Do you have a task or two (or five) that you’ve been putting off? You just can’t get motivated to get started for whatever reasons. Maybe it’s too overwhelming, or maybe it’s a boring and time consuming task that you hate.

For me, updating my art and illustration portfolio is one of those things. Which is terrible considering that’s very important to my work!!!

I created my online portfolio 2 years ago in my Graphic Design certificate program at a local college. It was a requirement to put one together to graduate from the program.

I got a domain name “yukomiki.com” (glad it was still available!) and used the same WordPress template I use for my blog (Twenty Thirteen theme) to create one.

At that time, I was still thinking I wanted to be a designer rather than an artist/illustrator because I didn’t think being the latter was a viable option for me. I believed being a working artist was something reserved for only super talented and special people. I didn’t think I was that person.

But then in my very last class after my portfolio presentation, my instructor saw that art and illustration was my true passion and encouraged me to follow my passion rather than settling to pursue design, which I sort of liked but not really. And just like that, I decided I’d pursue art and illustration more seriously!

So anyway, my portfolio had a bunch of work that were more focused on design projects from school. I’d worked very hard to put it together and was kind of over it when it was done. And left it alone for the past 2 years!! Yikes.

Needless to say, my work has changed since then. But my portfolio still had a bunch of old logo designs and wedding invitation designs which I didn’t really want to do any more.

Because I was feeling kind of embarrassed about my outdated portfolio, I hid it deep inside my website and didn’t really promote it for a long time.

I was making more work but did’t bother to update my portfolio for so long. I would post my new work on my social media so I figured, people can just find my work there, right? Or go to my Etsy store to see my new products, yes?

I also didn’t like the fact that my website and portfolio (and my blog for that matter) all lived at a different place – my website is self-hosted  vs. my portfolio and blog are hosted on WordPress.com. I do my own design for the website (html and css all the way!) but use the template for WordPress for blog and portfolio because my coding skills are pretty limited.

I’ve been wanting to do an overhaul and get everything on one platform and thought that would be a good time for me to update the portfolio all together. But that’s a huge task and I haven’t gotten around to it. And when I realized I didn’t have a clear timeline for it, I just didn’t want to wait any longer.

So the other day, I went into my portfolio site and spent a couple hours getting rid of old categories and pages and just made one simple page where you can see a bunch of my new work.

I kept the same WordPress theme (Twenty Thirteen, same as this blog) to keep a somewhat consistent look. And I used their portfolio feature with square grid to organize the page to keep it clean and simple.

I chose pieces that show my current style and focused on work that I’d like to do more of. It’s a place for people to find more curated work of mine rather than seeing different bits and pieces on social media.

It’s still work in progress but at least my work is fresh and I don’t feel so embarrassed about it any more 😀 Since I got rid of a bunch of pages and categories, adding new work will be a lot easier, too, and that should make it easier for me to keep it updated!

You can visit my updated illustration portfolio here if you’re interested! I hope you enjoy what you see.

Thanks guys! Have a nice day 🙂

xo Yuko