Guide To Organizing Your Design Portfolio Effectively

"A designer's work is compiled in his portfolio. To have an attractive portfolio, here are a few tips on what samples and formats to use.

All of us would want to show our best foot forward especially when we show our work. If you are trying to make your own portfolio, the choice of samples of your work matters a lot. Don't add a sample that you are not proud of. If you created a four-color themed brochure, if possible, show actual samples rather than a laser printed sample of your work. You need to be real.

Offset printing and desktop printing are completely different in terms of color quality. Offset printing prints colors separately while desktop printing blends the RGB colors outright. If you plan to show a sample of your work involving a magazine, get the actual copy of the publication, or better yet, get as many copies of the original one.

Remove the page neatly and place in a plastic cover. If it's not possible to acquire the originals then do the next best thing - make colored photocopies of the originally published pieces. Or you can print them from a laser printer. If your design involves large-scale printing like billboards, don't bring the actual thing.

You can take a picture of the real thing using a DSLR camera. You can do this for works that you have done that have odd shapes are that are too big. You can have digital files of tiny print outs of those that you have worked on. If you have worked on certain web designs and others that were not on print, then take screen shots and print it but the resolution may not be that accurate, just add a CD of the web page. If you have produced logos for companies, having print outs of those logos is a great idea since it can be a special graphics that will imply that those are your work and you have all the authentic files. If you do this, make sure that they have high resolutions."