PPW Community
a website for students in the
Public & Professional Writing Program
| Digital Portfolios |
If you are marketing yourself, you need an online presence. Even if you don't have the time or skills to develop a sophisticated website, you can still create an effective online presence for yourself. This page will discuss several methods of creating web-based portfolios. It will also provide some thoughts about creating a PDF portfolio that you can email if necessary. Finally, at the bottom of the page, you will find some tips that can help you create an effective online portfolio. Before you start, take out your resume and your hard copy portfolio and do some planning. What do you want readers to see? Your resume sections may suggest the webpages that you can create. What examples will be compelling? If you are putting material online, you can include more examples (though you still want to choose the strongest and best examples that you have available). If you plan to instead create a pdf that you can email, you'll need to think about how large the file can be before it is cumbersome to email. If you have a Pitt email account, you are entitled to a small amount of space on the server with the address www.pitt.edu/~yourusername. Of course, when you graduate, you lose your Pitt account, so if you think you will need an online portfolio after graduation, you should explore other options. Whatever option you choose, remember to make it easy for readers to contact you. Include an email link, for example, along with your other contact information. Web-based Portfolios You have a lot of options for creating web-based portfolios. LinkedIn. An easy step toward creating an online presence and making your resume and portfolio accessible to potential employers or customers is LinkedIn. If you are a PPW student, you are welcome to join the PPW Alumni group on LinkedIn during your final year before graduation (or any time afterward). LinkedIn offers both free and "pro" versions (the versions you pay for allow you to do more networking among people with whom you are not already connected). You can add applications that will allow you to share files (i.e., work samples), PowerPoint slides, and more on your profile page. LinkedIn offers a lot of networking possibilities, and your page will be searchable both within LinkedIn and via search engines like Google. Free, Low-design Options. You can use existing website publishing platforms that are designed to allow you to quickly compose and publish webpages without the expense of purchasing design software and learning how to use it. You will need to spend time thinking about how to frame your work and how to structure the website. Niki Kalemnous designed an online portfolio using Google Pages (which is unfortunately no longer available to new users); you can visit her site here: http://nicole.kalemnous.googlepages.com/ Google now offers Google Sites, which allows you to create a simple website. It offers some "themes" and will let you choose colors and add photos. It encourages you to create simpler pages, but, after all, an online portfolio doesn't need to be complex or ornate in order to be effective. Drew Snyder created his web portfolio using Google Sites: http://sites.google.com/site/drewbsnyder/. Blogging software also offers you no-cost ways of developing some web content. For example, Justin Brunner created his portfolio using WordPress (some knowledge of html is helpful): http://justinarium.wordpress.com/my-portfolio/ Blogger can also allow you to create a simple portfolio online. Most if not all of these sites will allow you to use your own domain name rather than the free one they provide, if you wish to have a URL that is easier for people to remember. A domain name (such as www.yourname.com) costs about $10 a year. GoDaddy is an easy-to-use registrar, but there are others. Template-based webpage hosted on a commercial server. A step up in commitment, expense, and labor is using a template-based system and uploading your pages to your own site. So, for example, you would create a webpage or several webpages using Publisher or another program, then upload them to an account for which you have purchased a domain name and web hosting. GoDaddy offers space adequate for a small website for about $4 a month. For a bit more, they will offer you use of a website builder that will allow you to create a simple, template-based website. Designed Website hosted on a Server. The option that requires the most time, expense, and work is to actually design the site using a software package like Dreamweaver. While you have a student i.d., you can buy Adobe CS4 for a greatly reduced price; the package includes Dreamweaver along with Photoshop and other programs that allow you to create sophisticated designs. Dreamweaver also offers a few templates that you can easily adapt if you know how to use the software. Sarah Kotzman designed from scratch a sophisticated website that shows off her work in design, video, and photography. Visit her site at http://www.sarahkotzman.com/. PDF Portfolios If you create a PDF portfolio, you will have an attractive version of your resume and work samples that you can email. PDF stands for portable document format; it is a format that ensures that your readers are much likelier to see the format that you intend. If you send someone an MSWord file, the fonts, pagination, and elements like tables may be very different from what you intended. If you have a Mac, you can create a PDF of a MSWord document by simply going to file > print, clicking PDF, and selecting "save as PDF." If you have a PC, you will need a PDF maker like Adobe Acrobat, which is installed on all the computer lab machines, or Foxit PDF creator (free for a year, then inexpensive). Remember that you need to keep your PDF at a reasonable size if you intend to email it. Simple PDF portfolio. You can make a PDF portfolio either by placing all the pieces in an MSWord file and then making a PDF, or by using Adobe Acrobat to allow you to combine multiple PDF files. The latter option is especially good if you have clips that you want to show in their original form (a magazine story you have written, for example), since you can simply scan them (scanners are available for your use in the computer labs). Designed portfolio in PDF form. If you have design skills, you can use a program like InDesign to create a complete magazine-like package. This option is good for people seeking work in fields where originality and creativity are especially valued (readers in more conservative fields may find such pieces too individualistic). Allison O'Konski used InDesign to create a piece that presents her knowledge and abilities along with specific examples. Nicole Oslosky used InDesign to create a piece that presents a lot of details that she wants potential employers to know. Her publication includes pull quotes from previous supervisors. More Samples All of the above examples are from University of Pittsburgh students. As we find them, we will also post a few publically available examples from other schools: Sample designed online portfolios from MSU students: a professional writing student at Purdue |
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