Help with Portfolios

[Cthetiger]

How many of you have digital portfolios? Do you have them online or do you send dvds, cds to perspective clients/employers? Last but not least what program do you use to put all the works together if you do dvds or cds... what site if online? Ok I think that's it. I ask because I'm reworking a portfolio for a friend. He is a traditional painter (watercolor, oil, acrylics), sculptor, costume designer and model builder. I plan to seperate the portfoliio into different sections to showcase each area of talent. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.:teeth:

[Storyboard Dave]

Regarding portfolios and the like, I always tell my students to do the research on who it is you're sending your stuff to. Find out their criteria for portfolio acceptances. Every agency, studio, or creative shop is a little different so be aware of that and try not to make it a pain in the butt for the person that has to open up your portfolio. More than likely if you're sending in your portfolio, there are probably dozens, if not hundreds more innundating this poor person that has to look at portfolios, so keep it simple & brief. Be surgical with your pieces as well- make sure that they are pertinent to what it is you're after with the client/ prospective employer. Think about the layout and pace of your book as well; don't dazzle them and then lose them with weaker pieces in the end either- finish strong and leave a solid impression. Show ONLY your strongest stuff and keep your message strong and brief- any more than 20 pieces and they'll think you're over compensating for a weakness. If a client wants to see more, they'll ask at that point.

For simplicity's sake I always recommend sending along an actual physical book- they're relatively cheap to make and let's be honest, you can skip through a book a heckuva lot easier than loading up a disc and scrolling through. They don't have to be monstrosities either; keep them small and intimate. You want to catch the eye of the person looking at your book. These are busy people working & plying their craft making money, and generally their job to look at new talent or portfolios is a tedious one. Looking at books is a quick & simple thumb through. A stand alone disc takes time to load in (imagine if you're the creative director having to load, hit play and have look at dozens of discs- VERY tedious). Even if they don't like your initial book, they still have to physically pitch it or send it back and that just means more time you've spent with them. So my strong recommendation is if you decide to send a CD/ DVD, include copies of your art for them to lazily look at.

Websites of your work is fine but again, why make it difficult for someone to look at your stuff? And what happens if your server crashes and they can't access it. The keeping it simple theory applies once more. Include a website address but keep that as a reserve for them to inquire more about you if they're THAT interested in you.

The industry standard for putting together portfolios seems to be PDFs. I don't know of anyone that doesn't have the Adobe Acrobat Reader and just on the odd chance that they don't, it's a free download from the Adobe site. If you don't know how to use or make PDFs, learn it now. It's relatively easy to master and Adobe Acrobat Pro isn't that tricky of a program to get the basics down.

Also if you want the portfolio & disc back, be sure to include a self addressed postage paid envelope and request it back in writing. Do NOT expect them to pay for postage!

Again, keep it as simple as possible for them as possible.

Hopefully this helps. Good luck.

[Cthetiger]

Thank you for your advice. It was helpful. I do know how to make PDFs. I was just wondering what the industry standard was. Thanks for the taking time to answer. I appreciate it. :)

[Storyboard Dave]

Thank you for your advice. It was helpful. I do know how to make PDFs. I was just wondering what the industry standard was. Thanks for the taking time to answer. I appreciate it. :)


Every ad agency, studio or creative person that I know uses PDFs to view files. I do know of some people that will still use Powerpoint, Keynote and some other presentation programs but from my travels and dealings, Adobe Acrobat is still the easiest way to view images.

One other great thing is that Adobe Acrobat Pro also gives you the opportunity to mark up an image that's been sent to you and send it back with those mark-ups, revisions and/ or corrections. It's also got a myriad of other decent features that help in day-to-day image making too.