Ask HN: How to create a portfolio without design skills?

[CM30]

Okay, I've realised recently that not having a portfolio isn't exactly ideal if you're working in tech, especially given how many jobs seem to expect it now. So I've been planning out a personal site with portfolio, blog, etc to actually list the things I've been working on in one place.

Unfortunately, there's one problem I'm running into. That being, my art/design skills are basically nonexistent. Regardless of how many attempts I make at designing websites or apps, design just does not come naturally at all, and even thinking of how to lay out a UI feels impossible without outright copying others.

So how do you create a site with no design skills at all? The development side of things isn't really an issue, and I'm willing to learn whatever tech is needed for that side of things, but actually designing it is proving a challenge. I also don't really have any designer friends willing to work for free/cheap, so I'm not sure who to call on here.

What do other non artistic developers at Hacker News do for personal site and portfolio designs?

[solardev]

If you're not a designer or trying to get a design job, it doesn't have to be super nice. You can just use any random template you like, or a generic Wordpress site. I doubt it'll matter. I think there are also nocode portfolio sites, or just a generic WYSIWYG like Wix or SquareSpace.

Provide links to your Github, project descriptions and screenshots if you can, code snippets, open source projects, whatever...

But hell, I'm a frontend dev with a little bit of design/graphics/UX experience and I still just send unformatted PDFs full of crap and don't have any personal website. I've never seen another dev with a portfolio. If you can build anything, even just a standard Tailwind/Bootstrap lookalike, you're fine.

Part of the reason I don't want to put up such a site is that the technologies involved change so fast, and are often so controversial, that it would take way too much upkeep. I don't want some employer to dig into the source and argue with me about why I chose this bundler or that framework or this CSS ... usually those choices are team/project-specific anyway and not up to me. By choosing one or another for my personal site, it makes it seem like I have a preference, when that's not necessarily the case.

This is a good cheap book for some basic guidelines if you really want to try to DIY something as opposed to using an existing template: https://www.refactoringui.com/

[Leftium]

There are many "design systems" you can use. Here are a few recommendations:

https://tailwindcss.com is known for utility-class based styling, but it's also a nice-looking design system.

In fact, they wrote a book: https://www.refactoringui.com

> Make your ideas look awesome, without relying on a designer.

> Learn how to design beautiful user interfaces by yourself using specific tactics explained from a developer's point-of-view.

---

https://clarity.design gives you:

- A nice-looking default/base design (basic responsive layout, styling, sizes, colors, icons, (light/dark) themes...)

- Pretty comprehensive UX guidelines (like when to use a snackbar vs alert vs toast vs banner vs modal[1])

- Framework agnostic web components (there is a slight bias towards Angular and even React/Vue)

---

While not as comprehensive, https://picocss.com is my default go-to for giving my sites/apps nice-looking default styling with almost no work. Pico CSS is more of a semantic CSS library, but it is also a bit of a design system.

---

https://getbootstrap.com is probably one of the most used design systems.

---

[1]: https://clarity.design/documentation/notifications

[leros]

If you're not focusing on UI design in your career, why does your portfolio need a nice UI design? Build stuff that highlights the skills you want to advertise.

That being said, I don't think you need a portfolio. It might help, but I don't know anyone with a public portfolio.

[CM30 → leros]

I agree it shouldn't be needed, the issue is that I get a bunch of job ads that outright say "provide a link to your portfolio". Which seems to assume that every applicant has a website with info about their work or something.

[leros → CM30]

IMO, just leave it blank and highlight your work experience. They're hiring you to develop at work, not develop at home. Recruiters ask for lots of stuff that isn't necessary.

Again, I'll highlight that I've worked with tons of developers, designers, and PMs and almost none of them had portfolios.

[solardev → CM30]

FWIW, I've just fill in "N/A" or shared a Google Drive link to a PDF if required.

I've gotten all my jobs despite not having a website.

The downside, of course, is I don't know how many jobs I MIGHT'VE gotten if I also had a fancy, polished website. Shrug. I don't really lose sleep over it at night. Of all the devs I've ever worked with, none ever had a portfolio.

(The designers usually did, of course.)

[vunderba → CM30]

I'd just substitute your GitHub profile assuming you have one, though I will say that "portfolio" does seem to imply a UI/UX position.

[daemonologist]

One option would be to lean into a "lack" of design - just put your name and maybe a table of contents (with links [1]) at the top, all the stuff you want in a big list, set `max-width: 60em` or something to keep it readable on wide monitors, and call it a day. Basically a big markdown document (you could even literally convert markdown to HTML).

This wouldn't fly for a designer or frontend specialist of course, but for developers working in other areas I think it works pretty well. Certainly HN appreciates a simple website.

Also, as others have said I wouldn't sweat the portfolio too much. I personally _have_ always had one, but I'm not sure it's ever helped me - I don't recall an interviewer ever mentioning it or any of its contents (same goes for GitHub/similar).

[1] - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/URL/hash#ex...

[alpy]

Hugo (static site generator) has some great templates, I’m using one right now for my new blog. In the JavaScript ecosystem 11ty and Astro both have solid communities and a bunch of free portfolio templates

You don’t need anything unique or special, just a basic layout that wouldn’t be distractingly bad

[CM30 → alpy]

Hmm, seems like the Astro framework could work well here. Just tested one of the portfolio themes I found for it, and it seems nice and simple to customise.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[SamihaSingh]

Start with a simple GitHub.ip portfolio and use Jekyll templates (free). Then use GPT to customize as necessary. Also, at some point, if you prefer, just build your own simple UI by leveraging GPT and other online resources!

[brudgers]

how to lay out a UI feels impossible without outright copying others.

Copy others then. Nobody will care and engineering is the art of not reinventing the wheel. Good luck.

[yamumsahoe]

use ui frameworks with opinionated design such as mui.com or mantine.dev.

then focus on functionality such as showcasing crud, use of different databases, etc etc.