> I'm thinking of doing re-designs of a few popular websites (2-3 pages mobile & desktop, wireframes) that I think can be improved. And then coding them into li

> I'm thinking of doing re-designs of a few popular websites (2-3 pages mobile & desktop, wireframes) that I think can be improved. And then coding them into life. This isn't as good as an idea as it might sound. "Popular" web sites like Google, NYT, BBC employ teams of very senior & experienced industry people. If you're going to attempt to pick apart stuff like that and give your own subjective interpretation of why your version is better... you better have the technical chops to back up your opinions. It certainly would be interesting to see something like this in an interview as a "fun" exercise, but don't try to pass off your mocked up version as technically superior unless you can genuinely defend that position. My advice would not be to put yourself in that position in the first place, you might bite off more than you can chew. Don't force questions upon yourself that you can't answer. My advice? Build a small site/app that demonstrates you understand how modern front end tools work (bower/NPM, gulp, SASS, uglifyJS). Maybe roll your own little responsive CSS grid. Animate some SVG graphics. Show off your flexbox skills. Use some good typography. Make the source code available on github. Have a live demo running somewhere. Be able to talk through the various layers of the application, i.e. graphics, CSS, JavaScript, HTML. Demonstrate understanding of the technology and that you are capable & hungry to learn more. Good luck.