Updating my Portfolio is So Cringe.

If you aren’t consistently updating your portfolio, I’m begging you to make a plan for it now. Don't end up like me, swimming in the cringe of projects past.

Leonardo da Vinci apparently said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

As a designer, I get it. Show me a project from five years ago or two weeks ago and I’ll still find a dozen things I’d change. That’s the curse and the blessing of a creative career. You’re always evolving, which means your past work is never quite up to your current standards.

In Harmony is doing amazing, even if I can see things I'd do differently in process next time! Check them out!

Right now, I’m dragging old branding projects from late 2023 into my portfolio (yes, it’s been that long). The 9-to-5 ad grind doesn’t leave much room for freelancing, so I don't have the freshest examples. While I stand by my work, every image I upload is a reminder of how much I’ve learned since then, and how much I’d do differently now.

So I keep asking myself: is it even worth adding this older work? If it doesn’t reflect who I am today, does it still belong in my portfolio?

I don’t have a good answer. Portfolios are weird like that. They're like a graveyard and a gallery at the same time. It's like shouting: Here's everything I've done! By the way, I could do better!

Not only this, but sometimes the ideas at the heart of what we work on as designers can be changed into something unrecognizable by client feedback.

Sometimes, in agency work, the pieces we are most proud of never get to be tested for success in the light of day.

When applying for roles or seeking collaborations, it’s best to curate the peak pieces that tell the right story for the job you want next. But outside of that, maybe there’s still value in sharing the full evolution. Maybe showing where we’ve been helps people see where we’re going.

After all, growth is the most interesting story a designer can tell. So maybe we shouldn’t hide the old stuff. Maybe we should let it whisper, “Look how far I’ve come.”