Welcome to the DigiComm Portfolio Guide!

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Personal Branding
• Web Building Basics
• Writing Your "About Me&"
• Proofing Your Portfolio (Plagiarism and Copyright Concerns)

Frequently Asked Questions

• Do employers really think portfolios are important? Yes! Over 80% of employers think having a portfolio is helpful. A portfolio is a great way to showcase your skills and work samples in one place while giving an employer a good first impression.
• What are the best sites to make a portfolio? The sites we recommend are Wix, Weebly, and WordPress because they’re free and relatively easy to use. Each site has its pros and cons. Check out our section comparing web builders to see which one is the best for you!
• How do I develop my brand? Your personal brand is created through your choices of fonts, colors, logos and layout. Check out our personal branding section for specifc tips on how to develop each of these components. You want to make sure your personal brand is both professional and personable. You want to make sure that your images and professional, but your text is a good place to show personality.
• Do I need a logo? No, but having a logo is a good way to maintain a consistent brand on all of your platforms. If you’re not super savvy with Adobe Illustrator or InDesign, check out Canva! It’s a website that makes graphic design easy.
• How do I showcase the skills I want to show my employer? There are many ways you can showcase your skills, but the best way with through your work samples. Choose work samples that best illustrate your ability with the skills of your profession, and be sure to include a synopsis that explains the context, purpose, and value of your work sample. This makes it easier for potential employers to skim your work and to fnd the examples they are interested in.
• I’m applying to multiple places. Should I send the same portfolio to all of them? It depends. If the jobs you are applying for are similar in style and require the same skills, you might be able to use the same portfolio. However, if you are applying for jobs that are very diferent, you might want to think about making a separate portfolio with a diferent focus.
• Should I include my resume on my portfolio even though my potential employer already has it? Yes, you should include your resume on your portfolio. Your potential employer is probably looking at a bunch of resumes and websites and may not have your resume in front of them. This is a good way to show your resume online and make that connection to your portfolio. It’s also a good idea to have your resume available for the visitors that may not have your resume.
• I’m applying for grad school. Do I need a different portfolio for this? You should consider making another portfolio tailored to this audience. If you are applying to grad school, you are probably dealing with a diferent audience and are highlighting diferent skills, so you might need a diferent portfolio.
• What are the most important things employers are looking for? Employers are looking to make sure you will ft in with their organization. They’re looking at your portfolio to see what kind of person you are and what skils and experience you have.
• How can I use my portfolio in an interview? A portfolio is a great talking point in an interview! It allows you tell your employer about the projects you’ve done, as well as show them. It also shows initiative and dedication that you’ve taken the time to make a personal website.

Personal Branding

Overview: What is Personal Branding?

• People with strong brands are clear about who they are. They know and maximize their strengths. Developing your brand will give you the chance to defne the unique skills that make you stand out from the crowd.
• An online portfolio gives you the ability to present myriad talents and showcase your range of skills. However, in order to best appeal to employers and tell your story efectively, you’ll need to make an added efort to develop consistency among all of the work and information you share on your portfolio. In addition, having a consistent personal brand ties all of your professional content together: your resume, cover letter, business card, LinkedIn, etc.
• Personal branding, then, is the process of managing and optimizing the way that you are presenting yourself online.

Where to Start?

• The best place to start when considering your personal brand is by examining your characteristics and your key values. Ask yourself three questions:
  • What do you stand for?
  • What are your defining skills?
  • What are your defining characteristics?
• For instance, maybe you are passionate about traveling to foreign countries and immersing yourself in new cultures through food, conversation, and exploration. You might easily identify yourself as “adventurous.” Now consider how that quality can translate to a relevant characteristic for your career trajectory. Employers want to hire adaptable and coachable individuals. If you are always up for a new challenge and love trying new thinks, perhaps you will choose “adaptable” as one of your personal branding values.

Values are the ideals and stands that you live life by,
regardless of external pressures or incentives.

