-based fonts that look like animals, leaves, or dripping blood. Sans-serif fonts such as Helvetica, Gill Sans, or Verdana are commonly used as body text because they are easier to read on screen than serif fonts, such as Times, Bodoni, or Baskerville.
A clean simple font choice will make your portfolio and marketing materials professional and retain the viewer's attention on your work.

Color

Color has an immediate emotional impact. Color choice can make or break a design, including a portfolio. As a general rule, colors should be neutral or muted and not compete with your work. A shade of fuchsia may be a personal favorite but may lose its effect when used with an image with a lot of predominate greens.
You can emphasize on colors that will stand alone and not compete with your work. For instance, a section separator may look great in brilliant red but that same red will command attention when paired with a subtle low-definition image and keep the viewer from appreciating your work.

Other Design Elements

Some people like to include other design elements such as lines, shapes, and other graphic elements in their portfolios to further distinguish their work. These should be considered carefully. Anything included should have a specific reason for being there and should not just be added for the sake of design. Remember, your portfolio should always let your work shine through, so if there is a reason to add a border around your image, do it; but if your work looks best by itself on a page, avoid complicating the design with additional graphic details.