Hire Design Talent: Past the Portfolio
A portfolio shows you the best day of someone’s career. What it never shows is whether they can defend a decision or work inside a brand system. That is what we test for.
What we actually ask them
Show us something you were told to change
How a designer handles being overruled tells you more about working with them than any finished piece.
What did this replace, and did it work?
We want the before, and whether the redesign actually improved the number it was meant to improve.
Walk us through the version you rejected
Good designers generate options and discard most of them. Ones who only ever had one idea are a risk on a deadline.
Design under a real constraint
A short paid exercise with an awkward brief — a locked palette, a fixed space, an impossible amount of copy.
UI / UX
Product and interface designers who can work from a system rather than reinventing per screen.
Brand
Identity, packaging and print. Fewer of these exist than portfolios suggest.
Motion
Animation and video for social and product. Timing sense matters more than software list.
Illustration
Custom illustration, including people who can hold a consistent style across a set.
Beyond the Hire
This works harder alongside
Elsewhere in Talent Scout
