Putting your best portfolio forward

What is a portfolio and what should be in there?

In simple terms: a portfolio is a collection of work that showcases you as a creative to the viewer.

Your portfolio should have a mixture of personal work and commercial work (if you have any).

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The work you show is the work you’ll get.

This sounds obvious, but if you put work into your portfolio you hate do not be surprised if you are commissioned to create work along the same style.

Your portfolio is a reflection of you and what you can do, it should showcase the best and the most important examples of your work, a commissioner cannot guess what you can do, so will always base their decision on your current portfolio.

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Personal projects will be your best friend.

The amount of commissions our artists have received due to a personal project in their portfolio is higher than you think. Personal projects allow an artist to show commissioners what they could do, and bring more variety to a portfolio.

Personal projects also help push an artist’s practice further, tasking them to create work that might not be top of their list.

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Clarity over confusion.

Take time with your portfolio, focus on showing the pieces that make you happy and showcase you as an artist.

You do not need 100 pieces to have a portfolio, we would rather see a portfolio with 6 epic pieces that show a cohesive style and strong artistic voice.

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Find your creative voice.

It’s a task you’ll spend your whole creative career doing, but it’s the most important part of being a creative; finding your creative voice.

What do we mean by this? Your artwork should be yours, it should tell us who you are, how you work, and what to expect from you as an artist. A strong creative voice shouts louder in one piece of work then a portfolio full of confusion and copied styles.

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Rule of 6

When you’re stressing about what to put in your portfolio, or how to pick, here is a great way to focus in:

Pick 2 pieces you love
Pick 1 piece you hate - Ask yourself why you hate this, is it this piece in particular? If you were commissioned to create something similar how would this make you feel? If after these questions you still hate it, remove from your portfolio and try not to do work like that again. Create what you love doing! 
Pick 1 personal project that shows work you want to do in the future.
Pick 1 piece that you’re proud of.
Pick 1 piece other people love that you’re not sure of.

When you’re forced to take a deeper look at your work and decide what you like and what you don’t like you’re faced with the reality of how you want your portfolio to look.

By selecting the above you’ve already edited your work into a portfolio, and you have started looking at your work in a new way. Yay!

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Show it with pride, and by that, we mean a website.

Social media is not a portfolio, you need an official way to share your work and the best way to do this is with a website.

It doesn't need to be flashy, a simple portfolio page, with your name and your contact details visible is perfect! Make it easy to be found, contacted, and hopefully hired!

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- Words by Skye as part of the Roar professional musings series.

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