1. Unready: You don’t know what Game Studios look for in a Game UI Portfolio.

Do they want a sheet full of icons? A maximalist HUD screen with everything turned on? Usability case studies? A gamejam game? If this was a movie, the camera would be spinning as you scream, ‘What do you want from meeeee?!”

And so we come to the most inherent problem: operating completely in the blind and expecting any dim species of brilliance. 

How to fix this: Game Studios, especially in an Ai-driven world, are very suspicious of finished game screens. More to the point, they know it takes a village of additional devs to make those screens a reality. That means your work must, well, show work: rough sketches, concepts, wireframes, modals… evolution. Show them every meaningful zigzag from point A to B.

Studios are hiring you to make finished deliverables, sure, but they also are hiring to see how you approach design and engineering challenges. Ai is remarkably poor at showing its work. So in the future, remember that showing your messy humanized work will be worth its weight in gold. 

2. Unready: You don’t know the Studio interview process for a UI Artist.

I’ll give you the inside scoop immediately: there are 4 phases.

The Frontliner. This is the person who intercepts you first if your resume isn’t auto-shredded. A Frontliner can be anyone: HR, an associate producer, some guy down the street. What matters is that they are there to ask the 3 most important initial questions that will instantly knock you out of the running: are you a liar, are you crazy, and what is your salary range. 

The Art Director. If you make it past the first line, the next meeting is traditionally with the Art Director, or put more abstractly, the person who can reasonably judge a creative skillset. Now I’ll let you in on another secret: Art Directors tend to be culled from traditional art backgrounds – with an almost amnesiac understanding of game interfaces. So you may be talking shop to somebody who barely understands what you do and has final say on it. 

The Art Test. This is the great harrowing and the grand middle finger to your portfolio. Invariably they will want an art test. Likely 7 days long and I can’t stress this enough: they absolutely WILL NOT pay you for your time. This deserves its own article but suffice it to say, if you refuse or demand pay, that’s the end of your run. Hate the player, hate the game, hate everyone who added this portfolio-agnostic step. But it’ll definitely be there. 

The Team Meeting. If you make it past The Gauntlet, you’ll meet with the team. This is largely perfunctory, and you more or less have the job if you’ve made it this far. Unfortunately, there may be individual meetings with key stakeholders and the process goes from charming to grueling and time consuming. But if you’re meeting a bunch of people in one meeting, you’re almost at the finish line. 

3. Unready: You’re not treating your Portfolio as a conversation piece.

So you’ve made it all the way to Phase 2, the interview with the Art Director. Outstanding! And then you just… talk and talk and talk… not so outstanding.

Your Portfolio isn’t a one-use skeleton key to get into an interview (that’s actually what you’re Resume is). Your Portfolio is a powerful visual aid to your creative process and a source of comfort when the stakes are high. But how do you make sure your Portfolio is actually working for you?

How to fix this: As soon as the interview starts, pop your portfolio up and start sharing your screen. There should never be a point where your work isn’t emblazoned on somebody else’s ultrawide.

This helps not only calm the nerves, it also makes you sound way more competent as you point out fine details you both can track and follow. Bonus points if you have a particularly stand-out Project you can talk all day about – because the odds are very high you may only get to talk about that one project during the interview’s deceptively short duration.