Reflect on the work you have produced so far on this course. Pick out a range of pieces that best express who you are as an illustrator and which show off your image making strengths. These could be finished assignments, exercises or ideas that have developed out of your sketchbooks. Find a suitable way to present this body of work as a portfolio.
Think about how you will describe these pieces of work. What would you say about them if asked?
Initial Thoughts
As mentioned in previous exercises/assignments, I find it very challenging ‘putting myself out there’ to show my work, as I hate being in the spotlight and having attention focused on me. This is probably the main reason for my hesitancy whenever I contemplate creating a portfolio website. However, this exercise has forced me to take a serious look at how I might go about this.
Deciding on Method
One aspect I was completely sure about with regards to how I would present a portfolio – via a website. In the future, if required, I could invest in having printed illustrations in a physical portfolio, which could be used to show people in person, but I do not see an any reason for this at present.
In normal times, I would take the time to build a website myself, but as explained above, I do not currently have the luxury of spare time or prolonged periods of procrastination. I, therefore, made the quick decision to experiment using Adobe Portfolio, which is free and fairly simple to use.
Purpose of Portfolio
Generally speaking, the main purpose of a portfolio website is for a potential client/employer/collaborator/educational institution to be able to easily view work and evaluate whether the skillset on show meets the requirements being sought.
The use of an online portfolio rather than a physical portfolio means it can be viewed via a direct link sent to the individual anywhere in the world (the only restriction would be internet access). It may also be happened upon through a random online search, but the occurrence of this would probably be more likely if the portfolio was linked to an Instagram account, for example.
I also believe that having the thought of presenting your work in a portfolio format might encourage the practitioner (or terrify them, depending on the individual’s state of mind…) to produce a higher standard of work.
I chose to use this exercise as a test of how I might approach a portfolio in the future, in terms of the design and so on.
Design Influences
Having looked at many examples of online portfolios of illustrators and artists, I felt that I had quite a clear idea of those styles that most appealed to me – these have been discussed throughout the course.
Some of the key design elements that I wanted to incorporate included having a minimalistic layout, using a limited colour palette and only using the necessary amount of text. As the website’s main purpose is to display illustrations, I felt that every effort should be made to ensure that any distractions are kept to a minimum. As a personal preference, seeing huge amounts of descriptive text on website is quite off-putting, as I find it difficult to concentrate when reading from a screen.
Selecting Images
I limited myself to work created during this specific unit rather than throughout the entire course. I opted to pick a range of images from the work I was most pleased with, such as the linocuts and narrative illustrations, and dispayed them all as one group rather than categorising them at this stage. The images could be changed and/or added to as and when required.
Creating the Portfolio
After some experimentation in Adobe Portfolio, I selected a theme (Mercedes) based on the example, which showed a grid like layout of the images as thumbnails. I then continued to play around with the layout, colours (black and dark grey for the backgrounds, white and red for the text) and fonts (settling on Amatic for the titles and Skippy Sharp Regular for the paragraphs).
I thought the dark background made the images (and text) pop more on the screen. I also quite liked the limited use of red for the menu, just to indicate the current page being viewed.
I also included a link to my Instagram page, which is a common feature on the portfolio websites I have viewed previously, as this can easily be kept more current.
It took some time to work out how to edit the pages, but I did get the hang of it in the end and managed to end up with a portfolio site that I was happy enough with as my first, genuine attempt at creating one. I felt it realised my initial intentions for the website well enough.
If I ever reach the stage when I would like to present my work professionally via an online website, it would probably include more subpages (e.g. sketches, black and white, digital, traditional, etc), and therefore contain more examples of my work.
Portfolio Website
The portfolio website can be viewed at: https://caroline517443.myportfolio.com/home-1