This week's topic for Friday February 2nd suggested by Jo: PORTFOLIO!
~ Jo
This is a timely topic as at the moment most of my friends at college are getting all stressed out about getting their portfolios together. I probably should be getting stressed out, but as I don't have any interviews to go to i'm not worrying too much at the moment.
For interviews we are expected to put together an A1 portfolio with about 20 sleeves, in addition to that a whole bunch of sketchbooks and supporting work are needed, not to mention picking out the right outfit for the interview! (Yesterday my tutor said that red or pink hair is pretty much a 'must have' when applying to art school, and I had to remember that when I went off to do my degree I did in fact have pink and red hair...)
My portfolio looks a lot like this:
And is a beast to lug around to interviews etc- I think it's designed specially so that it's uncomfortable to carry under the arm, or using the shoulder strap- either way it's not long before you start cursing and wishing you did all your work in minature, or digitally and could just take along a disc.
Thinking about it, it's probably high time I updated the work that's in my portfolio- the last time I did that was nearly two years ago, and as my work has progressed a lot in those two years, my portfolio should be representing that. It's tempting to keep old favourites in your portfolio- pieces of work that you were pleased with at the time, but if they are 10 years old and you can't show any evidence of any more recent work then it's not really going to matter how good they were originally.
Here are some links to sites that can explain far better than me what makes a good portfolio:
Art-Support.com- what makes a good portfolio
A-N magazine has loads of resources, but you do need to subscrube to get the most benefit
ArtQuest has a whole bunch of resources and guides to promoting yourself
and it would be well worth you keeping your eyes on Meg Hunt's new Trade Secrets blog where she is posting some of her trade secrets for success in the field of illustration, which are easy to adapt to whatever art form you favour.
6 comments:
My father is a commercial artist and I remember him coming in after interviews dressed in a suit and tie and wingtip shoes and with his enormous black portfolio. Which was like Aladdin's cave to me. We kids were not allowed to leaf through it casually but as a big treat Dad would open it up and turn the huge shiny pages for us. Now all three of us kids are artists!
Thank you for sharing :)
It's really been fun for me to browse everyone's blogs about this topic. I have seen quite a few different takes on the topic today! I am enjoying it tremendously!
Have a great weekend!
~Gabi
Great post, and thanks for the links!
Sorry to hear that the portfolio has to be such a heavy load to carry around :-)
My graphic design portfolio looks exactly like that - bulky and hard to cart around. Luckily I don't have to do that much anymore.
Hehehe.. I think my hair was actually blue when I lugged around my unwieldy portfolio case.
Great entry and wonderful resources!
:)Abbie
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