Minimal Portfolio Template

About this template

Is this the right file

As the cover subtitle puts it, the decoration is stripped away so the work itself leads, with a large image area. It suits people who already have finished visuals and want two or three lines beside them; it does not suit consulting proposals full of diagrams, where the empty space reads as unfinished. The closing line – the more you remove, the clearer it gets – is the editing rule for the whole file.

The first two sections hold layout rules, not work

Slides 3-6 are two divider-and-body pairs, shipped as SECTION 01 Margins and SECTION 02 Grid. They describe how this deck itself is set, not a case study. Slide 4 leads with emptying rather than filling, then lists 24mm outer margins on all sides, at most three elements per page, and a 12mm gap between title and body. Slide 6 leads with putting every page on the same grid, then lists a six-column grid with 6mm gutters, images scaled in two-column steps, and left alignment instead of centered. Those values are actually applied in the file, so use them as your editing rules. But a portfolio needs somewhere for the work itself: duplicate a divider-and-body pair to create project pages, then decide whether to keep or delete the two rule pages.

• Under three years’ experience: replace both rule pages with two project pages.
• Job hunting: Project 1 and Project 2, with client and year in the divider titles.
• Pitching for work: comparable case plus method, with the rule pages moved to an appendix.

Slide 7 is the model for writing up one case

Slide 7 faces a client brief (too much information on the first screen, brand color differing page to page, unusually high mobile drop-off) against the final result (first screen cut to three elements, color and type rules documented, mobile drop-off halved). One problem line answered by one result line is the pattern to copy when you add project pages. Note that the first pair reuses the same number as slide 4’s rule of at most three elements per page. The bullets are noun phrases carrying figures, and that shape is itself a good model – keep it when you switch to project content.

• Restructured it becomes, for example, 4 concepts in 3 days, option 2 chosen after testing with 6 users.
• Built a design system becomes, for example, 42 components documented, dev questions down from 12 to 3 per week.
• Found the problem becomes, for example, three drop-off points identified in logs, 61% lost at checkout step 2.

Do not add slots

Slide 7 holds three lines per side, slide 8 four cards, slide 9 four bars. Adding items means redrawing shapes and the spacing drifts, so select rather than expand. The cards default to the same layout rules the bodies state – 24mm base margin, 6 columns, 2 colors, 3 type sizes – so for a portfolio keep the four boxes and swap in labels such as projects delivered, years of practice, clients worked with and repeat-hire rate. The bars – 12, 46, 38 and 14 across cover and intro, work part one, work part two, and bio and contact – describe the deck’s own proportions and add to 110, so they are not percentages; state the unit in the caption. They are shapes drawn in proportion with a shared baseline, so rescale the heights whenever you change the numbers.

Where it usually goes wrong

• Stretching a vertical photo sideways; crop instead of resizing.
• Leaving the closing slide as a greeting with no contact details – this deck is usually sent as a file, so the last page is your business card.
• Bullets long enough to wrap, which closes the gap the 24mm and 12mm spacing depends on.
• Changing the sections but leaving the agenda alone; the same wording sits twice, in the five agenda lines and in the divider titles on slides 3 and 5.
• Exporting the PDF at minimum quality; the large image areas show compression immediately.