This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

Portfolios have always been artists' most valuable tools for communicating their talents to the outside world, whether to potential employers or galleries or clients. But the days of sketches and slides have given way to arrangements of digital assets that are both simpler and more complex than their traditional analog counterparts.

Instructor and design professional Cynthia Baron covers all the facets that artists need to know, from choosing the best work for a particular audience to using various file formats to organizing, designing, and presenting the portfolio. Beautiful full-color illustrations demonstrate her instructions, and case studies throughout portray examples of attractive and effective portfolio design. This book gives artists at any level a creative edge, ensuring that their portfolios get noticed and help them stand out from the crowd.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 7 Ratings

Superb resource for a wide variety of portfolio formats - 2004-11-13
Reviewer Rating:
If you set can aside the near 100% focus on digital media (though it is excellent for that kind of format) and not hyperventilate in feeling like you need to come up with Flash or DVDs after reading this, it offers solid points on portfolio content, whatever format you choose.

It covers what should go in, what should not go in, how much should go in, how/if to deal with process pieces, storyboarding,
thematic ties to pull a disparate portfolio together, and sage advice on basics like the kinds of written copy you want to include, such as design briefs, problem statements, and tag lines. It's my favorite book for this effort right now. My husband's, too. I have to pry it off his desk.

It's also savvy when it comes to marketing, so I think it will have a long shelf life in my library for the days when I need to market myself on other things besides landing a job, like marketing my firm.

It has some printed web site design examples which offer visual eye inspiration for printed page layout. It even has great image workflow tips, towards preserving the best image quality with the least needed resolution, that are comprehensible to the lay person as well as meaningful to someone with a high degree of digital photographic processing background.

Great beginners guide - 2005-08-11
Reviewer Rating:
This handbook is targeted at beginners in designing portfolios to submit their artwork or photos when job hunting. It is filled with information, however most is very basic and will only be a review for most readers.

comprehensive material. - 2006-02-28
Reviewer Rating:
Most artists can't do everything - usually they are somewhere in the middle of a chain of production responsiblities that don't include the skillsets involved with presenting a portfolio, digital or otherwise. Many points of insider knowledge are invaluable - I was on the cusp of using PowerPoint for my CD portfolio (my wife has strong skills with this) before being warned that this bussiness presentation software's would be viewed with derision by art directors, and that a high resolution version of a website format is the way to go here - this one parcel of knowledge was worth the price of the book alone, but it is far from the only lesson imparted. Highly recommended - it doesn't stray into realms of esoterica for the sake of pagecount.

Comprehensive - 2009-05-10
Reviewer Rating:
I read through this book once, just to get an overall feel. I was totally delighted with the quality and the depth of material. I've read many books on portfolios and many more on website design, but all of them together couldn't do what this one book did. I was finally ready to create my portfolio (months later) and prepared to go through it again making detailed notes when, to my deep consernation, the darn thing went missing.

So I just bought another one, started skimming through it and then reading it carefully, making notes. I am again wowed by the sheer amount of information pertinent to what I am trying to do. From detailing what types of pieces make sense for which type of designer (and even helping you figure out which type you really are), to resumes, to how to present yourself and your material, to desiging the site, it's all in there.

Along the way, she sprinkles comments from some of the greats in the field on what they expect. On top of that, there are so many great examples of sites in the book, that it can serve simply as a top notch idea book when you're done building your portfolio.

I can't say enough about how helpful this book has been. Every few sentences, I get a great idea and have to go work on it, so it will take me a while to get all the way through the book a second time. But I know I'll have something that really represents me and what I do best, and what I want to continue doing.

Good for designers - 2008-12-30
Reviewer Rating:
I found this book to be helpful but to be a bit to much for me. It was a bit technical and has a lot of jargon in it for me. This would be a great book for someone that has a bit more digital design experience than me. It really tells you how to create great portfolios, but unfortunately I wasn't able to do all the technical stuff.
I would recommend this book for someone that's familiar with web design, especially flash. Great tips if you want to create websites professionally.

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