As promised, today I’m going to begin a series on putting together a portfolio.
Now right out of the gate I’m going to get some nay-sayers who are going to argue that, “portfolios are a thing of the past–it’s all on the internet now! And who needs to show samples anyway? I’m just going to take my work to the people and be a success!”
Which brings me to my first point.
A successful portfolio involves two major facets:
• Professional Samples
• Professional Attitude
Now I’m not saying this because I’ve always had both. Far from it. I’ve had lousy samples and lousy attitude enough times that I’ve been passed over for many, many jobs–and been oblivious to the reasons for being passed over during those times. But in retrospect I’ve come to realize my shortcomings in most of those cases.
First piece of advice for those attempting to present their work to the public–whether that “public” be random people on the internet, art directors (yes, they still exist), editors (ditto), art buyers, etc.–do not speak in a condescending manner to the person you are attempting to sell your talents or abilities to. (Don’t cop an attitude).
When I use the term “portfolio” I’m using it in a generic sense to describe any systematic presentation of an artist’s work intended to demonstrate his or her talents and abilities to potential clients.
That being said, I believe in the value of an online portfolio as well as a physical portfolio (actually any number of physical portfolios) preferably all coordinated with one another. I’ll get to the why of this later on.
I’m going to keep this short today–except to say that I’m going to be working ultimately toward a comic book (graphic novel, sequential art) portfolio presentation within this series of blogs. Beginning generally and working toward more specifics, because that’s how I started, narrowing my focus down gradually over the past 30+ years the way one might sharpen a pencil point (which is a nice analogy to end with for the day).
The Light of Day 