As a design student my portfolio mostly contains conceptual projects, but I have been freelancing for one year now, and I was lucky to get good clients and deploy websites successfully. Design is more of an obsession to me than a job.

Typically I start my projects with research on the product or field to get an idea of what am I going to deal with, after that comes the moodboard, competitiors site/app analysis, brainstrorm to generate cool, of the grid ideas then the fun part, designing and optimising the UX, prototyping and then development (if included)

I like projects that allow me to play with my creativity and are not limited to conventional design, however I understand that conventional designs are also important and even inevitable in some cases.
I do not take stand-alone development projects. I design and develop together or design only.