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8 tips to survive a portfolio presentation

I’ve helped hire designers at IBM, Airbnb, Postmates and here are my tips on killing your presentation:

UX Collective
Published in
4 min readAug 3, 2017

It will never cease to surprise me when a designer says, “I’m just not great at presenting.” Designers have a natural gift for selling ideas, services, products, and whatever this thing is, so why do designers stress about the portfolio presentation? The truth is designers already know how to sell their work:

1. End with an ask

My biggest pet peeves are wasted openings (starting with something tired like a “Hi” slide) and wasted endings (“Thanks!” or “Any questions?”). Open with humor if you feel it comes naturally or open with a stunning visual. Close with an ask: “I’d love to hear your thoughts on this work, particularly X.” “How do you think [your company] might have approached X problem I talked about?” etc. Giving people a clear action at the end keeps the momentum going instead of ending with a staring contest or an awful three-person applause.

2. Check for understanding

Don’t talk for more than five minutes at a time without checking for understanding. This takes practice. Even if it’s something basic like “I’m sure this has happened to you here…” or “[User…

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Written by Shawn Sprockett

Designer at SSPROCKETT and faculty at California College of Arts. Formerly of Airbnb, Meta, Google, Apple, Milton Glaser, and Condé Nast.

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