Portfolio Case Study Generator — A Claude Code Skill for Designers

Generate recruiter-ready portfolio case studies from raw project notes. A Claude Code skill that turns messy UX, product, and design work into structured, compelling case studies in 9 story formats.

Turn raw project notes into polished design case studies that tell the story of your process, decisions, and impact. Built as a Claude Code skill you can drop into your ~/.claude/skills/ folder and invoke on demand. Works for portfolio sites, interview walkthroughs, and case study presentations.

Why this skill?

Most designers know their work is strong but freeze up when it's time to write about it. Case studies end up either too thin (just screenshots) or too long (every Figma iteration documented). This skill gives Claude the structure, tone, and storytelling conventions that top portfolios use — so you can go from messy project notes to a scannable, hire-worthy case study in one pass.

Good for:

Product designers assembling a portfolio
UX designers preparing interview case study walkthroughs
Design leads documenting work for internal showcases
Freelancers writing client-ready project recaps

What's inside

File	Purpose
`SKILL.md`	The skill definition Claude loads — structure, writing tips, best practices
`PROJECT-TEMPLATE.md`	A fill-in-the-blank template for a single case study
`design-portfolio-guide.md`	Broader guidance for assembling a portfolio of case studies
`slide-template.md`	Presentation-deck layout for walking through a case study live
`tone-guide.md`	Voice and tone conventions — first-person, specific, quantified
`references.md`	Reference links and exemplars

The case study structure

Every case study produced by this skill follows a six-part arc:

Overview — role, timeline, hook metric
Challenge — business context, user pain, constraints
Process — research, ideation, key decisions, iteration
Solution — final design walkthrough and rationale
Impact — quantitative and qualitative results
Reflection — learnings and what you'd do differently

Story formats

The default six-part arc above is a strong baseline, but not every project fits the same shape. A bold redesign reads differently from a quiet usability fix; an interview walkthrough sounds different from a blog post. This skill can re-structure the same source material into whichever narrative format best serves your audience:

Format	Best for	Shape
STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result)	Interview prep, recruiter scans	Tight, outcome-led, four crisp beats
Hero's Journey	Long-form portfolio pieces	Status quo → call to adventure → trials → transformation
Problem → Solution → Impact	Product design portfolios	Three-act, business-flavored
Before / After / Bridge	Redesign and migration projects	Pain state → vision state → how you bridged it
Pyramid Principle	Executive readouts, exec portfolios	Lead with the answer, then evidence, then detail
Pixar "Once upon a time…"	Storytelling-forward decks	Once upon a time / every day / one day / because of that / until finally
Three-Act Structure	Conference talks, live walkthroughs	Setup → confrontation → resolution
Jobs-to-be-Done narrative	Strategy-led portfolios	When… I want to… so I can…
Decision Log	Systems and platform work	A chronological chain of key decisions and their tradeoffs

Just tell the skill which one you want:

Use the case-study skill to write my checkout redesign as a Before/After/Bridge story

/case-study — format it as STAR for an interview loop

The skill will preserve your facts, role, and metrics while reshaping the arc, headings, and pacing to match the chosen format.

Installation

Option 1: Drop it into your Claude skills folder

git clone https://github.com/SonwaneyY/portfolio-case-study-generator.git ~/.claude/skills/case-study

On Windows:

git clone https://github.com/SonwaneyY/portfolio-case-study-generator.git "$env:USERPROFILE\.claude\skills\case-study"

Claude Code will auto-discover the skill on next launch.

Option 2: Use it as a standalone template

Clone the repo anywhere and copy PROJECT-TEMPLATE.md into your portfolio project. Fill it in manually or feed it to any LLM with SKILL.md as the system prompt.

Usage

Once installed as a Claude Code skill, just ask:

Use the case-study skill

Or invoke it directly:

/case-study

What happens next

The skill runs a structured intake before drafting anything. It will ask you 7 questions in a single message:

The project in one sentence
Project type (consumer app, B2B, redesign, design system, 0→1, etc.)
Your role and team
Audience (recruiter scan, interview loop, portfolio site, exec readout, conference talk, blog post)
Story format — pick one of the 9 formats above, or say "unsure" and the skill will recommend one based on your project type and audience
Your hook (the most impressive outcome)
Raw material you have (notes, Figma links, metrics, quotes, transcripts)

Only after you answer does it draft. The result follows the format-specific beats and pacing for whichever shape you chose, preserves your facts and metrics (it will not invent numbers), and ends by offering to tighten, lengthen, reformat for a specific destination, or generate a second variant in a different format for comparison.

If you've already given the skill some of this context in your opening message, it skips those questions and only asks the rest.

Writing principles this skill enforces

First person for your contributions — be specific about your role vs. the team
Lead with the most impressive outcome — the hook wins attention
Show process, don't document every step — highlight insight moments and pivots
Quantify impact wherever possible
Edit ruthlessly — shorter is better

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. If you've shipped a portfolio using this skill and have improvements — tone tweaks, new sections, better templates — open a PR.

License

MIT

Claude Code — the CLI this skill plugs into
Anthropic Skills — official skill documentation

Keywords: portfolio case study generator, claude code skill, design case study, ux case study, product design portfolio, portfolio template, case study writing, design storytelling, interview case study, claude ai skill, design portfolio generator

portfolio-case-study-generator