Portfolio Design Research

Before creating design boards for the portfolio website, I looked at the examples of architectural  portfolios.  I focused on cover page, concept page and on the layout of the outcomes.

Most architectural portfolio have a simple design with neutral colours. Pages have a lot of empty space around the text and visual aids. Probably such a simple design helps not to distract from the projects. Cover pages include picture and title. They are made in a few light or monochrore colours (image 2, 3), and sometimes used one accent bright colour (image 1). I want to use muted colour palette for the cover page and I will try to find one bright colour  for the text that needs to be highlighted.

 Almost all portfolio have landscape orientation. I think this format is more comfortable because architectural portfolio usually include many illustrations and drawings, that mainly wider horizontally. Also PC and laptop screens have horizontal orientation and, as every page often includes a few visual aids, that have to be visible at the same time, horizontal format helps to see everything without scrolling. 

I met many electronic portfolios that look like books (image 2, 4) and in the open form, they turn into a wide horizontal format. However, I think this idea looks better for physical portfolio.  

image 1

image 2

image 3

image 4

Concept or introduction page usually includes picture of the project and a bit of text with many empty spaces around.  Text might be located from the sides, or up or down the picture (image 5, 6). I will place the text, depending on the dimensions of the picture (wider or narrower).

image 5

image 6

image 7

Other pages usually lodically combine a few outcomes, for example, floor plan and view point (illustration), or elevation and section. I think it helps to see the project from different sides together and understand the idea better. I want to try this layout in my portfolio.

image 8

On the last image (image 8), I think the 3D ouycome is presented very well - one main big picture and a few smaller pictures with details. I want to apply a similar layout to my portfolio on the page with 3D model.

Image References:

1. Behance (2026) 'Architecture'. [screen] Available at: Find and Hire Creatives and Showcase Your Work :: Behance (Accessed: 25 May 2026).

2. UIC (2026) 'BSArch student portfolios'. [screen] Available at: BSArch student portfolios | Architecture at UIC (Accessed: 25 May 2026).

3. Rios (2016) '

Lila Jiang Chen // Yale 2013-16 Architecture Portfolio

', issuu. [screen] Available at: linarios Publisher Publications - Issuu (Accessed: 25 May 2026).