How to Build a Portfolio
A basic guide to create an artist's website
Hi friends; here is another video from the archives; how to build a portfolio website! Video above, and condensed transcript below. Enjoy!
WHY DO I NEED A WEBSITE?
If you’re an artist and you want to be commissioned by clients or hired by studios, you need a portfolio a collection of work that gives your potential client an idea of what you can do.
Listen, you are absolutely brimming with talent but unfortunately, we live in a digital world now and unless you have a website, no one will know how fantastically talented you are (unless you are showing it off!) Since all this stuff is being done online now, and you’re not physically present your portfolio is going to do the talking for you, it’s important that your folio is a strong reflection of yourself and your work.
Think of a portfolio as a resume, or a job interview.
Having a strong social media presence is important when you are a commercial artist, but while having an X, Instagram or Tiktok account is great, it’s not a replacement for a portfolio. Physical portfolios are a bit outdated; the only time I’ve ever used one would be at conventions like CTN and Bologna Children’s Book Fair for portfolio reviews. More recently I’ve just started carrying my iPad to show off my website or a slideshow of images.
(This also saves paper!)
In the end, having a website is just more professional, and will let art directors and clients know that you are serious about your work since you have invested the time and money to build a website.
DESIGNING A WEBSITE
Website builders are full of amazing and simple-to-use templates. One thing that’s helpful for me is to look at other artist portfolios for inspiration and see what works for them. Keep in mind your own work, since some templates are better suited for some styles more than others.
There are lots of creative ways to format your portfolio, like having a scrolling theme, a grid, a splash page, horizontal scrolling, and more.
However, there are some key things to keep in mind:
Above all else, you want your portfolio to be as easy as possible for an art director or client to navigate. Art directors are very busy people, and If your website isn’t working properly, or information is hard to find, they’ll give up and leave. You want to make sure your website is as user-friendly as possible.
DON’T upload large files to your portfolio; it’ll slow down your site and the images will take forever to load. In any case, smaller file sizes at 72dpi are better for web posting because if you post your work at the highest resolution it makes it easy for people to steal your work (hello AI scrapers!) and reprint or sell it.
Make sure your images are all high quality if you are posting traditional work. It needs to be scanned or photographed properly, well-lit, and clear.
DO make sure your website works on mobile as well as desktop. People are looking at sites on their phones all the time, and it would suck if your site looks all messed up on mobile.
DON’T use weird colors for your site or too many fonts. Things like having a red font on a black background might sound cool, but it would be really hard to read, same with having too small a font, or light grey on white.
DO make sure all your links work and your navigation is easy to access and understand.
And make it as easy as possible for someone to contact you! I see this so many times when I want to refer another artist for a job, and I’m on their website and I like their work, but I can’t find a way to email them! Have a contact page, or make your email address absolutely clear.
Make sure your website isn’t too cluttered. If you have a lot of images, sorting them into subcategories will make things easier to find for your client.
WHAT DO I PUT IN MY PORTFOLIO?
It might be tempting to fill your folio up with everything you’ve ever worked on, but less is more. You will always be judged by your worst piece so remove anything that you feel doesn’t reflect your highest quality of work. I would say that up to 10 pieces per page is a good number, and don’t put in pieces that are not in a style you like to draw in.
When I was starting out, I included this piece in my portfolio that I did during college.
However, it was in a style I didn’t really work in anymore, or even enjoyed doing but I was still really proud of it. But the thing is, I’d keep getting clients wanting me for a project and pointing to that piece for the style they were looking for.
One of the things I get asked most is if it’s ok to have multiple styles in your portfolio. Yes, if you do it properly.
Art directors won’t get confused if you have different styles; they understand artists can have range but they wanna make sure you have different styles intentionally. If you have a bunch of styles all over the place, it can make it seem like you can’t be consistent with your work. If you pick 2 or 3 styles and separate them into subcategories, it will feel more cohesive rather than having it all mixed up on one page.
For example, in my portfolio, I've categorized in terms of industry because my style for each of them varies a little. However, if your styles vary drastically (like you have work in graphic design and work in photography and animation) then it’s best to just have two separate websites since you’re dealing with two completely different industries.
You also need to make sure your portfolio is relevant to the work you want to be hired for because it is a representation of the work you can do. If your portfolio is full of adult fantasy art and you want to do cute picture book work, you are likely not going to get hired for it. The client doesn’t know you have the capability for it and isn’t going to take the risk to hire you if you don’t have picturebook samples to back you up.
Some artists when they’re starting out don’t know what niche they want to work in yet. Either they can’t decide because they want to do everything, or they have the mentality of “I’ll do anything, I just want a job” and so their portfolio is filled with a whole mish-mash of styles.
This backfires on you because it will feel like you are inconsistent and don’t know what you want to do. Instead, by choosing one industry you’re drawn to, for example, children's books, you can better cater your portfolio to those types of clients.
As Ron Swanson says, never half-ass two things, who ass one thing.
BUT WHAT IF I’M JUST STARTING OUT?
Right now you might not have the experience and enough work to put in your portfolio yet. Instead of putting in your student work and still life that doesn’t cater to any industry, you should instead work on some personal projects.
As I said, you get hired for the kind of work you showcase, but your portfolio is also a representation of the work you want to do. If you’ve never worked on a picture book but want to one day, you should be creating examples so that clients know you can do it.
You could create several spreads for a fairy tale.
Or redesign the cover of your favourite book.
It could be anything you’re passionate about; like rebranding a dream client or redesigning the characters of a TV series.
Having two or three of these little projects in your portfolio is a good start until you gain experience with clients.
And as a side note, don’t feel like you have to take on low-paying or, god forbid, FREE FOR EXPOSURE work just for the sake of having experience or portfolio pieces. You can better use that time to instead focus on personal projects that you are actually passionate about.
Another thing I’ve started doing recently is including visualizations of what my work looks like in real life. So for example, along with including illustrations from a picture book, I would also include photos of the book itself. If your illustration wasn’t printed out, or if this was a personal project, you can still photoshop it to look like it was. If you’re not good at this stuff, there are mockups available online that can make your work look like it’s been on magazines, t-shirts, posters, branding, and more. Creativemarket.com has a ton of mockups that you can look through. I like doing these visualizations because it gives the client or art director a clear vision of what your work would look like in the real world. It’s not required, but it’s a nice touch
UPDATING YOUR WORK
Now you’ve got a beautiful portfolio site up and running, unfortunately, your work isn’t done yet, in fact, it never will be!!
The great thing about being an artist is that you are always learning and growing and improving your work, and hopefully, you’re also getting lots of work. You want to make sure your portfolio reflects that and regular updates are important so that clients know what you are up to.
This means putting in new work whenever you finish up a project; obviously, this doesn’t mean every piece, just the ones you are most proud of.
And because we don’t want to overcrowd your portfolio, this also means retiring any older pieces to make room for the new ones. You’re always going to be judged by your weakest piece and so it’s important to remove your older pieces if you’ve outgrown them. While it’s a bit sad to let those old pieces go, it’s also a reminder of how much you’ve grown which is awesome!
So glad to read this- my portfolio is always evolving and changing and it hurts sometimes to remove bits, but so necessary.
Today I wanted to build my artist portfolio and this happened to cross my path. Thank you so much for the advice! It's more helpful than you know!