Can AI help you build your design portfolio? Yes, it can. Here's how 👇🏼

Look, don’t kill the messenger, but the instruments we have in 2025 make it very hard to sustain our “portfolio dread” at this point. No excuse to procrastinate anymore.
We used to put portfolio work off for months / overthinking structure, dreading the blank page + cold-start problem or getting stuck in endless refinements.

While AI won’t build it for us, it can help:
⚡ speed up the drafting process
⚡ take away the overwhelm
⚡ free us to focus on quality and editing

⚠️ a word of caution before we continue:
AI won’t magically make your portfolio meaningful, nor will it make it stand out.

What matters most is your input and refinement. Guide it with context, edit it deeply, and inject your personal voice.

The difference between a generic draft and a meaningful, authentic case study is the effort you put into shaping it. Use AI for speed and structure 🚨 but the heart of the work comes from you.

I hope we’re on the same page, right? 👊 continuing means you consent to this disclaimer. 😅

So, now for the practical advice.

Step 1: Capture your story (voice > text)

Open your LLM tool of choice (ChatGPT, Claude, NotebookLM - anything with voice mode). Then just talk. Out loud. Like you’re explaining the project to a friend.

Tell it the whole story of your project: what you worked on, for how long, who you collaborated with, your responsibilities, the challenges you faced, the key decisions you made, and the tough trade-offs. Then, ask it to turn all that into a case study draft that surfaces the points you think matter most.

Now, here’s the golden rule: garbage in, garbage out. The more detail you give, the better the draft. And remember ⚠️ AI only gives you the first version. The real magic comes from you editing and refining it until it truly feels like your work.

Within 10–15 minutes, you’ll have a messy transcript / but guess what? That’s your raw material 🥩

🎁 bonus: helpful SAMPLE! prompt to add: “Turn this into a UX case study draft with clear sections: context, problem, role, process, outcome. Keep it professional but conversational. Highlight impact.”

Step 2: Polish with your taste

I think this is the most important step. It’s where you really infuse it with your style + personality. Take the draft your LLM produced and:

/ Add the screens that are meaningful in your narrative context

/ Refine the storytelling tone so it feels like you

/ Cut the fluff and whatever AI put in there that doesn’t make sense or fails to contribute to or elevate your case study storyline

Step 3: Collect inspo + turn it into a prompt

to put your case studies into a structure, ofc you need to decide on the aesthetic, style, vibe + feel you’re going for. Start scanning the internet for things you love, collect them, educate yourself, decide what feels right to you.

then feed those visual artifacts back into your LLM to help you define the keywords of how you want the design to look and feel.

Step 4: Feed everything into a vibe-code tool

Once you have the story + the aesthetic prompt and visual references, ask your LLM to turn it into a design prompt for a vibe-coded case study page. Iterate on the prompt then take it to Lovable or your tool of choice.

*btw you get 20% off on your first purchase of a Pro Plan in Lovable using GOODIESIG20 / valid until Oct 3rd

Since case studies are mostly about showing content, AI tools like Lovable can quickly bring your words to life without needing complex functionality. 👌

Step 5: Get feedback from AI

ofc you’ll need to get feedback from real people as well. But AI can act as a challenge-partner that can critique and improve whatever artefact you show it.

Give it your final case-study and ask it:

“Does this story highlight my decision-making as a designer?”

“What parts feel too generic?”

“Rewrite this section to be more impact-focused.”

AI is surprisingly good at acting like a practice recruiter or hiring manager. It can simulate what someone scanning 100 portfolios might think.

Step 6: Keep it alive

A portfolio is a living doc, not a one-time project. Use AI to:

/ Summarize each new project when you wrap it up (so you’re never starting from scratch)

/ Version-control your drafts (AI can help you compare v1 vs v2)

/ Generate fresh, shorter snippets for social, Medium, or even your CV

Still feel stuck? You can get my full guide on how to make this happen over here for 5$. It features extensive prompts and more detailed guidance.

And also feel free to reach out. Sometimes all we need to get unstuck is a friendly nudge from someone who supports us 🙋🏻‍♀️ I’m here for you 🩷

hope you enjoyed this and will use it / here are my CTAs to you:

💌 if you liked it / think it’s useful → share it with a friend or on your social media platform of choice

💻 grab the detailed portfolio prompt + plan from my Gumroad shop for only 5$

🦾 experiment with Lovable * you get 20% off on your first purchase of a Pro Plan in Lovable using GOODIESIG20 / valid until Oct 3rd

🎓 if you want to go even deeper in how to use AI in your design work, I extensively unpack that here in my Interaction Design Course - AI for Designers

❤️‍🔥 and, as a goodbye gift, to inspire you further, here are 2 incredible portfolios I came across this month:

hugs + AI love

Ioana / soft machines 🪩