The making of a Portfolio

Graphic specifications

I am going to example throughout this blog about how to make a portfolio and what type of things you can include to make your portfolio look professional to whomever is going to be looking through your portfolio.

Page Templates

When looking at page templates you should always plan your work beforehand. So this means that creating different layouts of how you want your portfolio to look and how you want to layout it out all through the portfolio to make it stand out from everyone else. You could sketch different things out so then you can see the different ways you are able to lay everything out which as if you were doing a photography portfolio you can sketch out to see how many photographs you can have on the page. You can show your skills and capability of portfolio work because you’re making different sketches and creations of how you want your portfolio to look over all. You can always create a quick portfolio via your computer and get a rough idea of how the page templates might look if you were to use a certain design overall. The image below is an example of a page template – everything is set out professionally and even though this is a web based template it could defiantly work for a print based portfolio. All the photos are lined up and most likely the person who designed this would have created more page templates to create such a professional look for this design.

http://cdn.tripwiremagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/glisseo-photography-website-templates.jpg - Images used from tripwiremagazine.com

File Formats

Like my older blogs I have spoken about different file formats such as JPEG’s and GIF’s (ECT). You should always make sure that you use the correct file format so if you’re using a photograph in your portfolio you should use JPEG’s because then they will print out a lot better but you must make sure you are using ‘maximum quality’ when it gets to the printing options. Don’t use GIF’s as they are more for the internet so stick to JPEG’s! Make sure that your images aren’t pixelated and make sure that you think about the different media types which could be photos/stills/posters (ECT), so that means watching the resolution too because you won’ want your photos to be blurry and distorted when you put them into your actual portfolio.

The way of print

If you’re using Adobe Photoshop to make your portfolio then use MUST use CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). CYMK is a lot better for printing and make sure your printing at 300dpi as well. For your portfolio your better using A3 so when it comes to printing make sure everything is set up as A3 paper. 

Just Save it!

First of all SAVE, SAVE, SAVE!!!

(Ctrl+s) Don’t stop saving your work because if you don’t save then you could possibly lose everything if something happened to your computer which it can. This has happened to me many times so just save your work - it can be every minute or every 5 minutes just saving constantly. Make sure when you’re saving any edited photographs or anything else similar then make sure you save things in the correct file formats. So for a photo save it as a JPEG as its better for printing.

Audience Needs

You’re creating a portfolio for a certain audience. This could be a possible employer or a university. Well the key is to keep it professional as this will set an example. You must make sure that if you write anything on your portfolio that it is easy to read and that you use correct language which mean don’t use any ‘slang’ so things like ‘dunt’ or ‘anyfink’. Spell check everything and if you are planning on write anything then write it all out on Microsoft Word or some type of program which you are able to spell check your work. Get someone to read through it for you as well so this could be a family member, friend or even a tutor if you’re still at college or some kind of education. Keep it formal too!

Visual style

Visual style again is kind of similar to your page template but it’s what the colours, fonts and backgrounds all look like. Think about colour theory so that means see what colours represent you (look online for colour theory). Also think about shape theory so the different shapes you want to use in your portfolio which could be the navigation. Navigation bars are a way of showing the person looking at your portfolio when to turn and where to turn so far example you could put a certain shape in the bottom right of your portfolio page to show that’s where they need to turn. This can be repeated on every page. You can use shapes such as circles, lines and arrows to show navigation too. You should also think about typeface so serif fronts such as ‘Times New Roman’ and also sans serif fonts such as ‘Comic Sans MS’. Using different typography (so fonts) will show what type of person you are to your audience (the people viewing your portfolio). Also think about alignment so like the image I have used above in the ‘page template’ section it is all aligned and all the photographs are straight and set in a certain way. This will make your portfolio look professional/neat and someone will be able to look through your portfolio and see the type of person you are from your personal portfolio.