As somebody who hires both freelancers and full time designers I pretty much rely on case studies. So when folks say things like “people don’t read them”, you need to take their advice with a HUGE grain of salt. https://twitter.com/miksullivan/status/1277878507482292224

My maths teacher used to explain that you got 50% of the marks for getting the right answer and the other 50% for demonstrating how you got to that answer. I still subscribe to this method when reviewing design candidate work remotely, prior to inviting folks into interview.

Case studies are significantly better than portfolios as they frame the problem that was trying to be solved, and explain the steps you took along the way. Including showing evidence of you using the skills you claim to have in your CV.

Case studies allow you to show the different explorations you took, and why you chose one over the other. This is great at helping a hiring manager understand both your process and your critical thinking skills.

Unless you're a solo designer, there's a good chance that the projects you worked on were team efforts. As such a case study allows you to explain the role you took on the team, while a portfolio implies that everything on screen was your doing.

Sure, case studies can be gamed. So can portfolios. We had a freelancer who did a bit of art-working for us for a couple of weeks and claimed on their portfolio site that they designed the Clearleft brand. We've also been in pitches where other agencies claimed work we'd done.

The only true test of a designers skill comes through working with them. However that doesn't mean you should automatically write case studies off as useless. As a designer you need some mechanism to demonstrate your work online.

I personally find case studies super useful to understand a designers process. They also help inform the interview process as it allows me to ask a bunch of deeper questions.

One alternative is doing a design task, but we know the challenges there.

Some hiring managers may not put the time or effort in to reading case studies. Many folks feel the same way about CVs. This feels like a huge red flag to me, and says more about the hiring manager and they company they work for, than the value of case studies.

Ultimately I'm not going to tell you whether to use case studies, portfolios, animated gifs, interpretive dance, Instagram, Stories or Dribbble shots to showcase your design work. What I will say is that A LOT of hiring managers will look for case studies.

But I can't think of any sane person looking to hire a designer (queue a series of Twitter responses) who would be actively discouraged by the fact you have a case study. They may just skim read it, or look at the pretty pictures, but it's unlikely to do you any actual harm.