There’s no question that every designer and every fine artist needs a digital portfolio—or at least every one that wants to get design jobs or gallery showings. If you haven’t spent a lot of time doing web design, this can be a daunting task.
Designing a Digital Portfolio is written for the artist or designer that works on many standalone pieces (like illustrations, brochures, photographs, or even short films), and has not had the need to consider things like navigation, information architecture, and screen presentation before. The aim of this book is to get you familiar with digitizing and presenting your work digitally, and in turn to be able to use this digital portfolio to further your career.
It all kicks off with a look at the types of portfolios out there, some market research info, and a clever worksheet that helps you assess what exactly you need your portfolio to do for you. After evaluating your needs, you can get to choosing a format (disc, web, email attachment). There’s some great information here, but this is where the book starts to show its age a bit (it was published way back in 2004). In 2007, it’s my opinion that a personal website is a no-brainer—essential to every working artist or designer. Producing CDs, DVDs, or PDFs is important, but secondary. Even so, the information and definitions in this section are essential for non-tech savvy readers to understand, and case studies of various digital portfolios help you better recognize content goals and design needs.
Up next we get into the most valuable section of the book: collecting and preparing, five chapters of absolute essentials. Here you’ll learn how to get your portfolio pieces organized, including how to archive both your traditional pieces and your digital files. Fine artists and print designers will find the chapter on digitizing work indispensable—there are great tips on scanning resolution, as well as how to set up, light, and photograph large scale pieces. And if you’ve ever wondered how to digitize negatives or VHS tapes, your answers are here.
Lots of Photoshop editing techniques are covered as well, making sure your files look just-right on screen, though most graphic designers will probably be familiar with these and have their own techniques for image cleanup. Optimizing is another top topic explored, where you’ll learn essential tips on saving your work as GIFs, JPEGs, PDFs, and even videos, though do keep in mind that optimization formats and needs change rapidly over the years and you may need to look for more current info to back up what you’ve learned here. Wrapping up this section are some important tips on the written information in your portfolio—this never goes out of date and should be studied carefully.
More portfolio samples pepper these chapters (and the remainder of the book), providing tons of inspiration as you work. Though watch out if you visit the sample sites, as nearly all of them have been redesigned since this printing. A good extension on this book would be to compare the samples in the books to the current versions—what changed for the better and why do you think the changes were made?
Continued attention is paid to production of the digital portfolio interface where you’ll make important decisions about navigation and page structure. In regard to production, this book is not meant to teach you how to produce a complete, functioning website, Flash interface, or CD-ROM (that would be a hugely long book!)—stick to the planning here, and you can translate that to HTML, Flash, or other output with some help from a pro or another handy book.
Things wrap up with a good look at copyright and ownership—essential to know if you’re getting your work in the public eye—and methods of presenting your portfolio to potential clients.
All in all, while some aspects of this book come from the days of Zip disks and 2-megapixel cameras, this is a top-quality resource for designers who need to transition from the traditional world to the digital world. Crucial information on planning, digitizing, writing, and marketing your portfolio will give you a great start as you prepare to impress new clients.
