10 PDF portfolio samples that will give you great ideas for showcasing your work, whether you're a designer, writer, illustrator, marketer or more.
You know how sometimes you send across a few writing samples to a potential client, and they revert saying “We prefer documents in PDF” or something to that effect? Or, how about when certain websites allow you to upload documents only in PDF format? Turns out, there are good reasons for that. In this piece, I’ll take you through 101 on all things PDF portfolio. We’ll dive into definitions, benefits, pdf portfolio examples, and a quick method to create your own PDF portfolio quickly yet reliably.
What you’ll get from this article:
• An overview of what portfolios — and in particular — PDF portfolios are
• The benefits of a PDF portfolio
• 10 PDF portfolios we handpicked for their excellent
• A quick, step-by-step guide on how to create your own PDF portfolio
• A brief overview of Authory — a portfolio builder & content backup solution you can use for PDF portfolios and other file types
Succinctly put, a portfolio showcases your work to prospective employers or clients. At one glance, it displays your expertise, experience, and consistency of output. Needless to say, portfolios are essential when you’re looking for a job, whether you are a full-timer or a freelancer. Portfolios can be physical or digital, though, in an internet-first world, digital files reign supreme. Most jobs require the submission of an online portfolio, especially if you’re a writer, designer, photographer, content marketer, or thought leader. The portfolio conveys your skills, your professional outlook, and what you bring to your work. Naturally, it’s imperative to put your best foot forward in your portfolio online..
Note: Earlier, portfolios would largely consist of your best work. However, employers have increasingly begun to care about both quality and quantity of work. They want to see that you’ve consistently produced great results, instead of writing one amazing 4000-word article in 5 months.
Therefore, as a general rule, current portfolios should ideally contain ALL your published work and every project you've worked on.
Pro-Tip: Create one portfolio for all your work. A single full page site with no page numbers. Don't make visitors click between pages as that increases user friction and makes them more likely to click away from your site.
Highlight real numbers — have you written 50 articles in a year, perhaps? Have these articles driven organic traffic up 34% during that year? As a content marketer, have your skills driven greater engagement with a site, or an even higher number of signups or purchases?
This section of your portfolio should have the most clarity. While this information generally shows up on a resume, adding it to your portfolio will attract the employer’s eye, and your portfolio will inevitably stand out.
A PDF portfolio is a collection of all your work, but it is compressed and combined into a single PDF file for easy reading and navigation. With the advent and popularity of the PDF file format (created by Adobe), as well as the Adobe Acrobat file reader, PDF portfolios became quite the rage post-1992.
Before that, portfolios were mostly physical documents painstakingly collated by anyone applying for a job. PDF portfolios took these documents to the digital realm, and you no longer had to lug around a heavy binder to every interview (back when we didn’t have Zoom interviews). It also made life easier for recruitment folks, since they no longer needed to make space for stacks of documents on their desks.
Note: PDF portfolios are less frequently used now since portfolio builders have made it simple to create entire websites to introduce your work. But you’ll probably come across quite a few clients who will insist on a PDF file instead of web pages, so it still has its uses.
PDF is a super handy format. If you’re sending, say, word documents created and formatted on a Windows PC to someone using a Mac, there will be information loss. To view the documents, the recipient’s device needs to have the same tools you used to create the.
For example, if you send (as I often did) a Word document with writing in the Arial font, they’d have to have the same font installed on their machine. If not, they would probably see some garbled form of what you sent. There’s also a chance that the document might not open at all. PDFs, however, open exactly as you send them on all computers — Windows, MacOS, and even Linux.
There’re more. You can combine multiple different files into a single PDF file, including images and even videos. Everything can be in different formats, across different platforms. You can still combine them into a single PDF file, or create a portfolio comprising just PDFs. So, if you do have a portfolio, or are planning to make one, I suggest trying a portfolio PDF.
So, now that you know how useful PDF portfolios can be, let’s look at a few samples for great ideas to make your own.
Dan carries years of experience as an expert editor in content marketing and consumer publishing circles. On top of that, he’s a content strategist, copywriter, and edits half a dozen magazines and/or online assets. His skills involve ideating, implementing, and reorienting magazines and websites. Furthermore, his advocacy writing has won awards and procured significant media experience.
That’s a lot to fit into a single portfolio, isn’t it? Thankfully, he does it as well as he does everything else in the above list.
Urvashi has a long list of accolades. This social science researcher and policy analyst delves into how data-driven decision-making systems impact social dynamics in India and the global south. She studies the ethical and larger impact of AI, big tech, platform governance, and labor welfare in digital economies.
