Hasta La Creative!

If you’re a creative in the industry, you know the importance of a flashy portfolio.

Camilla Ciappina de Souza wants to help with that.

In December of 2016 she launched Pimp My Portfolio to help creatives take on the daunting task of developing their online portfolios, utilizing her designer skills. Now an art director at Publicis, de Souza previously served as a junior art director for DiMassimo Goldstein, working with clients including Jackson Hewitt and Weight Watchers.

Pimp My Portfolio is focused on visual layout and design for online portfolios. So the service can’t help your portfolio if you don’t, you know, have solid work in it to begin with. As the site cautions, “We are not responsible for making sh*tty ideas look pretty, that’s your job.”

Since launching Pimp My Portfolio, she has helped 167 creatives develop their portfolios, typically delivering results in 2-3 days. She claims keeping up with demands of Pimp My Portfolio and her work as an art director isn’t a challenge, as she devotes nights and weekends to the project.

“In the beginning I thought I’d be doing more portfolios for copywriters than art directors. But now I do more for art directors,” de Souza said, adding that her clients are usually in senior-level positions. “The responses have been really good. I always get emails from clients saying recruiters loved the website, or that they managed to find a job.”

De Souza has ambitions to one day expand Pimp My Portfolio into a full-fledged agency.

“I like recruiting too, so I’d love to open an agency where I can recruit and help creatives find a job by working on their portfolios too. Because I’ve been to so many recruiting agencies to find a job, and they never mention portfolio design/layouts. They only talk about projects.”