11th Grade — Building Your Digital Design Portfolio

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

If you could only show 3 pieces from this entire year, which 3 would you pick, and why those?

🎯 Today's Big Question

How do we curate and present a full year of work as a professional portfolio?

📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To

Select the strongest 6-10 pieces from across the whole year (history studio work, typography, Photoshop projects, client projects).
Write a short, specific caption for each piece (what it is, tools used, one thing learned).
Organize the portfolio (physical, PDF, or website) in a logical order that tells a growth story.

🧰 What You'll Need

All work from the year (files/photos)
Portfolio platform (Google Sites, PDF, or physical binder)

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: 1

Curate: students review the full year's work and select their strongest 6-10 pieces.

Day 2: 2

Caption & organize: students write specific captions and arrange pieces in an order that tells a growth story (not just chronological by default).

Day 3: 3

Build & polish: students finalize their portfolio in their chosen format, checking for consistency, working links/images, and professional presentation.

🖥️ Today's Slide Deck

Short, on-the-board pacing slides — project these to follow along. (The full details are in the handout above, not here.)

📚 Key Words

Portfolio: A curated collection of a designer's best work, organized to show skills and growth to others.
Curation: The deliberate process of selecting only the strongest, most representative work -- not everything you made.
Growth Story: A portfolio narrative that shows how your skills specifically developed over time, not just a random collection.

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Portfolio scored with a rubric: 6-10 strong pieces, specific captions, logical/intentional organization.

Exit Ticket: What order did you put your work in, and why did you choose that order instead of just chronological?

📊 Before You Leave

Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.

Class Check-In

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week (e.g. every Friday, or your class's last meeting of the week), add your best finished or in-progress work to a running portfolio folder with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, what skill or standard it shows. This becomes your formal Google Sites portfolio in Unit F -- keep it current all year so you're not scrambling right before your PBAT and portfolio review.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Building Your Digital Design Portfolio.” This project asked: “How do we curate and present a full year of work as a professional portfolio?” I used Portfolio by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

🎓 ACP Exam Prep

This lesson connects to the Photoshop Adobe Certified Professional exam: Domain 1: Working in the Design Industry · Domain 5: Publishing Digital Media

🔗 Want to Learn More?

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: The same curation-and-structure skill an English class capstone project demands for organizing a final body of work.

Career Connection: This exact lesson is referenced on nearly every career page on this site as the "package it like a professional" step.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Publish your full portfolio live and share the real link somewhere it could actually be seen by an employer or program. Start here: click through every single link on your site and confirm it works before you share the URL anywhere.
Add a dedicated "career fit" page to your portfolio explicitly connecting your best work to one specific career from the hub. Start here: pick the one career from the hub that fits best and list your three strongest matching pieces before you write any page copy.