How should a Web designer portfolio work?

Tracey23 asks:

One of the things I need to work on is a portfolio. I have some questions:

1. Do the sites have to be "live"?
2. If not, can you conjure up fake sites? (As long as you tell your prospective employer they are not real!).
3. Can you use at least one personal site?
4. If you offer to do free sites for local businesses and/or non-profits in order to build a portfolio, who pays the web host? Since it is ongoing, it would be the business you're designing and upkeeping the site for, right?
5. One local business owner told me to take a bad site (we had discussed beforehand which one) and re-do it, and use that in the portfolio. What do you think of that idea?

My Thoughts:
I believe that portfolios are a great way for Web designers and developers to show off their skills. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a Web site must be worth at least that many. Read on the next page how I would answer Tracey's questions.

Here's how I would answer your questions:

1. Do they have to be live?
   I think it's important that the portfolio pieces be on a computer - whether it's a computer on the Internet or on your laptop that you bring with you to the job interview is a little less important (one of the most impressive designers I ever interviewed kept his portfolio on his laptop - we ended up spending most of his interview time going through them rather than my standard questions). You can have printouts (color!) but they don't show the interactivity of the site like an actual Web page does.
2. Can you make fake sites?
   As long as you don't imply that they are live or have had some affect that they haven't (like "this site generated a 25% upswing in conversions!"), then I don't see a big problem in creating fake sites for your portfolio. Just be careful that you don't spend less time on them because they aren't real.
3. Free sites and paying the host.
   Firstly, it's not a good idea to do jobs for free. These generally turn into something much larger and can be a bigger headache than they are worth. If the person or group really has no money to pay you, see if you can barter for it. I've built Web sites for riding lessons, dinner, and even once for a cup of coffee (one page site, and it was an extra-large mocha). But even if you're bartering, get a contract up, so that it doesn't turn ugly. As for the hosting - they pay for it. If they want the site, they should pay for hosting it. If they don't want the site, then you should either only do an offline version of it for your portfolio or find some other site to build.
4. Redesigning a bad site.
   Well, this can be questionable. If the local business owner is suggesting that you redesign one of her sites, then she may be trying to get free Web design out of you. See my section above about doing things for free. And if it's some other site, you could get into issues with the company's legal department if you post a revision of their site without asking them first (and if you ask and they like it, you're back to designing for free). I wouldn't feel too comfortable doing this.

What do you think? How would you answer Tracey?

More Help with Portfolios

• 10 Tips to Promoting Your Web Design Business
• Freelance Web Designers - What Does Your Web Site Say About You?
• Poll: Do you have a portfolio Web site?