How to Create a Stellar Digital Portfolio

Creating a digital portfolio is one of the most important parts of being an artist. A portfolio showcases your strongest works of art while informing viewers about the process and ideation behind each piece. It’s also a great opportunity for creative self-reflection and realization. When assembling and presenting your portfolio, you will hone and utilize different skills that will benefit you as an artist. Developing a portfolio can be nerve-wracking and overwhelming, especially if it’s your first time creating one. Check out the guidelines below and learn about the strategies that will help you develop a stellar digital portfolio that you’re confident about and excited to share!

Step 1. Choose the pieces to include in your portfolio. Choosing the art to include in your portfolio can be a challenging and lengthy process. It’s arguably one of the hardest steps in making a digital portfolio. When selecting work to include, evaluate it for several elements and get some second opinions from faculty members, classmates, seniors in your degree program, or from the SLC! Read the points below: do they apply to the pieces you’ve selected? If so, they are probably great to include in your portfolio!

• The piece reflects work that you’d like to continue creating, either due to the style, medium, or methods you used.

• The piece informs your other work or is deeply connected in meaning to other pieces you’ve selected.

• The piece is aesthetically pleasing. While this one might be a no-brainer, it’s important to consider when selecting each piece. This is why it’s also a good idea to get some second opinions, as everyone has a different idea of what is aesthetically pleasing. However, analyzing how well the formal elements and principles are functioning in your art will help you decide if it’s a visually strong piece. Check out the SLC tip sheet on the elements and principles of art for more info!

• The piece adds variety and depth to your portfolio while still showcasing strong development or mastery of a technical skill.

One final note: Always have your portfolio in consideration as you’re assigned creative projects. Think about the type of work you want to have in your portfolio and create it. While you should always follow assignment instructions, don’t make projects just to appease your instructors or classmates; make work that is meaningful to you and that you’re proud to put in your portfolio!

Step 2. Document your work. In a perfect world, you would be documenting your work as you create it so that when it’s time to put your portfolio together, you’re not scrambling to remember past projects and take photographs of all your work. Documenting ahead of time will also help you review the process of the project. However, sometimes it’s just not feasible to document each piece as you complete it. Maybe you don’t always have the right equipment or space, or maybe you just don’t have time. Try your best to document as you create, and catch up on documentation in between projects. No matter when you document your work, follow these rules of thumb to have professional images of your art:

• Document your work in a clear, plain environment. It helps to document pieces with a solid white, grey, or black background.

• Consider your light source and temperature when shooting. Ideally, you need natural lighting (lighting from the sun) as it is most abundant and most neutral. One great tip is to take photographs of your work outside on a cloudy day or in the shade. If you must shoot indoors without professional lighting equipment, try shooting near a window. Avoid using a combination of different types of lighting such as light from a window and indoor bulbs. Instead, choose one over the other so it will be easier to adjust the image in the steps ahead. Avoid lighting that is too harsh as it will wash out your art or cause glares and reflections.

• Always use your white balance to compensate for lighting that is too warm or too cool. White balancing an image is the process of removing color casts from the image so that objects or areas that are white in person are rendered white in the photo. This will ensure that all the colors in the photograph will be as accurately matched as possible with the colors on the original object. Even though you can edit the white balance later, it will be easier for you if you get the lighting as close to perfect the first time around using the white balance settings on your camera.

• For flat pieces like paintings or illustrations, take the photo with a level view.  If photographing outdoors, try laying the piece flat on the ground and photographing directly above it. Or, if you’re photographing inside, mount the piece at eye level on a blank, white wall.

• For 3D pieces like sculptures, garments, or events, take photos from several different angles to capture as much of the piece as possible.

• Take a few close-ups as well as some wide-angle shots to provide both context and detail.

• Take several pictures. You can never take too many. This will add an extra layer of protection in case a few of them turn out to be fuzzy, dark, or washed out.

• Edit your photos using a photo editor like Photoshop or Lightroom. It’s especially important to color balance them so the colors are as close as possible to the original piece. Remember to crop out any unnecessary background imagery.

• When editing, make simple adjustments to your work, such as levels/curves, color balance, cropping, rotating, etc. Your job here is not to make a new piece by adding artistic filters or collaging (unless that’s the type of work you make!).

