I review applicant portfolios for Game Art & Design and Digital Animation on a weekly basis. Sometimes I am surprised in a good way, some days in a bad way. Good days are when I am blown away by the talent I see, bad days are not so much the quality of work presented, but the manner in which the work is presented or the pieces chosen.
A portfolio by definition is a showcase of your best work, presented in a professional manner – it is a demonstration of not only your technical abilities, but the object itself should say something about you – I say that last part because it does whether you like it or not. Loose drawings (class assignments with masking tape and grades on the back) in a plastic shopping bag tells me one of the following things:
- you don’t really give a crap
- you are clueless
- you are a slob
Given that most portfolios I see are from high school students I don’t hold this against them and usually figure it is #2, after all that’s my job to make students into professionals. The flip side to that slack is the simple fact that we live in the digital age, students applying are supposed to be digital natives. I assume that the thought process would go like this: “oh I need to present a portfolio, better look that up on Google.”
So here are my three short tips:
- Create new work for your portfolio – use the sills you have learned, show the reviewer that you have learned, for example, how to use perspective – cubes on a horizon are meaningless.
- Package your work like it is valuable – it is. Use a proper portfolio case for large work, a tube for life drawing sheets, a binder with plastic sheets for smaller works.
- Label your portfolio (name contact etc) and descriptions of each piece- this is especially important for digital work!