From Ideas to Pixels: How I Designed My Perfect Portfolio Website

The best advice I've ever been given is "It's not that serious". The portfolio I had created coming out of college was exactly what everyone said it should be: professional, clean... boring. But if I think it's boring, why would anyone want to look through it? So when I made the decision to start my portfolio over from scratch, I resolved to do it how I wanted and infuse my personality into every piece of it.

---

Typography

Picking out fonts for this portfolio was honestly the hardest part because I have around 700 fonts on my computer. (I'm not addicted I swear!) I actually struggled so hard with picking a main font that I decided to pick my color palette first. Once I had my color palette, I knew I was going for a fun funky retro vibe. After that, the very obvious answer was the breathtaking font Magic Retro. The tilt of the "o" alone was enough to sell me, honestly. But the longer I played with it I discovered that my favorite part of it is the way the letters interact with each other.

Once I had decided on Magic Retro as my main font, I knew I needed a fairly simple and clean font for my secondary. While Century Gothic is my sans serif font of all time, I stumbled upon Josefin Sans while working through my font library for what looks best and it was love at first sight.

---

Color Palette

Figuring out the colors I wanted to use was a bit of a trial-and-error process because I had an idea in my head that didn't end up being ADA-safe. I knew I wanted one of the main colors to be yellow because it's my favorite color. This led me on a wild Pinterest hunt for a color palette with yellow in it that I actually liked. I'm embarrassed to admit it took about 3 days of searching before I realized the answer was in one of my favorite yellow objects. Lemons. Once I had my color inspiration, the yellow and the greens fell into my lap easily. I added brown and tan to give myself a couple of neutrals because every color palette needs some neutrals. The blue color honestly just happened and it worked so well that I didn't question it, lol.

---

Personality

For me, the most important part of crafting my portfolio was infusing it with my unique personality. I wanted to ensure that anyone who viewed it would get a real sense of who I am—not just a list of my skills and accomplishments, but the sassy, fun professional behind the work. By incorporating elements that reflect my character and style, I aimed to create a portfolio that’s not only visually appealing but also authentically represents me. It’s about making a memorable impression and showing potential clients and employers that working with me will be as enjoyable as it is productive.