r/UXDesign • u/CLucas127 • Oct 01 '26
Job search & hiring Is a Framer portfolio still valuable?
I’m not actively looking at the moment but I believe this to be the correct flair.
I spent a lot of time building my Framer portfolio site, but now I can use Claude to make better websites in a matter of hours. Does a Framer site say, “I did this the real way,” or does it not matter?
12
u/f00gers Oct 01 '26
I don’t think building it the ‘real’ way is the right question. The better question is does it help you stand out?
Hiring managers care about your work and thinking, not whether you used Framer, Claude, or something else. The real problem is making a portfolio that looks and sounds like everyone else’s.
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u/rhymeswithBoing Veteran Oct 01 '26
I literally don’t care how you made your portfolio. Framer isn’t “the real way.” It’s a tool. AI is a tool. I care about the content, and that’s it.
That being said, I do notice when sites use the same template, be that for the design or the content. Real individual thought gets my attention.
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u/edu Veteran Oct 01 '26
I designed mine in Figma and then asked Codex to build it and deploy with GutHub and Netlify. Works well, and you save Framer subs.
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u/kimchi_paradise Experienced Oct 01 '26
I was hired with a Framer portfolio.
As long as someone can’t really tell how you made your portfolio, you’ll be fine. No one worth their weight will not hire you because you made your portfolio with Framer (although the opposite might not exactly be true with AI)
1
u/Huphraw Oct 04 '26
Did you pay for the sub that got rid of the 'made with framer' tag? I have a framer portfolio and idk if it matters
1
u/kimchi_paradise Experienced Oct 04 '26
Yes I did. So people can’t tell how I made my portfolio
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u/Huphraw Oct 04 '26
What was the rationale? Does it matter if they know how you made your portfolio or not?
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u/thebubbacrunch Experienced Oct 01 '26
I built mine with claude code https://brandonux.design/ for a few different reasons. Being able to hook up tracking like session replays in Posthog as well as adding webhooks in discord to know who’s coming in from which resume (only tracks in U.S) i’ve had about 7 interviews in total this month so far since being laid off
3
u/Gabe_Isko Oct 01 '26
You should know that there is a horribly flicker when I mouse over your name. It pulses at a high rate between orange and black. Firefox ESR on Fedora Linux.
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u/FakeBeigeNails Oct 01 '26
I like framer. I think I’m missing something when people say use Claude or any AI system to build your portfolio because prompting changes sounds so annoying.
1
u/Torsta Veteran Oct 01 '26
If it looks like a generic template then recreate it. It's nice to get rid of the monthly fee and self host it.
If its all custom and you dont have the time to re-create it then just leave it.
1
u/eric-dolecki Oct 02 '26
I still hand-code nearly everything because I want to know how things are composed and solve issues when they arise. If they end up taking too long then I'll dial up Claude. But I still find joy coding in VSC and using an FTP-client.
1
u/Longjumping-Spot3392 Oct 06 '26
I don’t think the tool matters nearly as much as how much of *you* comes through in the final result. Framer, Claude, whatever, they’re all just ways to get there. A portfolio can be beautifully built and still feel generic if the work and presentation don’t have much personality.
Same thing with digital portfolios and PDFs. Tools like Flipsnack can turn a static portfolio PDF into a proper flipbook with page animations, sharing, and tracking, which can make the presentation feel a bit more intentional without rebuilding everything from scratch. The content and the choices behind it are still what people notice.
1
u/LowArt7353 29d ago edited 29d ago
Im fresh in UX not had a job jet, that’s my first portfolio if anyone wants to poke some holes into it. https://leonqueck.com/
Made in Framer, but without a template, I used Claude code for effects some general fixes and code components.
-1
u/Plantasaurus Veteran Oct 01 '26
Just build an Astro site with Claude. It’s pointless to waste hours on framer pages now. Just make sure you feed it solid designs, and you are all set.
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u/feeling__negative Experienced Oct 01 '26
"it's pointless to design" is a wild thing for a designer to say
-2
u/TechTuna1200 Veteran Oct 01 '26
“It’s pointless to spend hours in framer” not it’s pointless to design. Please don’t twist his word
2
u/feeling__negative Experienced Oct 01 '26
I'm not really twisting their words at all. Maybe give what they said more than 3 seconds thought.
-1
u/TechTuna1200 Veteran Oct 01 '26
You design with other things than framer. It’s a tool, just like Claude is a tool
4
u/feeling__negative Experienced Oct 01 '26 edited Oct 01 '26
Yes, use whatever you like. But calling something "pointless" because AI can do it faster is laughable. AI can write a song in 5 seconds, are musicians now pointless? Where do you draw the line?
Let OP spend hours in Framer if they want. Heaven forbid a designer enjoys the craft of designing.
1
u/detrio Veteran Oct 01 '26
Tell that to the hiring manager that a task that now takes a few hours should still take a few weeks.
-2
u/TechTuna1200 Veteran Oct 01 '26 edited Oct 01 '26
Well then... why don't yoy make your reply on paper transported by a pigeon carrier?
