Portfolio Tips
By Peter Brown
Fellow, Metropolitan Design Center
DO:
- Show diversity of skill, media, color, B&W, drawing style, etc. For example you may want to include some of the following:
Pages from a report you have laid out- Plans or designs you have drawn
- Travel sketches
- Photos you have taken that are well composed
- GIS maps that are well laid out with good choice of color
- Charts and graphs that are clear and coherent
- Stills from PowerPoints that are well laid out
- Images of creative hobbies or community activism-photos of a garden or clothing or furniture you designed, etc.
- Explain your specific role in the project/graphic-e.g. did you do layout but not the drawings?
- Orient all images in one direction or the other (horizontal/vertical)
- Stick to standard formats and sizes: it's cheaper and easier for you to produce the first time and to reproduce later
- Decide on a format that will be useful and adaptable over time (plan to add, subtract, and edit over time)
- Edit - eliminate those things that you are attached to but others tell you don't help sell the point. These portfolios are likely 12-20 pages, 8.5*11 inches.
- Develop a structure and make it clear
- Chronological, reverse chronological
- Separate professional (work), academic (school projects) and personal, if relevant (competitions, painting, art, etc.)
- Have a front page with your name and potentially a table of contents too
- Think about sequencing
- When you put things in it, think about the story you are telling and how you will discuss/present the work when you are in an interview
- Think order, amount, flow
- Make the story line and structure clear and consistent
- Have a beginning, a middle, and an end
- Use a story board or mock up
- Balance content
- Don't have a 19 page piece and a one page piece
- Put strong images on right, where people will notice them
- Integrate your portfolio with your resume
- Same font, style, type
- Include resume in front
- Project descriptions in same style
- Do invest in a cool binder (but it can also be cheap)
- Have something on the outside to indicate it is your portfolio--a front cover or a spine
- Sleeves:
- Acetate with many slotted holes can
- Clear plastic for 3-ring binder
- Do get criticism and feedback on all of these issues
- Get someone who hires in your field to look at it
- Put your name on the portfolio and dates on projects
- Think USER FRIENDLY
DON'T:
- Don't get too clever
- No weird folding or packaging
- Don't assume some one will look at a CD or flash drive with an exciting film on it
- Don't feel the need to show everything you've ever done (unless you are worried that you don't have very much to show)
- Don't make it too big, unwieldy, multiple orientations
- Don't use a lot of different fonts
