I’ve been making some changes to the site recently, tidying up the portfolio section, and I happened to check on some of the sites that I’ve designed a while back. You know, just to see how they’re getting on.

I was a bit shocked to say the least to discover that one site (I’m not going to name names) has been completely butchered beyond all recognition. The owner has always fancied themself as a bit of an amateur web designer and has taken it upon themself to wave their “unique” brand of pixie dust over my design. With FrontPage. The result is..well….not good.

Apart from butchering the design, it’s now got 2MB images shrunk down to the size of thumbnails on screen, takes about a week to load, and has enough dodgy markup to send my HTML validator into fits.

Ok so no big deal, I just removed the site from my portfolio post haste, but it’s been a while since I checked and I’ve got no idea how long it’s been in that state. Represented as a piece of my work.

I checked some of the other ones too and found similar things, although not to such a drastic extent, which has led me to thinking: What’s the best way to showcase your web design portfolio?

The web is a unique medium in that it’s constantly transient and ever evolving. Barring a director’s cut, once a film been made that’s it. Look at in in 30 years and it’s still going to be the same film. Same goes for print design, or any other form of traditional art. Not so with the web.

I know web design companies that only show screenshots of their work in portfolios, reasoning that sites can, in the hands of the client or a new web designer, quickly end up looking nothing like they left the shop floor.

I’ve never liked this option; if you can’t see the working site there’s no way to judge how good it is, but maybe they have a point after all. It might be better than potential clients being put off by work which still carries your name even though it no longer has anything to do with you.

Another option might be to showcase only a selected few sites, which you are either always involved in, or at least keep a close eye on.

So I'm re-thinking the way I structure the portfolio and I’m interested in what other people think about it.