Architecture portfolio tips: what practices look at in the first minute

What happens in the first minute

Before co-founding blng studio, our founders worked at Zaha Hadid Architects and Heatherwick Studio. We've taught at the Architectural Association and the Bartlett (UCL) and run workshops at ETH Zurich. The advice here is ours; it isn't connected with those practices or schools.

A portfolio sent with a job application is rarely read from the first page to the last. Assume it will be opened on a laptop, between other tasks, by someone with several more to look at. In that first minute, the reviewer is trying to answer a few questions:

• Who is this, and what are they applying for?
• Can they design? Is there one idea, image or drawing that shows real thinking?
• Can they draw and produce? Are the plans, sections and details clear, accurate and readable?
• What did they actually do? Especially on group and office projects.
• Would they fit here? Does the work connect with what the practice does?

If the first pages answer those questions, the reviewer reads on. Everything below follows from that.

The opening pages: cover, first spread and contents

The cover. Your name, the word "portfolio", and a way to contact you: an email address and, if you have one, a link to an online portfolio. One strong image or none. Avoid a montage of every project; it says "I couldn't choose".

The first spread. This is the page that decides whether the reviewer reads on, so put your strongest project here, and its strongest image. Strongest means the project that best shows how you think and what you can produce, not the most recent one or the one that took longest. A clear drawing that shows an idea is often stronger than a glossy render that could have come from anywhere.

The contents page. A short list of projects, each with its name, type, date, and whether it was academic, a competition or office work. It shows your range at a glance and lets the reviewer jump to the project that matters to them.

What we would cut from the front. A long personal statement (that's what the cover email is for), skill bars or star ratings for software, a page of software logos, and a CV laid out as a graphic. A reviewer can't check a skill bar, but they can see your skills in the drawings.

Project selection and order

The most common weakness we see isn't a bad project. It's a good project buried behind weaker ones.

Choose fewer, stronger projects

Select, don't collect. A portfolio isn't a record of everything you've done; it's an argument that you can do the job. Every project should show something the others don't: a design idea, a building type, a scale, a skill such as detailing, or office experience.

Ask of each project: if this were the only one the reviewer saw, would it help or hurt? If two projects show the same thing, keep the stronger one.

Put them in a deliberate order

• Lead with your strongest project. Not the oldest, and not necessarily the newest.
• Put relevant work early. For a role in practice, office work and technically resolved projects matter. Don't hide them at the end.
• End well. The last project is the one the reviewer remembers. Don't trail off with a minor piece.
• Keep extras short. Sketches, models and workshops can show range: a spread at the back, not a chapter.

Reverse chronological order is safe, but it isn't a rule. Order by strength and relevance, and say clearly when each project was done.

Part 1, Part 2 and graduate portfolios: what changes

• Part 1 students and graduates applying for a year-out placement or a first job: show design ability and, above all, that you can produce clear drawings. Include at least one project with plans, sections and elevations that read as real drawings, not only diagrams and renders.
• Part 2 students applying for a placement or their next position: show how your thinking has developed, and bring your office experience forward. What you did in practice is often more relevant to the reviewer than your thesis.
• Early-career architects applying for a new role: office projects usually lead. Academic work moves to the back, or out.

Showing your role on group and office projects

This is where many portfolios lose trust. If a reviewer can't tell what you did, they will guess, and the interview becomes awkward.

For group projects at university:

• Say it was a group project, with how many people, on the project's first page.
• Credit your collaborators by name.
• Say what you were responsible for: "I led the massing studies and produced the sections and the physical model."
• Mark the drawings and images you produced, for example with a short note in the caption.

For office projects:

• Name the practice, the project stage and the dates you worked on it.
• State your role in one line: "Part 1 architectural assistant: planning drawings, model-making and the façade study."
• Show your own drawings and working material, not only the practice's finished renders: those show what the team did.
• Check before you show it. Office work can be confidential. Ask the practice what you can include, and leave out client names, costs and anything confidential if you're unsure.

Being precise about your role shows you understand how projects are run, and gives the interviewer something concrete to ask about.

Narrative: the question, your idea and your role

Each project should tell a short story the reviewer can follow in seconds: the question (the site, the brief or the problem), your idea (your response, in one sentence) and your role (what you did).