• The rule of thumb when considering your personal branding values is to pick three adjectives that speak to the fundamental characteristics that shape your life and work. While you might include these verbatim on your portfolio, you don’t have to. The personal branding exercise is helpful to create guiding characteristics that are showcased in all of your work samples and ofer cohesion and a clear message about who you are and what you will bring to an organization.
• The most important factor when constructing your personal branding values is to be confident. Putting your best foot forward professionally means owning your strengths and letting them shine. Your values should be:
  • Authentic—is representative of your strengths
  • Backed—can be demonstrated by your work
  • Consistent—can be seen in all aspects of your work and represented across all parts of your brand
• When brainstorming your values, try to think of adjectives that you would want both your boss and your best friend to use to describe you.

Designing Your Brand into Being: Colors, Fonts, and Logos

• Once you have decided on your three key adjectives, you will want to think about designing your brand. Designing your brand comes down to a few basic components: colors, fonts, and logos. You will want to use these design elements to visually convey your values and build your brand.

Color

• Color sends a powerful message and is key to representing your personal brand. Your brand color is the most important element of your visual brand identity. People remember color because it stirs up emotions. In fact, color increases brand recognition by up to 80 percent. Therefore, you want to choose colors that best represent your personality and your skill set.
• Your choice of color should be intentional, and should be dictated by your values. The Color Emotion Guide (pictured above) is simplistic, but ofers a general overview of some of our cultural interpretations of color.
• Once you identify the best color for your personal brand, be sure to note the HEX values so that you can incorporate these specifc colors into your portfolio, resume, business cards, etc. Once you have chosen your color and have the appropriate codes, be sure to apply the color consistently to all your branding materials.

Fonts

• Much like handwriting conveys personality, the fonts that you choose for your personal brand should reinforce your values. For instance, if you are seeking a creative profession, feel free to be more daring and decorative with your font choices. Are you planning to work for a more conservative frm? Try a clean and classic font. While our old DigiComm Pinterest page has an entire board dedicated to font pairing ideas and inspiration, to get you started, below are a few basic tips:
  • Contrasting fonts are visually appealing and create hierarchy
  • Reserve decorative fonts for headings/titles (and even then, consider your audience and purpose)
  • Use serif and sans serif fonts for body copy. Serif fonts (e.g., Times New Roman, Garamond, Georgia) are often used in academic writing and in print publications, and they can indicate professionalism/seriousness. Sans serif fonts (e.g., Helvetica, Arial, Futura, Open Sans) are often good choices for online text.

Your Logo: Trademarking Your Brand

• Logos can serve as the foundation for your brand. Have no fear—you don’t have to be a graphic designer to create a logo that illustrates your brand. Free graphic design program Canva is a user-friendly, intuitive platform that you can use to create your own logo.
• You can develop and redesign your logo as you see fit. Creating a logo is a highly individualized journey, and you should be intentional about creating a logo that you feel represents yourself and your values. One important consideration as you develop your logo is your intended career trajectory. Are you seeking a creative career, or a more technical career? Maybe you’re somewhere in the middle. Think about how this might impact your logo and branding designs.

Web Building Basics

Now that you have an understanding of developing your brand, you need a place to showcase it. Picking a web builder is the next step in creating your portfolio. While there is a range of web building options available, there are three basic web builders we refer clients to for creating a portfolio: Wix, Weebly, and WordPress. These three are all free web building options, and are great for beginners.

Overview of the web builders

• Weebly is best characterized by its “drag and drop” features, making it great for beginners who want to build their site quickly. Weebly is very intuitive, making it ideal for efficient website building. Since Weebly displays graphics and text well, it is a suitable option for creative and technical professions alike. Weebly ofers a wide range of gallery and portfolio features, giving the user options without being overwhelming. Hyperlinking and uploading videos and other fles is quick and easy with Weebly.
• Wix is best for making creative-looking websites. Where Weebly is known for its drag and drop features, Wix lets the user customize everything, making the process more time-consuming. Wix has the capacity to display graphics and text well, but downloading some documents can be a hassle. It can be hard to display documents without using a button, and some users have noted that it can also be difficult to upload media exactly the way they want.
• WordPress is great for those who want to keep and maintain a blog on their website or portfolio, or for those in writing-intensive majors who want to showcase a number of writing samples. WordPress is not ideal for displaying graphic content and can pose a challenge to a user who has little experience with a content management system.

