“Your portfolio can be your home on the web — your place to really let your personality come through,” says web designer Meagan Fisher, who has built a career helping a range of clients find that professional balance between authentic and effective self promotion. “As much as you can, think about what makes you unique and showcase that. While you do want to market yourself in a way that appeals to your target audience, I think the best portfolio websites leave people with a better idea of who you are.”

Fisher created three Adobe XD starter design files, plus one bonus variant, to help creatives jumpstart the process of building an online portfolio — from conception to completion. She shares them here along with some of her thoughts on how to make the most impact with your online portfolio.

Download the free Adobe XD starter design files to create your own portfolio.

Interior design template.

“I wanted this template to feel polished and professional; if you’re trusting someone to create a space you live or work in, you need to know they’re serious and tasteful. I included a page for the founder’s story, which is an important part of any portfolio website — an opportunity to show off your experience and help potential clients feel comfortable with you before they ever reach out.”

Photography template.

“I wanted to capture the mood of a friendly, approachable, and thoughtful photographer; having worked with photographers for personal shoots, I know how intimidating it can be, so it was important to me that this template convey warmth. Here, I included a page for customer quotes. If you can source these as a creative, they can be so powerful to build trust with future customers — a great way to brag about your work without doing it directly, in your own voice.”

Graphic design templates.

“I designed the portfolio template and its variant to be pure fun. I wanted to show how a portfolio could have a lot of character and whimsy while still showcasing a designer’s work and encouraging leads. I included a page for case studies — speaking from experience, those are often the hardest part to tackle because they require telling the story of the project, from the initial brief to how you arrived at a solution. Sometimes it can be hard to convey the often nonlinear creative process in story form, but it’s a really helpful way for clients to understand how you work and what they can expect from partnering with you.”

Fisher’s bonus portfolio pro tips:

Embrace your experience.

“Start with what you have now. If you’re early in your career, the most important thing is to get your work out there and keep growing. Even if you’re not 100% confident the work is perfect or you don’t know exactly what to say about everything (especially the meaning of life!), get a portfolio online and start building a presence on creative community sites like Behance right away. You will refine your work and how you talk about it as you grow as a designer.”

Lean into your personal style.

“Do you love to do work that’s bright and playful? Share that. Do you love to design edgy, minimalist apps? Tell people that, and tell them why. How you think about your work will always be changing, but if you can show and tell what makes you unique, you’ll have a better chance of matching with clients who are looking for your particular brand of design.”

Always consider your audience.

“The user experience should come first, even with a portfolio website, which should always be accessible, considerate of the user’s needs, time, and state of mind, work on a variety of devices, and have a low page load cost. Sadly, many portfolios fail in this area for the sake of following trends, but to my mind the best portfolios have personality, are engaging, and still hold strong to best practices.”

Work with yourself like a client.

“For my own clients I take many steps before the design work even begins. I usually define the goals, scope, and timeline of the project before we even get to the contract phase, because I’ve learned the hard way that if these things aren’t clear from the beginning, work can drag on or spiral out of control. From there I send a questionnaire or conduct interviews to understand the competitive landscape, target audiences, key messages, and much more. I’ll often conduct a lot of research on my own as well, doing things like a content audit, a competitive analysis, and user research. The amount of time allotted for planning and research in the pre-design phase often determines the success.”

Designing a portfolio is tough, so give yourself a break...

“It’s infinitely easier to work with a business other than my own! From the outside I can help people define their goals and create a clear path to achieving them. For my own site, I perpetually struggle with wanting to do more but having a hard time prioritizing the work, and knowing when something is “good enough” to launch. Because there’s no deadlines (other than self-imposed ones) it’s easy to let [your own portfolio and self promotion] slip.”

...But keep at it!

“I love XD because it’s just so easy to jump in and start working. One of my favorite things is the Document Assets panel — you can quickly see what colors and character styles you’re using in a design, and make global changes with just a few clicks (rather than digging around in a layers panel all day). It makes trying out new fonts, tweaking color schemes, and — once you’re working with Components — making more complex design-wide updates feel like a piece of cake. All these are especially great when designing your portfolio site, because if you’re anything like me, you’ll be tweaking your own portfolio forever.”