A useful test: cover the images and read only the title and first lines. Do you understand the project and why it's interesting? Then cover the text. Can you follow the idea from site to concept to building from the images alone? If either test fails, the story isn't clear yet.

Practical points:

• Start each project with a short summary: a title, a line on type, place and date, and a few sentences on the idea.
• Write captions, not essays. Few reviewers read a page of text in the first minute.
• Show the process, but edit it. A few sketches or models that show how the idea developed beat every iteration.
• Finish with resolution: plans, sections, a detail or a model that show the idea built.

Layout and hierarchy

The reviewer should notice the work, not the graphic design.

• One clear hierarchy per page. Each page or spread should have one main image, with everything else supporting it. If everything is the same size, nothing stands out.
• Use a grid and keep it. Consistent margins and text blocks make the portfolio read as one document.
• One or two typefaces, few sizes: a title, a body and a caption size are usually enough.
• Readable at screen size. Check every page on a laptop. If you have to zoom to read the text or drawing labels, so will the reviewer, and many won't.
• Drawings that read. Use line weights, a scale bar and a north point, and don't shrink plans and sections into texture.
• Leave space. A crowded page is hard to scan in the first minute.
• Check the images. Pixelated or stretched images undermine good work.

Consistency matters more than style: a simple layout lets strong work speak.

How many pages should an architecture portfolio be?

There's no standard number. Three things set the length:

1. The advert. If it gives a page limit or a file-size limit, that is the limit. Keep to it exactly.
2. The reader's time. The application portfolio should be short enough that a reviewer can grasp your strongest work in the first minute and read the rest in a few minutes more.
3. The work. A few strong projects told clearly are better than many projects told thinly. If a project needs a long run of pages to make sense, the story probably isn't edited yet.

Length is a question of what you keep for the application and what you save for the interview: the difference between a sample portfolio and a full one (see below).

Tailoring your portfolio to the practice

Tailoring doesn't mean a new portfolio for each application. It means a few deliberate changes.

• Look at the practice's work first. What do they build, at what scale and stage? What does the advert ask for?
• Change the order. Bring forward the project most relevant to that practice. If they do housing, a housing project or a resolved residential detail might lead; if they're known for competitions, your strongest design idea might.
• Change the selection, slightly. Swap one project in or out if it makes the portfolio more relevant.
• Write the cover email for that practice. A short, specific email on why you're applying does more than a general statement on page two.

Don't copy a practice's graphic style. Let the selection and order show that you've looked at their work.

The file itself: PDF size, page format, naming and links

A strong portfolio can still fail here: the file is too big to send, won't open, or ends up as "portfolio_final_v3.pdf" in a folder full of others.

File size

Keep the file small enough to attach to an email and open quickly. If the advert gives a size limit, meet it. Otherwise, compress images for screen, not print, export from your layout software with a screen-quality preset, and check the result page by page: text and line drawings should stay crisp.

Page format

• Landscape usually works best on screen, because it fills a laptop display. Whatever you choose, keep one format throughout.
• Export as single pages or spreads, consistently. A spread exported as two pages can split a drawing down the middle.
• Number the pages to match the contents page.
• Open the exported PDF on another device before you send it, to check fonts and images travelled.

File naming

Name the file so the reviewer can find it again: your name, the word "portfolio" and, if you like, the year, for example Firstname-Surname-Portfolio-2026.pdf. Avoid "final", version numbers and the name of a different practice. Keep the CV as a separate file named the same way.

Links and online portfolios

• Check every link in the PDF and the email before you send.
• Make sure online portfolios open without a login, a download prompt or an expired link.
• Unless the advert asks for a link only, attach the PDF as well. Don't make the reviewer click through to see your work.

A sample portfolio versus a full one

With an application, send a sample portfolio: a short selection of your strongest, most relevant work, edited for the first minute. The full portfolio is for the interview, where you can walk through projects in more depth, show process and answer questions.

The sample isn't simply the first pages of the full portfolio. Edit it separately: lead with the strongest project, give each project its short story, and keep only what earns its place. The full version should then follow on from it, so the interviewer recognises the work.

Frequently asked questions

Working on your portfolio?

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