Portfolio: the dreaded word of every art student, current or aspiring. It’s intimidating to put together a compilation of your finest work, especially when you might not know what is considered “good” or “bad” in the art world. If you struggle with website building or just want to have a more professional-looking website, here are a few tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years as a VCUArts student!
- Pick A Cohesive Theme
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Color scheme and fonts are the main things you need to worry about when you’re starting out your portfolio site. Whether you’re starting out on a preset from a website or from scratch, fonts as an artist start to form an identity for your website while colors can establish a narrative and mood. This doesn’t necessarily have to be complicated or overwhelming, just start with something you like. You can always change it later — that’s the beauty of working on a live webpage!
- Be Consistent
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When someone is looking through your body of work, they tend to notice minute differences in your text or website between pages. It’s important to make sure that each webpage has the same consistent setup. For example, when displaying your work, you may choose to put the title first, then the materials used, then the date. If on one page the order is changed, it could ultimately confuse the viewer since most people will be skimming through your website. Consistency is also easily established by making a sidebar or navigation bar that appears on every page.
- Make It Accessible
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Now that you have established a consistent theme, you can now pay attention to the following questions: is my website easily accessible to the general public? In other words, can people read the words on my website? Does the color of the font clash with the background? Will people understand what I am trying to achieve?
- Include Your Favorite And Best Work
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This is the hard part. It’s extremely difficult to tell what should be displayed. You might have less work than you would like, or maybe you have too much and are overwhelmed with narrowing it down. I would recommend a portfolio to contain 10-15 pieces, although you may choose to put more or less; do what is best for you and your own needs.
I would say to pick the work that you feel excited about. If someone asked you questions about it, would you have the answers? Would you want to answer them? You can consider if the work shows your technical skills, creativity or showcases a particular topic you feel is important to you.
Getting another person to look over your work with a fresh pair of eyes is also important in order to better understand how someone who just stumbled across your website or artwork would react to it.
- Include Information About Yourself
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Give potential clients and employers a way to contact and get to know you! This can be achieved through an about you page or putting this information on your sidebar. Include your credentials, skills, what drives you and any other information that you feel would be relevant. Don’t forget to include your resume as well!
