A good portfolio should explain or demonstrate how you process problems.

It’s nice to know a designer can use Photoshop or Sketch, but a stronger selling point for employers is to know she can identify the most important parts of the work
or problem, prioritize, conceptualize, get and provide feedback, reiterate, and launch.

You can’t demonstrate critical thinking abilities with a few flashy photos or a link to a Dribbble profile. Show sketches and notes, and describe some of the ways you like
to work within your portfolio.

Take time to explain the process you took to get from ideation to solution, you don’t need to do it for every project, but one or two solid examples can go a long way
in showing how you work best.

A good portfolio presents the “best” work,
as defined by you

Shaz Madani once said that “seeing one bad project can outdo all the good work [in a resume].”

To some degree this is a good point: put your best foot forward. You don’t need to show everything you’ve ever done in your portfolio.

That doesn’t mean you hide the work that didn’t succeed or was rejected for one reason or another. In-fact: sometimes showing what failed adds a lot to a portfolio
(particularly if you share insights into why you think the work failed and what you learned from the experience).

Yes, show your best work, but best in this case doesn’t mean most successful or most beautiful; it means the work you’re most proud of.

I would argue one point, however, is to not show conceptual work that involves non-clients or partners. A redesign of Google is an interesting thought exercise, but it
does not accurately demonstrate how you work through relevant problems. Google already has designers to do that.

Highlight the work you were most excited to work on, that demonstrates the types of projects you like to work on, and can provide clear examples of what you’re
capable of doing and learning.

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Tanner Christensen - Medium.com