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.

Generally, we would want to show our best works that would showcase our skills and expertise. If there is a one work that you aren't comfortable with, even if your client loved it, it's probably advisable to leave it out of your design portfolio. Whenever possible, use the actual samples. That is, if you created a four-color themed brochure, show them a sample of the brochure that was printed from the press rather than a laser-printed sample of the work. Be authentic.

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.

Take the page and put it in a plastic cover. This is the next best thing if you can't obtain the original one. Have this photocopied in colored or use a laser printer. If your design involves large scale printing, then don't bring the actual thing. You can just imagine yourself bringing a billboard for example as part of your portfolio. You will look stupid.

Get some high resolution photographs taken from a good DSLR camera. This goes the same for works done on some bulky or oddly shaped packaging. No flash photography from an Instamatic camera, please. It's also a good idea to put in smaller printouts of the digital files that you labored on. If your work was about web design or other kinds of design that were not made on print, you can still assemble a printed portfolio by making screen shots of the pages or print the web page directly by right clicking on your mouse. Although the colors on a printed page may not be accurate from a screen resolution, just add a CD of the web page. It is also a good idea to include print outs of the logos and other special vector graphics that you use on the page if only to say, "this is my work because I have the original files." Make sure they are in high resolution."