online portfolio, fun or professional?

Ok, here's a discussion starter... I hope... You're young, fresh out of college, say about a year of real-world experience (including that non-paying internship) and you're ready to broadcast your stuff to the world in efforts to gain some extra (ok, only) income. Do you make it fun and risk looking immature, or do you make it professional and risk people missing your fun, creative, innovative, (I could go on) side?

You're talking about a web design portfolio right? It depends on who you want to target to some extent and how you want to 'package' yourself. I would go for a professional look every time. Clean, simple, corporate, elegant works for the majority of business folks IMO. Stay clear of cartoon styles and garish colours and flashy graphics unless you want to target the student/youth market.

Thread moved.

It seems you don't associate fun with professionality or professionality with youthly enthousiasm. There are a lot of professional companies who use humour in there marketing and maintain their youthfull personality. One great example is Nike who uses a lot of humour in there campaigns to reach a younger audience. Or if you're lookin for a less corporate look. Go visit www.littlerocket.com (it's not mine, it's just an example.) The site looks professional enough to take the guy serious but is really fun to look at.

So in conclusion: Get creative, use both!

It's all about your target audience. Game clans prefer fun, corporations prefer professional.

Who are you marketing to? I am more biased towards professional, but then again, a lot of the people I hired are because of their "fun" portfolios.

So either/or. Good luck.