How to Get an Interior Design Portfolio When You’re Just Starting Out

You’ve completed your training, you’re building your website, and then it hits you. You need a portfolio. Preferably a beautiful one, full of gorgeous after shots that make potential clients swoon. The problem? You’ve never had a paying client. So where on earth do you start?

It’s a very common catch-22 in interior design: you need a portfolio to get clients, but you need clients to build a portfolio. The good news is that it’s absolutely not a dead end. There are plenty of ways to build a compelling, professional interior design portfolio from scratch, and this post walks you through them.

Start with Your Branding

Before you think about portfolio images, think about your brand. Your website is a showcase of what kind of interior design you do and who you do it for. It can be very tempting, especially when starting out, to position yourself as someone who will take on absolutely anything. Resist that temptation.

Say you want to specialise in modern country interiors. Every element of your brand needs to reflect that: the fonts you use, the colour palette, the imagery, the overall feel. A potential first client will decide within seconds whether your site feels like them. If it doesn’t, they’ll click away, however good your work might be.

Free tools like Canva are a great starting point for pulling together a cohesive brand identity, and if you’d rather outsource the design work, platforms like Fiverr can connect you with designers at reasonable rates.

Use Your Own Home (and Your Friends’ Homes Too)

Most people drawn to interior design have already been using their own home as a testing ground for years. That counts. If you’ve decorated your own space, helped a friend choose fabrics, or rearranged a relative’s living room, you have material to work with.

Just because something wasn’t a paid project doesn’t make it less valid as a portfolio piece. You don’t need to photograph a whole room either. A beautifully styled corner, a well-curated shelf, a carefully considered vignette, all of these can communicate your design eye effectively.

Invest in Good Photography if You Can

It might feel like an extravagance when you’re just starting out, but a good interiors photographer can transform what you’re working with. The angles they find, the way they work with light, the quality of the results: these things are genuinely difficult to replicate with a phone, however good your camera is.

If hiring a photographer is in your budget, it is well worth it. Just do your research first. Look at their portfolio, make sure their style aligns with yours, and check they have experience shooting interiors specifically. It’s a different skill set from portrait or event photography.

Create Design Boards, Floor Plans and Sketches

You don’t need a finished room to demonstrate your design thinking. Professional-looking mood boards, floor plans, elevations and concept presentations all show a potential client how you work and what your aesthetic is.

These can be created entirely from home, for entirely imaginary briefs if necessary. Pick a room type you want to specialise in, set yourself a brief, and create the full suite of visuals you’d normally present to a client. It’s also genuinely useful practice for when the real thing arrives.

Use SketchUp to Create Photorealistic Renders

SketchUp is a powerful tool for interior designers, and particularly useful for those just starting out. It allows you to build 3D models of your design concepts, so that you can present a genuinely immersive view of what a space could look like, before a single piece of furniture has been ordered.

Done well, photorealistic SketchUp renders are striking portfolio pieces. They show spatial understanding, attention to detail, and the ability to communicate a design vision clearly. If you include them in your portfolio, just make sure you note that they are illustrative visuals and not photographs of completed projects.

The Interior Designers Hub offers SketchUp training for designers at all stages, from drawing your first line through to photo-realistic renders. You can find out more >HERE<

Gather Testimonials Early

Testimonials don’t have to come from paying clients. Think about everyone you’ve helped in a design capacity: a friend you advised on paint colours, a family member whose lounge you rearranged, a colleague who knows your work ethic and attention to detail. Any of them could give you a genuine, useful testimonial.

Social proof matters enormously to new clients who don’t have much else to go on. A warm, specific testimonial from a real person is worth more than a polished portfolio with no human voices attached.

Enter Design Competitions and Challenges

Design competitions are an underused route to building both your portfolio and your profile. Entering gives you a clear brief to work to, a deadline to keep you honest, and a finished piece you can use as a portfolio entry. Winning, or even being shortlisted, can be enough to get you in front of your first clients.

Keep an eye on competitions run by industry bodies such as the British Institute of Interior Design (BIID), as well as those featured in trade publications and design platforms.

Network With Other Designers

If you can find an established designer who needs an extra pair of hands on a project, this can be a brilliant way to gain real experience and real images. The fact that you were assisting rather than leading the project needs to be made clear, but this can be done gracefully: a testimonial from the designer about your contribution, alongside a couple of images, is a powerful combination.

This is sometimes called validation by association, and it works. Being linked to an established name in the industry, even in a supporting role, lends credibility that’s hard to manufacture any other way.

Remember: Your Portfolio Is a Work in Progress

No designer launched with a perfect portfolio. The key is to have something: something that reflects your taste, your thinking and your potential. Use the strategies above to put together a starting point, then update it regularly as real projects come in.

Your Next Step:

If you’re working towards building a professional interior design career, you’re going to need to get that portfolio set up. Check out this blog post for your next step:

Last Reviewed: April 2026

References

Hatherell, K., 2025. What to Include in Your Interior Design Portfolio (So It Actually Wins You Clients). [online] Available at: https://www.interiordesignershub.co.uk/blog/what-to-include-in-a-portfolio [Accessed: 1 April 2026]

Hatherell, K., 2025. How to Prepare for a Magazine-Worthy Interior Design Photoshoot (Without the Last-Minute Panic). [online] Available at: https://www.interiordesignershub.co.uk/blog/prepare-for-photoshoot [Accessed: 1 April 2026]

Hatherell, K., 2024. What to Post on Instagram Before You Have a Portfolio. [online] Available at: https://www.interiordesignershub.co.uk/blog/post-on-instagram [Accessed: 1 April 2026]

About the Author 

Kate Hatherell is the founder of The Interior Designers Hub and a qualified interior design professional with extensive experience in the industry. She has helped hundreds of people transition into successful interior design careers through the Hub’s Ofqual-regulated Level 3 Diploma in Professional Interior Design and a range of business training and mentoring programmes.

Kate serves as a consultant and professional advisor to AIM Qualifications and Assessment Group, contributing specialist industry expertise to the development of new interior design qualifications across the UK. She also delivers SketchUp training to students around the world, and is committed to providing practical, industry-relevant education that prepares designers for real-world careers and thriving businesses.