Which Web Builder is Right for You?

• Weebly: if you have just a few days to build out your website, if you're not familiar with web builders, if you want to showcase a variety of work (e.g., photos, YouTube videos, documents, blog articles, or other files), if you want creative control (a lot of diferent templates with some customization), if you want to be able to change your template, and if your site structure and menu will not be complex (e.g., fewer than 10 pages), Weebly is the place for you to start!
  • Weebly offers templates that work well for written and visual work. The intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes customizing your pages a breeze (but if you're not happy with the options, you can brave the HTML/CSS customization option). Weebly is great for beginners, simple to learn, and easy to get started. It offers lots of modern, professional-looking themes and a mobile editor. If you're feeling nervous about making a website or don't have much time to work on your project, Weebly is the builder for you!
• Wix: If you have more than a week to work on your website, if you aren't very familiar with web builders but are excited to play around and learn, if your content is more visual than written, if you want full control over changing and customizing your template’s design and are ok with being stuck with your chosen template, if you want to limit the content on your pages and have an animated flow to your site, Wix’s emphasis on visual content and animated transitions is for you!
  • Be careful not to get lost in this builder’s enormous template selection. They're sorted based on individual needs, but once you've made a decision, there are plenty of options that allow you to alter the design. You can edit each element on a page to make it look exactly how you want it to, and even guide how you want the viewer to navigate through the content on each of your pages. But if you have committment issues, be warned: once you get started, you can’t change your template!
• WordPress: If you've got weeks to spend on it, if you are up for the challenge and want it to look professional, if your content is writing-heavy (e.g., blog articles, research projects, PDF documents, and images), if you want a lot of template options but don’t need customization or control over the design, if you want the option for unlimited pages (i.e., you plan to post, blog, or share diferent “categories” of content), it sounds like you're ambitious enough to tackle WordPress.com!
  • Although WordPress can be complex and takes some time to fgure out, this web builder is the most professional of the three builders. WordPress skills are sure to catch the eyes of employers, but be prepared to spend time clicking through the Dashboard to get what you want. WordPress is less user-friendly and intuitive than other web builders, but it’s an ideal platform for writers, and it can connect users to an enormous network of fellow bloggers. If you choose a free template, be warned: customization usually comes with the cost of an upgrade.

Write Your "About Me"

• Now that you have your brand developed, and a web builder to house your brand, you need to seal the deal with a solid “About Me,” or personal bio. Besides technology troubles, writing the text for your website may be the most difficult step in creating a professional portfolio. Even if you love to write, it can be hard to fnd a professional and personable “voice” for your website. A good rule of thumb is to maintain a tone that is personable, not personal. That means fnding a good middle ground where you are letting your personality shine through, while still maintaining a professional demeanor.

Getting Started

• The text of a website is called copy, and the people who write it are copywriters.
• Writing your “About” page may be easier than you think. Think about the writing you might do online already: personal blog rants, celebratory Facebook statuses, creative Instagram captions, snappy online-dating profles, quick work emails, "what if" fanfic, live-tweets of an event … etc.
• Your Instagram bio and your professional “About Me” page may seem very diferent, but in many ways they’re the same. When writing, channel your inner Twitter/X superstar. Go for personality and punch. The old 140-character limit was there for a reason, and the newer 280-character limit still gets at the same point: we all have short attention spans. Besides, you want your “About” to give a sense of who you are, but leave an employer intrigued. If an employer wants to hear your life story, you’ll get the chance at your interview. For now, keep it short and snappy.
• The key to writing engaging copy is brevity. Unlike tweets, however, your website’s copy should be thoroughly revised. Edit your work over and over before you publish it, and focus on reducing the number of words you use. Once you cut the clutter, your true personality will shine through your writing. If you don’t know where to start, HemingwayApp is a useful, and free, online editing tool.
• Check out the “About” pages on these portfolios—they’re regularly listed as some of the best written bios on the Internet!