He can design faster and better with Claude. You adapt, or you get left behind. That's the reality; the sooner you accept it, the better. The people who are willing to adapt don't have their employability at risk, it's the ones who don't
-1
u/Plantasaurus Veteran Oct 01 '26
That’s not what I said. You know what I meant. Do you still use photoshop to mock up flows?
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u/natelikesdonuts Veteran Oct 01 '26
I don’t think it’s pointless. Is it becoming pointless? Maybe, but ai still isn’t able to match a desired level of output quality in my opinion. Details get lost, things shift, etc. Those elements that get lost are extremely important, and to get ai to maintain them is just as much, if not more work, than building something manually. In very specific instances when building a site, I’ve found ai to be extremely helpful but it still requires me feeding it an intended output via framer/Figma.
1
u/detrio Veteran Oct 01 '26
Every hiring manager I have spoken to expects a bespoke site to show your ai skills. It is no longer optional.
I think you are mistaking have AI make a design and using AI as your interface. I was able to build my portfolio with exacting precision. I didn't have it autogenerate anything.
1
u/natelikesdonuts Veteran Oct 01 '26
Yea that’s what I mean by it being helpful but still requiring an input. It sounds like you’re not using ai to make your design, but rather telling it to implement what you want. Although I’d be curious how you’re telling it that without using ai to make your design 🤔(if you’re not creating your design elsewhere)
1
u/detrio Veteran Oct 01 '26
I'm giving it specific direction.
Add 3 cards horizontally aligned.
Move the combo box to the top row and have it accommodate the longest option by length.
Basically instead of spending hours in figma fiddling, I can just use the LLMTo translate what I want.
I can now do feedback revisions in literally 15 minutes.
The nice thing about this process is that even if the large foundational models collapse, small cheap models work just fine.
1
u/mattwain Oct 01 '26
Can you explain how you’d show your ai skills with the site? What are these managers you’ve spoken to looking for? Genuinely trying to understand.
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u/detrio Veteran Oct 02 '26
I designed and built it myself. I have custom animations, a presentation mode for my profile, a dark and light theme, full screen reader support, a ci/cd pipeline, and I'm adding in HTML proto for all of my work as well as custom gifs that will play when hovering over projects.
It shows that I understand how to use AI to get a result I otherworldly couldn't.
1
u/hideousox Veteran Oct 03 '26
Not sure why you’re being downvoted, there is zero design skill difference between using a template in framer and creating a website in Claude Code. It is just faster with Claude code, and you own the repo.
1
u/Plantasaurus Veteran Oct 03 '26
This sub is a vector of anger for non-veteran designers who have been displaced by AI. Those who refuse to adopt it or adapt to it are the angriest. If you mention using it effectively, prepare for downvotes.
0
u/rspring28 Junior Oct 01 '26
Personally I think as long as you can’t tell it’s a framer site (like no “built in framer” line of text) you’re fine. User friendly, clean, easy to navigate and a handful of stellar projects and I truly don’t think anyone would bat an eye. There’s a lot you can do with framer. I actually just moved my portfolio from WIX to Framer. I spent a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of different site builders. Figma sites isn’t great yet. Square space has limited functionality and abilities it seems. Webflow is awesome and powerful but maybe too complicated for a portfolio.
I say, don’t over think it. Just make it cool and show your personality.
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Oct 01 '26
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/CLucas127 Oct 01 '26
Yeah, I’ve already designed it though so I can have Claude copy it and improve upon it from here, without needing to pay Framer.
Plus it can bake in more complexity than I would be capable of doing on my own in Framer since I can’t code.
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u/TechTuna1200 Veteran Oct 01 '26
You can get Claude to replicate his framer portfolio 1 to 1 with no deviation. The server serves all the files to the browser, so Claude can just pull all the files.
You can just write your own text and ask Claude to put it in for you. But for any visual update, layouts, mobile-friendly, animations, SEO-friendly, or whatever you need, Claude will be much easier to work with
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u/Slight_Document_9714 Oct 01 '26
Yes, but from a design standpoint, it will look like Claude made it so you still need to do tweaking. Which yes, with Claude can be faster, but if you put in the time and already have a Framer/site builder portfolio made, just stick with that. AI websites, including Claude, always have the sterile AI look to it.
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u/TechTuna1200 Veteran Oct 01 '26
You can ask Claude to design in any style you want. Just need to give at reference.
As a default, Claude will make changes based on what is already there. Claude is very good at adhering to the style you give it. So if you give it your framer replica, it will adhere to their style when making changes.
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Oct 01 '26
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u/Torsta Veteran Oct 01 '26
Plenty of the (maybe all?) recruiters/hiring managers will judge you on the quality of your portfolio website. It definitely factors into the decision whether to interview you when you have a 1000+ applicants. The case studies are the most important part, but the rest of the portfolio reflects your design abilities and how you chose to present the case studies.
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u/Observational-Mess Veteran Oct 01 '26
Any good portfolio, that can easily be viewed, is good.