Unsure on where to start to begin building a portfolio

A good start would be to build your own homepage with a portfolio section to display future projects.

I said this in another thread last week, just do it. The best way to learn is to actually build something. Look around on the internet and find other peoples portfolio websites. Google "best portfolio websites" and you'll find several top-10 lists. You can use those as inspiration to make your own. Find your style and run with it.

But, don't quit now. Stick with it and you can only get better. What the worst that could happen...not liking your font color?

My suggestion is to make yourself a simple "business card" site. Who you are, what you do, other info you want others to know.

Something like this template ...

For building your first site I recommend the following process...

• Make a wireframe using an online wireframing tool, something like Cacoo
• Write the semantic HTML, don't worry about the CSS yet
• Build a fixed width site
• Keep it simple to start with, don't try to solve problems you don't have yet
• Add in some small CSS3 if the design calls for it, maybe border-radius or box-shadow
• If you need a form add in some HTML5

• Try to stay away from a lot of Javascript for now

• Once you've got the first version fully working post it here and get some critiques on your design

Then it's time for version 2

• Make it responsive
• Check it out using the responsinator
• Then post it here to get some feedback on the responsive version

Time for version 3

• If you are sick of cutting and pasting your header and footer on every page
• It's time to add in some templating using PHP.
  Very basic PHP is all you need, it makes it easier to not repeat yourself (see also: DRY).
• Post it here to get some feedback on the responsive version

Thank you all for the answers very helpful, i think im just getting myself to bog down with all the thinking so am just guna give it a go will start with james barnetts suggestion.

Hi Matthew,

You can do it! James offers some great advice. Once you start, you will learn a lot and reenforce what you've been learning in the html/css videos.

Another suggestion I have is to consider using a service like jotform.com for any forms or contact forms you might need for your site (if you need forms). You can use their drag and drop form builder and then they give you a short line of code you copy and paste into your html. It's a good way to get a working form rather than having to build your own with php. (Later on, you can build your own forms and make them functional if you want to learn php).

You will also need some sort of hosting depending on what kind of site you are looking for. There are websites like behance that will let you just upload images of your work if you wanted to get stuff online very quickly before you've started building your site. Once you decide you want to build and design your own portfolio, you could start with a free host like byethost or 000webhost and then potentially move onto paid hosting that normally only costs you a few dollars a month. (There is a short course here on hosting in the website basics course)