Plotter
Plotter is a side project redefining the designer portfolio
A side project I started from ideation to shipping making design hiring easier. I worked on user research, product design, and branding.
Overview
Portfolio case studies have long been the de facto standard for showcasing design work—yet they’re often labourious to create and rarely reflect a designer’s ongoing journey. Simultaneously, managers struggle to find the right candidates because many portfolios are either locked behind passwords, out-of-date, or simply don’t convey the full picture. Plotter was conceived to address both challenges by offering a dynamic platform where designers can regularly update their progress, and managers can search a structured, up-to-date database of design work in progress.
Early explorations
Before settling on the final concept for Plotter, I explored multiple approaches to making the portfolio process both effortless and insightful. I began with loose sketches before playing around with ideas in Figma for a dynamic, in-progress portfolio—a tool that wasn’t tied to one big, exhaustive case study but rather allowed designers to share small, regular updates.
- I experimented with various formats: from weekly one-sentence updates to monthly mini case studies, trying to balance brevity with meaningful content.
- I also explored integration possibilities with common platforms like email, Slack, Teams, and even Figma to ensure updates could be pushed seamlessly.
- These early explorations helped me identify the core value: empowering designers to document their work continuously, rather than only at major milestones.
Profile
I explored ways to present a dynamic, living portfolio that truly reflects a designer’s ongoing journey.
Search
I also investigated how managers might efficiently discover talent on the platform—enabling users to quickly sift through candidates based on skills, experience, and recent work.
User research
To validate the concept, I conducted comprehensive research with both designers and hiring managers. I interviewed individual designers and design team leads to understand their challenges with traditional portfolios. Additionally, I surveyed 26 designers to gather quantitative insights into their frustrations and needs. Key findings included:
- For Designers: A common sentiment was that creating a polished case study is time-consuming and often fails to capture their day-to-day progress.
- For Managers: There was a strong demand for a standardised, up-to-date repository of design work that goes beyond static, final deliverables.
This research confirmed that a dynamic, regularly updated portfolio—like Plotter—would fill a significant gap in the market.
Logo
I needed to create a logo for Plotter to use on our website and emails. I began by sketching various ‘P’ shapes, exploring different configurations that symbolised creativity, dynamism, and progress. My goal was to design an emblem that would resonate with fellow designers—one that conveyed movement and continuous evolution. After numerous iterations, I refined the most promising concepts into a clean, recognisable logo that encapsulates Plotter’s commitment to ongoing growth and innovation.
Sketches
Final
Email banner
Refinements
As Plotter started to take shape, I focused on refining the UI to ensure a polished and cohesive experience. I refined the colour system to improve contrast and consistency, ensuring accessibility while maintaining a visually appealing aesthetic.
For components, I opted to use Radix UI as the foundation for our design system. This gave us a solid, accessible base while allowing for customisation where needed. I also refined buttons, inputs, and other interactive elements to create a seamless and intuitive interface.
These refinements helped bring Plotter closer to a production-ready product, balancing usability with a clean, modern design.
Features
Over the course of a few months, I worked closely with an engineer friend to design and develop key features for Plotter. Here are a few examples:
Settings
The settings feature empowers users to customise their Plotter profile to suit their individual needs. Designers can upload a photo, update their name, specify their location, and record when they started working.
Autocomplete design specs
For the address autocomplete feature, I spent time in crafting detailed design specifications to ensure a seamless handover to my engineering friend.
Chart settings
Additionally, the charts settings allow users to indicate the main platforms they’ve worked on, enabling them to adjust the visual representation of their experience on their profile. This level of customisation ensures that each portfolio is a true reflection of the designer’s professional journey.
About
Using the information gathered during onboarding and user settings, we leveraged AI to generate a personalised about section for each user. This provided a strong starting point, which users could then edit and refine in their settings.
As the settings area expanded with more customisation options, I revisited the navigation to improve usability. I introduced a left-hand navigation panel with a back button, making it easier for users to switch between settings and their profile seamlessly.
Work status
I wanted to rethink not just how managers find the right candidates, but also how designers find the right opportunities. One way to improve this was by helping candidates understand a company’s UX maturity before they joined.
To achieve this, we explored a system where current employees could anonymously answer questions about their company’s UX practices. This would give potential candidates insight into the design culture, processes, and level of UX investment—helping them make more informed career decisions.
Conclusion
Plotter has been a fun side project to build with my engineering friend. It’s given me firsthand experience in creating something from the ground up—experimenting with a new design system, thinking tactically about releases, and working with AI again. There’s still a long way to go to get it where I want it to be, but we’ll keep chipping away at it whenever we have free time.