She has been the Founder and Director of Tandem Research, studying technology, society, and sustainability. She set up Digital Futures Lab, a multidisciplinary research network studying technology and society transitions in the global south. She is also an Associate Fellow at Chatham House and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.
Her teaching experience spans 8 years at prestigious institutions, and she carries an MPhil and Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, UK, and a BA from Utrecht University in The Netherlands.
These wildly impressive credentials have been succinctly showcased via her pdf portfolio.
Jeff is a true veteran in his field. You’ll notice that his introduction is simply his position and his company name. This might seem too succinct for a web-based portfolio meant to introduce you to new clients, but it’s also a great example of letting your work do the talking.
In 2017, after 15 years as Chief Strategist and Founder of Principled Innovation LLC, he reinvented his consulting practice to Foresight First LLC, a firm seeking to improve the performance of association boards by “setting a new standard of stewardship, governing, and foresight”. (from his LinkedIn). Notice the interesting categories he has split his portfolio into Boards, Foresight, Orthodoxy, and even eBooks.
This award-winning freelance science journalist and editor describes her beats as “all things living and the environments they live in” (got a ring to it, right?). Her work has been published in Science, Nature, Scientific American, and Discover Magazine. She has also held the position of staff writer and editor at Inside Science, where she edited stories and covered the “Earth” and “Creature” beats.
She also writes cover stories and news items for The Wildlife Society's professional magazine, The Wildlife Professional. Don’t forget the article she also wrote each week for the TWS website.
Gabriel calls himself “one part data nerd, one part growth strategist, and two parts storyteller”, and he’s quite right. He has more than 12 years of experience leading content and growth marketing. He’s also been writing professionally for more tan 15 years.
Along with driving evolution in marketing strategy and worldwide commerce, he also stands for environmental and social governance as well as it’s usefulness in improving customer loyalty, stakeholder value, employee morale, stakeholder value, and sustainable business growth.
He has traveled to over 30 countries, and has degrees in diplomacy, anthropology, and international commerce — so, it’s safe to say he knows what he is talking about.
Honestly, I don’t know much about Leslie. I came across their profile when looking for interesting pdf portfolio templates to help with some upcoming projects. Nonetheless, I really enjoy the simplicity and straightforward nature of this portfolio, which isn’t always easy for a graphic designer to pull off — given the heavily visual nature of their work.
Scroll through, and you’ll see that Leslie hasn’t included any extraneous text, except for what’s been included in their designs. This is a great move, in my opinion, as it lets you focus on what actually matters and will get you the job — the actual work. In graphic design, if it looks good, it’s a slam dunk. You don’t need extra words to drive home the point.
Like Leslie, I found Kate’s portfolio on a random Google search. I’m including it in this list because I loved the layout. Unlike Leslie’s page, this one actually carries quite a bit of text. Kate has spoken about her skills, the positions she has held, the awards she has won, and her outlook on work — more than enough information for any employer to acquaint themselves with this clearly talented graphic design whiz.
Outside of that, you also get a list of her clients and work samples. All in all, there is nothing significant this portfolio doesn’t cover.
Joan is a writer whose creative work has been published across multiple literary magazines — Poetry, Catamaran, Paterson Literary Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Connotation Press, Santa Clara Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, and more. She is currently writing a romantic comedy, set in her hometown Santa Cruz.
Her blog also states that she is working on a non-fiction book about the murder of a young woman and her unborn child.
Here’s her PDF portfolio.
Academic Fabrizio Tonelli is a veteran academic, and a professor of political science at the University of Padua. He has an exceptionally long list of achievements, some of which are:
He has also written an impressive number of articles and books, denoting a clear mastery over his research topic and area of interest.
Carter is a social worker, writer, and trainer who describes himself as “late-blooming” and “java-fueled”. He is presently the editor of Auto and Trucking Atlantic Magazine and also contributes to multiple publications — Convenience and Carwash Canada, Career Wise, Canadian Immigrant Magazine, and others. He has also authored three books.
His day job is managing employment services with Epilepsy Toronto, an organization that helps people living with epilepsy and related disabilities with their job searches.
There are multiple tools for creating pdf portfolios, and we’ll use Authory for the following tutorial.
Create an account on Authory, for free, using this signup link.
I actually started using Authory a while ago, and when I say it’s a great tool, I say it with experience.
This portfolio builder won’t just help you collate your publications in one place. It’ll do so much more:
Don’t take my word for it. Just sign up and try it for a free 14-day trial period. All you have to do is enter your sources, and the tool will do the rest.
