Tommy Smith - How side projects can land you a dream job

By Dive Club

Categories: Product, Design

Summary

Tommy Smith's portfolio redesign and side project Krono landed him a dream job by prioritizing content clarity and personal expression over over-engineered design. He strategically showcased a passion project instead of traditional client work to demonstrate his true capabilities and desired career direction.

Key Takeaways

  1. Strip back portfolio design to prioritize digestible content over visual complexity. Avoid over-engineering with excessive drop shadows and highlighting that creates visual noise.
  2. Feature side projects prominently in your portfolio if they better represent your desired career direction than your professional work. This signals what you actually want to build.
  3. Add micro-interactions and personality through animation tools like Rive to differentiate your portfolio from competitors while showcasing technical depth without being a specialist.
  4. Balance minimalism with distinctive details to create memorable portfolios. Clean layouts become forgettable without unique elements that represent your personality and interests.
  5. Use side projects to overcome professional constraints. When contracted work doesn't showcase your true capabilities, build projects that demonstrate the future direction you want your career to take.

Topics

Transcript Excerpt

We've been talking a lot about the newfound importance of side projects, but what's an example that actually got someone hired? >> We're in a in a an era where these these side projects can tell you so much more about a designer than work that they were contracted to do and sort of, you know, boxed into. >> How do you position yourself as a new design engineer in today's market? >> If you can build these interactions and you know what makes them good and you know what makes interacting with a pr...