Alvaro Araoz, Web & UX/UI Designer

Out With The Old, In With The Good

Iā€™ve long maintained the opinion that you should discard from your portfolio any work which you are not proud of. Iā€™ve practiced it, too. My Dribbble profile is very telling of the work you donā€™t see in my portfolio; itā€™s messy. Unfinished. But thatā€™s just the way I use the platform. Itā€™s a feedback machine ā€“ I post, someone replies. My portfolio, however, is more of an announcement. A visual elevator pitch of my abilities.

Until relatively recently, I considered and introduced myself as a ā€œDesigner and Front-End Developerā€. Now, I consider myself simply a ā€œDesignerā€. This identity shift was the result of realising that the development work I do is in an effort to realise a design problem. The problems I solve may be personal itches or client briefs, but they are design problems nonetheless. Onword was born out of a need for a place to write, accessible anywhere. Brills out of a need for a simple solution to seeing my regular payments in one place. Personal life problems that were solved with a design-aware approach.

My writing, and as a result, this blog, was also a solution to a problem. Its early days saw it focusing on web development tips and tricks. Slowly, that turned into a blog discussing hot drama topics. Then, a browser quirks log. Though the last year or so has seen my writing shift focus to broader fields. Design, attitude, and problem solving in a much wider sense. My writing once served as a backlog; a personal reference of my own progression. But now, I consider it a portfolio item. And as an important part of my portfolio, it must undergo the shame filter.

In a recent entry from The Great Discontent, Frank Chimero goes into his thoughts about his old work (emphasis mine):

Any creative person I know feels a bit of shame about his or her past work. [ā€¦] This is something I think about as a writer. When is it okay for me to delete something Iā€™ve written, something I donā€™t like any more? Archives are good, but I donā€™t need to stand behind all of my work forever. Kafka wanted all of his writing burned when he was on his deathbed and who could blame him? I hate that as a reader, but love it as a writer.

It was as if Frank had lifted the words Iā€™d been struggling for right from the tip of my tongue. I think anybody who has been writing long enough knows exactly what Frank is talking about; luckily for those on the web, the delete key is an easy one to press.

But what of personal growth, reference, and posterity? I think from the sheer volume of hits many of my shameful posts still get on a fairly regular basis, itā€™s safe to say that the delete key isnā€™t an option I can easily take. So yes, I could prune, tweak, edit, repost, and take retrospect on the posts Iā€™m shameful of, but as designers (or developers) would you take the time to go back to each shameful piece of client work youā€™ve done and rework it? I doubt it. I think as writers who take themselves quite seriously in a digital space, we should have the same ruthlessness as a designer would when reviewing their portfolio. Of course, for the sanctity of the web, donā€™t remove the posts in question altogether; as a web user, I know there are few things more frustrating than following a link trail to a 404 Dead-end.

For me, thereā€™s a little more than shame going into the hurried cleansing of my blog. Thereā€™s more than a small amount of vanity in it, too. I feel like Iā€™ve spent a good deal of time and energy in my last few posts to initiate a certain persona. One of professionalism and consistency; the kind I wish my portfolio and design work to represent. The kind that the young, code-obsessed me worked so hard to avoid.

I donā€™t doubt that one day, that persona may get left behind. That one day, I might hide this post along with many others after it amongst the rest of them. In fact, Iā€™d be surprised if the attitude and style with which I write today remains unchanged for the rest of my career; after all, Iā€™m just getting started. But the fact remains that writing is a huge part of my professional life. It has helped me grow as a designer and a human being, and as such, I feel it belongs in my portfolio. It is a collection of work which shapes my output. Itā€™s part of the person that my employersā€”past, present, and futureā€”are paying. And just like I donā€™t want you judging my ability based on the table-filled designs of my first web work, I donā€™t want you judging my ability to communicate based on a three-year-old post about Adobe Flash.

As my view of design and writing broadens, my perception of myself narrows. I see the person I want to be, and Iā€™ll edit my way there if I have to.