Q:

Images or functioning websites for portfolio?

I am new web designer, should I include images or functioning websites in my portfolio?
All of my designs are personal projects that I have designed and built using html, css and javascript. By personal projects, I mean designs of generic website ideas: an e-commerce site, a hotel site, a travel site, etc.
Are images enough? Or should I include links to pages to demonstrate my ability to build my designs?

A:

I'd suggest images should be enough to show proper UX/UI and a concept.
If there's specific functionality that you're looking to sell based off of (like jQuery calculator or advanced animation), then include a link to the live site, but honestly - only if you control it or can be sure it's maintained.
I learned long ago that pointing to sites from a Portfolio relies too much on the client maintaining that site, not screwing it up, and a thousand other factors...  Images look great in a portfolio, but what will kill your sell will be a link to a dead site, non-working demo, or something that a client has messed up.
So I'd actually recommend if you want to demo an interactive design, you should make a video of it and put THAT in your portfolio along with images of different pages.
Good luck!