Best Practices for Writing About Yourself

• Do your homework: know the expectations for your specifc professional field. Spend some quality time with Google and check out the websites of at least ten different people who are successful at the career you want.
• Talk in the first person. If it’s awkward for you to say “Heather graduated from James Madison in 2026…” then it’s going to sound unnatural in writing, too.
• Don’t use qualifer words like “may,” “might,” or “would” when talking about your work. You DID this, you DO this, and you CAN take on this job.
• Vary your sentence length and structure. Flash back to middle school, and remember not to begin every sentence with “I.”
• Don’t be afraid to speak confidently about the work you’ve done or to list your personal qualities and attributes that make you an appealing employee. If you feel comfortable with it, go ahead and talk about the type of work environment, or corporate culture, that you prefer: is it highly collaborative, or competitive and independent? Creative and innovative, or strategic and goal-oriented? This type of “About” may be more appropriate or accepted in certain professional felds, so refer to your research.

Final Touches

• Don’t be afraid to include personal photos along with your professional headshot; just don’t post your entire vacation album. Always use headings and line breaks in your “About Me” page to make the copy easier to scan and read. A long, single paragraph isn’t appealing to read. And fnally, remember visual hierarchy: the most important information should be bolded, bigger or located at the top of your page.

Proofing Your Portfolio Against Plagiarism and Copyright Concerns

Plagiarism Concerns

• While you know all the hard work you have put into your portfolio and into the supporting documents you offer, your prospective employer does not, and they might subject your work to deeper or different inspections than it experienced in the past. Without putting too fine a point on it, be very sure that anything you include in your portfolio presents your own work in your best light.

Image Copyright Concerns

• Copyright concerns in portfolios can arise through images you do not own or have not created.
• Fair Use
  • Section 106 of the U.S. Copyright Act grants the copyright owner the right to “reproduce or to authorize others to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords.” Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act outlines when the reproduction of a particular work may be considered "fair use," including criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. Four factors are considered in determining fair use:
    • The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonproft educational purposes
    • The nature of the copyrighted work
    • The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
    • The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work
  • With images, your willingness to give proper attribution does not mean you have permission to use the image. Unless the creator has licensed your reproduction/use of an image (either with or without attribution), you should receive authorization before you include a copyrighted work in your portfolio.
• What Image Copyright Concerns Mean for You
  
  • While it is unlikely that the owner of an image will see your portfolio, it is certain that your prospective employer will see your portfolio, and you want to demonstrate that you work and play inside the bounds of the law. Choose freely available images and then cite your sources.
  • Note that while there is perhaps some defensible wiggle room for any images you used in projects you created for your academic courses, the rules definitely change outside academia, and you might want to show that you know this in any work samples you offer. 
• Resources for Freely Available Images
  • Various resources exist that provide fair use images, including web builders, Creative Commons, Free Images, and Google.
    • Weebly ofers a wide range of images on their website that you can use for your e-Portfolios.
    • Creative Commons is a nonproft organization that connects with other sites like Flickr to share pictures, music, videos, etc. They offer detailed descriptions about licensing options that creators have granted when uploading their work. A majority of these individuals require that you link the image to the source and provide proper attribution.
    • Free Images is another website that allows you to discover images tailored for the purpose of your e-Portfolio. In fact, Google Images provides search tools when looking there. After you search on Google Images, click the option for search tools and then usage rights. You’ll fnd several options such as “labeled for reuse” or “labeled for reuse with modifcation.” This will help narrow down your search to pictures that have been authorized for use.
    • There’s always the option to be your own content creator. Take your own images! Right here at JMU, the Media Resources Center in Carrier Library allows you to check out cameras and equipment with your JACard. Even if you lack experience with photography, the center ofers tutorials and workshops on using the devices. Several editing websites for images are available free. These include Canva, Pic Monkey, or even iPhoto on Macs. Trust yourself and give it a try!