Finamore Design

Design­ing a Dig­i­tal Port­fo­lio
Author: Cyn­thia L. Baron
Pub­lisher: New Rid­ers Press
ISBN: 0735713944

No mat­ter what kind of artist you are, it seems that get­ting a job today with­out an online port­fo­lio is an impos­si­bil­ity. Design­ing A Dig­i­tal Port­fo­lio is the per­fect book for entry level and stu­dent artists who are design­ing their first port­fo­lios to sub­mit their work when job hunt­ing. It is filled with impor­tant infor­ma­tion, how­ever most of it is very basic and will only be a review for expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als. This last fact aside, it is one of the most com­pre­hen­sive books on its topic that I have ever seen. From the title, I expected to find point­ers on prepar­ing images for the screen, or how to put them on a CD/DVD, etc. Those things are there, but the book begins in a log­i­cal place that I wouldn’t have considered.

This book offers solid points on port­fo­lio con­tent, what­ever for­mat you choose (web, cd/dvd, or print). It cov­ers what should go in, what should not go in, how much should go in, as well as how to deal with sketches and sto­ry­board­ing. It also cov­ers how to develop a the­matic tie to make a dis­parate port­fo­lio more cohe­sive, and excel­lent advice on the kinds of writ­ten copy you want to include, such as design briefs, prob­lem state­ments, and tag lines. It’s also has some great insight on how to mar­ket yourself.

It has some web site design exam­ples for inspi­ra­tion, and even some great image work­flow tips for pre­serv­ing the best image qual­ity with the least needed res­o­lu­tion. This infor­ma­tion is easy to under­stand for the aver­age per­son as well as insight­ful for some­one with a lot of dig­i­tal imag­ing experience.

From a three-page self assess­ment check list about port­fo­lio con­tent, to ques­tions that help you eval­u­ate your pro­fes­sional strengths and weak­nesses, goals and per­son­al­ity, to help­ing you iden­tify who your audi­ence really is and focus on them, this book has just about every angle cov­ered. It talks about the dif­fer­ent dig­i­tal for­mats, how to orga­nize your work, how to get images of over­sized work and non-standard media into your port­fo­lio. It even dis­cusses choos­ing a cam­era and how to pho­to­graph your artwork.

The entire book is also filled with quotes from work­ing pro­fes­sion­als who tell you what agen­cies are look­ing for in a port­fo­lio, how oth­ers have found suc­cess at this, what things you can do to stream­line the process, and more. Job search­ing todays isn’t what it was a few years ago, the one most impor­tant fact to retain from this book is that your first impres­sion is crit­i­cal and good prepa­ra­tion will pay off.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 14th, 2006 at 8:02 am and is filed under Bookshelf. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.