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Skill S13 · Vitrine — Portfolio Art Director

/portfolio-art-director

Turns a person's real work into a portfolio with a point of view: what to lead with, how to show each project, and which few components carry the personality.

When building or redesigning a personal site, a studio site or a case-study page.

A portfolio is read by someone deciding whether to trust you with work. Lead with the work, show judgement, and make contact effortless. The personality comes from one or two signature details, not from everything moving.

1. Gather the facts

Collect these before designing anything:

  • Name, role and city.
  • 3–6 projects with year, your role, the problem, what you did and the outcome (a number if there is one).
  • Who the reader is (a recruiter, a client, a collaborator) and what you want them to do (email, book, read the CV).

No placeholders: if a fact is missing, ask.

2. Choose a register

Pick one: editorial (serif, calm, text-led), visual (image-led, big type, a living backdrop) or technical (mono details, systems, numbers). The register decides every later choice.

3. The page, in order

  1. Name and intro: masthead-nav folding into a bar. Inline links inside the intro use draw-link. A signed name (flourish-name, seal-signature) only if it fits the register.
  2. Selected work: a list to read (highlighter-row) or objects to look at (specimen-card, folio-card, approach-card). Each project gets year, role and outcome.
  3. One case in depth: before and after, decisions, constraints. Depth beats twelve thumbnails.
  4. Experience: meander-timeline, dated and expandable.
  5. Contact: sign-off-footer with the email to copy, local time and availability.

4. Signature, sparingly

Choose one of: a background behind the name (silk-field, dune-field, star-trails), a typographic moment (chapter-numeral, end-credits, constellation-name) or a cursor (glow-pointer, nib-trail), scoped to one section. Everything else stays still and fast.

5. Check

  • Every project has a year, a role and a real outcome.
  • Contact is reachable in one click from every screen.
  • Run /accessibility-pass and /responsive-audit. The 375px view should still lead with the work.

Output

The register, the section plan with components and reasons, the chosen signature detail, and the copy gaps still to fill.

Featured

01Glassbreak ButtonA solid plate that fractures from one impact point, cracks racing outward as the shards drift apart.04Liquid GlassA capsule of glass that bends what's behind it, carries a specular highlight around its rim toward your pointer, and squashes like a drop of liquid when pressed.07Phosphor Glass ButtonA liquid-glass pill that senses you coming: its rim light turns to face the cursor and the pill leans in to meet it.08Iris ShutterAn async button with a camera iris for a status light — blades close and turn while it works, then open onto the result.
81Atmosphere CardSmoked-glass link cards: colour pooled in the corners, slow contour currents underneath, a field that leans toward you.93Eclipse Event CardAn editorial event plate with an oversized date and an orbital eclipse bleeding in from the right, alive with slow drift.94Specimen CardAn object mounted under glass: hover lifts the pane with a sweep of reflection and swings out a paper catalogue tag.
95Silk FieldDomain-warped light that pours like liquid silk, with an optional glass lens that refracts the flow under your cursor.106IsobarA living weather map — contour lines traced over a drifting pressure field, with your cursor as a system of its own.
151Prompt ComposerA chat composer where attached files tuck into its top edge like tabs in a folder — they rise from behind it when added and sink back when removed. Send turns into stop while the reply streams.157Aura FieldA writing field where colour only exists while the AI is touching your text: the edge becomes a turning band of light and the words are rewritten in place, one by one, out of a soft blur.
205Halftone CTAA tall CTA banner where slow gold paint drifts beneath a fixed halftone grid, visible only through the dots.
212Nocturne Sign-inA single quiet column on near-black with a breathing seam of frost light behind it — email, password, magic link, nothing more.222Sigil Sign-inA split sign-in whose left half grows a geometric mark from your email — the same address always draws the same sigil.
275Voices CarouselA testimonial exhibition: one large quote at a time on frosted glass, crossfading between voices without ever resizing.
279Feral TitleA brutal condensed wordmark — heartbeat in the dark, letters slam in, a gash tears through and the word bleeds.
301 components