Portfolio etiquette

Hi all. I am at the point of needing to practise what I have learned before I start forgetting it, and was thinking that I could put the practice towards my portfolio that I will be showing to prospective employers. With that in mind I have a few questions:

  1. can I make websites for completely fictional businesses/people etc or do they need to be real? do I need to say that it is fictional?
  2. can I use google images on sites (ie google pictures of food for a food shop site) or do I need to use my own? do I need to state where images are from?
  3. can I look at a website online and try to recreate it without using any of their code? this also applies to some of the examples that I have worked through in the courses. how much of it is mine? do I need to say where I got the idea from?

Thank you for your help with this. I just don’t want to spend ages on things and then realise that I can’t use them due to violations etc.

  1. Absolutely. Make mock websites for fictional businesses. No need to state it, IMO.

  2. No, I wouldn’t do that, as some may be subject to copyright. I’d use free, stock images from websites that allow you to use these images as you please. Better be safe.

  3. Yup, that’s actually very good practice. In this case, make sure to mention that this is a copy of website X with the sole purpose of being made for learning purposes. Never blatantly copy and pretend it’s an original idea. That said, nothing stops you from getting inspiration from website X, another from website Y, and Z. Just don’t copy a whole layout and claim it your own.

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Thanks for a quick reply. What’s the best way to find stock images?

This was just a quick search, make sure that the images that you’ll pick are free to use :wink:

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Thank you. That’s a great help.

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also can i fill pages with the Lorem ipsum? just a number i have seen have, and I’m showing off web skills not knowledge on the various topics…

Yes, that’s perfectly fine for demo projects!

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