What do clients want to see in a design portfolio?

I have been doing business for a long time but I can say to you with confidence that 90% of customers will not happen in your portfolio. Instead, acquire customers through referrals, the Web, friends of friends, existing customer's friends, etc.

Regarding finding 10% of your portfolio, they usually look for something very specific. Customers may be looking for specific illustration styles and may find it in your work. Or they may be looking for juice packaging, you happen to be in your portfolio

So the answer is: the customer wants to see the design of products, brands and companies that are similar to what they want in your portfolio.

In this regard, you want your portfolio to make the most of your work in various styles and areas; your best website design, best illustration, best logo design, best Print design etc. After all it is nonsense, but only showing you the best design will ensure that customers will not be rejected or irritated by the incompatible design in your portfolio.

If you want to hire you, design company, creative director, and marketing department will see your entire portfolio. In this case, Ian Hansborough's answer is very comprehensive, exactly what I'm looking for in my portfolio.

After working for 13 days, I noticed that I could not be satisfied with customers if I came to these clients for these designs. The portfolio is not sincere. Data seems to be a collection of all the other student works you see in the world. I may have dismissed myself as a designer and found someone else. Now I need to ask myself why I fired myself. In my portfolio I feel that it is hypocritical to show school projects as "customer cases" or even as "case studies". These projects have played a role as a customer, but they did their utmost and act. The deliverables of each project is actually a lesson I hid from the appearance of the customer case. The focus of the project is learning, and the school project provides tools and data for its own discovery. At the end of the project, I will explain what we learned and how to reach point B from point A. We do not always listen to customer stories

One of the reasons for your portfolio. Please help you to acquire customers. However, since most freelance portfolios are not actually providing information, you need to know what you need when customers visit your site. You need to prove that you can handle their project. This is a great advantage for over 99% freelancers. So, how do you do it? The following list will help you. You may think that the focus of your portfolio is to talk with you. But those visiting your portfolio do not care about you. They only care about themselves. Just because you think your work is wonderful does not mean that customers want to read a case study of 10,000 words. They just want to know how you can help them. Everything in your portfolio should be about you, not about you. It needs to talk about how you can help your customers get better.