About the About Me

A recent 37signals article quoted Tufte's Beautiful Evidence (previously mentioned here) and supported his suggestion that packing large amounts of essential info onto a single, printable page for clients is a great idea for business: "With that one sheet of paper, they will have as much information as 15 computer screenfuls or 300 PowerPoint slides."

This idea is also worth considering on a personal design level—if you had to boil your self-presentation tactics down to a single pdf page, what would you feature? The traditional leave-behind, which serves something of the same purpose, enters the game after you've landed the interview... what about creating a one-page self-presentation brochure for clients and employers to access before the interviews begin? You've presented yourself even if they lack the patience to browse your portfolio (which they very often do). Such a document also potentially demonstrates that you can be creatively concise, that you know your strengths well enough to sum them up, and that you appreciate other people's time (which, in turn, might buy you more of it).

Think of it as a step between your resume and your portfolio... something of a print-version About page for you and your work. As discussed in a recent article from A List Apart, a good About page differentiates you from the herd and provides essential facts (something of your personality, a summary of your experience that's more interesting than your dry resume), context for additional information (the rest of your portfolio), and a reason for readers to do whatever it is you want them to do (hire you). As an accompaniment to your larger presentation, either online or off, the single page of self-presentation could be just as valuable on an individual design level as it is as a larger business idea.