Step 3. Save your files. Now is the time to begin practicing impeccable file management and organization. This means having folders for your art organized in a way that makes sense to you and is easy to navigate even after you’ve built your portfolio. Also, don’t forget to back up your files!  Storing your images on an external hard drive or on a cloud-based service like Google Drive will ensure that you don’t lose your work. Here are some examples of how to organize your portfolio:

• By year
• By medium
• By class/project type (eg: classwork, client work, personal work)

After photographing and editing your files, be sure to save several different versions:

• The original photograph
• The Photoshop/Lightroom version after it’s edited
• One Jpg (for putting on social media or your website)
• One PDF or PNG (for putting into your portfolio or for printing)

Step 4. Write about your work. Alongside professional documentation of your strongest work, you’ll need to include some written statements. Writing about your work will provide viewers with insight into your process, medium, and ideation. It’s also a great opportunity for self-reflection! You’ll want to include these three types of writing in your portfolio:

1. Introductory statement. The introductory statement or artist statement goes at the beginning of your presentation before the work. This is a chance to introduce yourself as an artist and describe what your work does and what you hope to accomplish with it. It can be briefer than a typical full page artist statement since you can elaborate on it more during a presentation about your work or on your website. However, the portfolio statement should be more formal than what you might put on a website. You should not discuss unrelated personal hobbies or interests in a portfolio artist statement, for example. For more information, check out the SLC tip sheet on Artist Statements or schedule an appointment for help on developing your artist statement!
2. Details about each piece. The second type of writing will be the details about each piece included in your portfolio. These details will be brief and succinct. They will include the title of the work, the date it was created, the medium(s) used, and the dimensions. The format will look something like this:
   
   Wheat Field with Cypresses
   1889 
   Oil on canvas 
   28 3/4 x 36 3/4 in
    
3. Statements about your work. The third type of writing will be a brief statement about the work. This is where you will give viewers more insight into the process, inspiration, or meaning behind the piece, as well as how it might connect to your other work in ideation or creation. When including a statement about your work, be sure that the description isn’t too lengthy. The description should be simple, short, and informative, not elaborate, wordy, or poetic (unless poetry is directly tied to your process). In general, avoid writing a paragraph of text that takes up more space on the page than your art.

Don’t forget that you can write about your work at any stage of the process. Writing about your art during and after it is completed is a great way to reflect on your creative process and see how your ideas are connected while the work is still fresh in your mind.

Finally, have your writing revised. You can show your statements to an instructor or schedule an appointment with an SLC writing coordinator to have your work proofread and revised!

Step 5. Assemble your digital portfolio. Now that you have a collection of work that’s been selected and professionally documented, it’s time to decide how you’ll put together a professional presentation of your portfolio. There are many software options to choose from, but these are our top recommendations:

Adobe InDesign

Pros: 

• InDesign affords you complete control over the design of your portfolio.
• Accessible to you as a RMCAD student.
• InDesign has become the standard software for creating portfolios in some creative industries. Using it will help you develop a skill to include in your resume.

Cons: 

• InDesign is complex, and there is a bit of a learning curve for those who have never used it.

Google Slides

Pros:

• The user interface is easy to use and slides are customizable.
• The presentation will auto-save to the cloud so you can update it on any computer.

Cons:

• Template designs are limited and some are not ideal for a professional portfolio.

PowerPoint

Pros:

• For many, PowerPoint is familiar and easy to use.

Cons:

• Many of the templates and design options in PowerPoint are either limited or outdated.

Once you’ve decided which method to use, begin designing a clean, professional design that supports and reflects your work. Don’t forget that you can always schedule an appointment with the SLC if you need help navigating your chosen portfolio-building tool. Below, learn some general rules of thumb to follow when designing your digital portfolio:

• Use a simple, uncluttered background. White or black are common and effective because they are most similar to viewing work in a gallery setting. It’s important that the background doesn’t distract or detract from your work, which is the main focus! If you must have a background, it’s a good idea to reduce the opacity so images are the main focus, and text can be easily read. Or, you can incorporate large geometric shapes as background elements that provide variety and color to a more decorative styled portfolio. You can also use lines to break up areas of information.
• If you’re using a simple background but still want to add some color, larger text such as titles are a good place to include it. Avoid choosing colors that are difficult to read or look at, such as yellow on white or red on green. Choosing a limited color palette for your text is also ideal, and the colors should remain consistent page to page.
• Create a layout and stick with it. If you have some pieces that don’t fit into the layout you’ve established, you can develop an alternate layout, but generally, you should only have a maximum of three different layout options within your portfolio (excluding the title page or any other pages that don’t include artwork).
• If you’re unsure of where to begin with the design of your portfolio, try searching for “portfolio layout examples” on Google or Pinterest and take note of anything that inspires you.
• Establish some hierarchy with the text on your slides. For example, titles should be the largest, and paragraph text should be the smallest. Just be sure to avoid text that is too large or too small. Think about how your viewers will view this portfolio. Will they see it projected on a large screen or will they see it on their personal computers? In general, paragraph text can be between 14pt and 20pt in size, while titles can be nearly 50 points larger for a presentation that’s 14” x 11.” However, it really depends on the typeface you’re using and the size of your presentation. Try to view your presentation in its final form to decide if the text needs to be larger or smaller.
• Finally, get some feedback on the design of your portfolio! It’s best to get feedback from a variety of sources to get opinions from all angles. You can post your portfolio to the RMCAD app, ask for suggestions from a faculty member, classmate, or schedule an appointment with the SLC!