Portfolio by Jessi Levine

Introduction

Cold media is quickly heating up. Bigwig news centers, magazine hubs, nonprofit agencies and for-profit employers alike are all looking to the hot web for readership and information. As the job market increasingly becomes more competitive, especially in these trying economic times, a polished and professional web portfolio will stand out from the paper-bound bunch.

I’ve designed a portfolio that showcases my writing as well as an up-to-date resume.

Audience

Writing jobs are hard to come by. And because this field is entirely subjective, writers need to be well-trained and well-rounded. I posted a resume that details my writing work thus far. This includes work with a collegiate newspaper, the Grand Valley Lanthorn, an internationally published magazine, American Road Magazine and a development and marketing office of a nonprofit organization, Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County. Not only did I denote these in my resume, but I also mentioned that work in my Bio and provided a sampling from each on my Writing page.

The goal was to accurately describe my professional work to potential employers. These employers look to see if the person applying for the job has a diverse writing background, as writable situations can considerably vary day to day; essentially, employers want to make sure that you can quickly adapt to new circumstances.

To set myself apart from the pack, I decided to create a web site that not only reflects my training but my experience with web coding and design. All are great assets when talking to an employer.

Rhetorical Situation

Because this web site is aimed at a professional audience—specifically, employers—I wanted to avoid the Facebook and MySpace casualness when designing. This was created to be a portfolio that could potentially snare me a job. The last thing I wanted to do was have pictures of me goofing around with my pals during my freshman year; the web site needed to constantly reflect this professional rhetorical situation.

I chose a monochrome design mostly because I wanted to reflect the professionalism of my work. Black and white is a simple, unobtrusive color scheme that is aesthetically pleasing because it contrasts naturally. It also does not take away from the information and writing itself. A flashy and bright scheme has the potential to distract the viewer from the content—the reason they reader’s supposedly there—and to diminish this professionalism.

However, it was also important to keep in mind that these potential employers need to see that I’m, well, human. A web site entirely black and white with zero visuals or unique fonts is not appealing and does not distinguish the designer’s personality at all. This is important, as employers, while looking for a polished portfolio, are also looking for these distinguishable qualities that stand out from the rest of the applicants. And that can come in the form of pictures—that is, professional, quality pictures. If an employer considers you an automaton, you’ll likely be shoved to the bottom of the proverbial pile.

Keeping all of these things in mind, I began the design process.

Design Process

I wasn’t even sure where to begin, but I was directed to the Mini Zen Garden page source code. Even that was a lot to digest. However, I plunged in with a plan; inspired by food writer Pat Tanumihardja’s personal website, I got to work.

Because I’m a fan of simplistic, mod design, I wanted to create something in that style. So, not only was the black and white a choice to reflect my professionalism, but it is also a scheme that I think looks very cool. When I had this rough design idea in mind, I also was thinking about creating quality content. We read Kristina Halverson’s “The Discipline of Content Strategy” in class, which discussed the lack of good web content out there. But with that recognition of lazy web writing, she demands for more quality and explains its necessity. She writes, “But until we commit to treating content as a critical asset worthy of strategic planning and meaningful investment, we’ll continue to churn out worthless content in reaction to unmeasured requests.”

So per Halverson’s request, I sifted through all of my writing from my freshman year on. I selected six pieces, each of which represents a facet of my writing experiences. These six were published or either just polished, but in all cases, they were reviewed and considered purposefully. Halverson’s ideas reflect this rhetorical situation of professionalism.

With my working plan and quality content, I began fiddling with the Mini Zen Garden coding. My strategy honestly came to down to a guess and check system. I would insert a large value as a pixel just to see what happened on the web page. But in due time, I became familiar with all of the coding directions. This saved a tremendous amount of time thereafter, as I knew what I’d be changing and how it would appear.

I purposely ordered my internal page links from the homepage as Bio, Resume, Writing and then Contact by importance and relevance. Employers will want to see who I am and then jump right into what I’ve done. I again considered the audience I was writing for; I know that employers are scanning tons of applications and portfolios, so if they have to work too hard to find what they’re looking for, they’ll chuck my stuff right in the bin. I organized my tabs according to efficiency. This is why I also chose to HTML code my writing samples. Linking to PDFs can be tedious for the employer.

Finally, I added a Twitter widget to my Contact page to give my portfolio this sense of hotness evoked by the web. A Twitter is a live and active networking site that updates readers frequently; linking to my personal account gives my web site more dimensionality and personality.

Conclusion

I plan to advertise this web site to future employers. It actively showcases my polished and professional content in a strictly Jessi Levine way. Heck, I even have pictures of my golden retriever.