Portfolio Perfection The perfect guide to building the perfect portfolio.
Where do you want to go? A portfolio is a passport. You’ve got to have one to go places. And a really good one to make your career fly. We see hundreds of portfolios everyday. We chat to CDs, Group Heads and great teams all the time. Now we’ve published our insights, thoughts and advice in one place. Have a good read but remember at the end of the day, it’s your portfolio. You have to decide what works best. (Which kind of makes you a Creative Director already.)
“Write an introduction for each piece of work. Outline the brief, your solution and the results you came up with.” “Show me you care about what you do from initial ideas through to finished product while remembering the basic rules of layout. Prints of work are often too small. Make them big. It demonstrates you’re thinking about your reader. Storyboard online advertising ideas. TV work has been successfully presented this way for years.”
“Laptops are great if you’re well prepared.” “Don’t waste time searching through hundreds of folders. But use digital presentations fully. Make an interactive PDF and zoom in to highlight detail.” Trevor Chambers, Group Creative Director at Cubo Group.
Top Tips Shine Make your work look good. (This goes for copywriters too, don’t think that you are off the hook!). Format Electronic and hard copy are equally as important. Watch pagination of electronic versions, remember folds, die cuts, and special finishes are hard to demonstrate. File copies are fine if in good nick. Research Know the agency, Creative Director, clients, recent work and the address. Grill your Blue Skies consultant. Annotate Annotate pages: you may not be presenting your portfolio in person. Refresh Include recent work: doesn’t have to be the very latest, but current. Nobody wants to view a portfolio full of great work from five years ago. Unless you’ve been travelling. Think Different people, different views: particularly important when starting out. Know your mind. What one CD like another will hate. It’s all subjective but listen and learn. Duplicate Make a duplicate set of work: there’s nothing worse than failing to submit your portfolio or collecting it before the CD has had a proper look, because you need it for another meeting. Observe Keep your eyes and ears open: Creative Directors’ offices are important places. Briefs, visuals, scamps and tonnes of interesting stuff inhabit them. You’ll be amazed at what you can learn.
Believe Confidence is key, arrogance isn’t. Strike a balance between selling yourself and remembering ours is a team game. Support Never criticise your own work. A CD assumes you’re presenting your best pieces. If you don’t support it how can you expect them to? And for that matter, never bad mouth previous agencies or colleagues. Shhh Turn your mobile off. A CD is interested in you and your work, not what you and your mates are arranging to do that night.
“Remember, there’s always another way. Be open to criticism, both positive and negative.”
5 Golden Rules 1
Show enthusiasm for your work, the agency and the industry. Nobody wants to hire a bore.
2
Know your stuff, and be able to articulate it: brief, background, target audience, USP/differentiation etc, then practice talking about it. Present to your partner, flatmate, Blue Skies consultant or even the mirror.
3
Present a cross section of work, a good balance. But if you’re meeting an agency with a particular discipline/ client, then reflect this. Experience on similar accounts and within the same markets is vital.
4
Start with your strongest piece of work, end with the second, sandwich your weakest piece (if you have one) in the middle.
5
“Originality of thinking gets you hired. Every time, without fail. If your portfolio doesn’t demonstrate this, you might need to start again.”
“I’m inter ested in y ou thinking . I want to r se your min d works. I e how want to see the thoughts a nd ideas that hap pened be hind the wonderfu lly finishe d piece in your p ortfolio.” Tony O’B
rien, Creative Di rector at Th
e Big Kick
.
“All I want to see are thre e well presented, well articula ted, well execu ted example s of work, drive n by a core creative idea that n ot only answ ers but challenges the brief tha t was set. I look fo r work in port folios that I wish I had done.” Kevin Frost,
Creative Dire cto
r at Draft FCB.
nd to understa d t n a rt o p im nishe “Whilst it is skills via fi ft ra c ’s te a candida qually, if not more is e ought work — it tand the th rs e d n u to re. An important t them the o g t a th s rsion proces from imme y e rn u be jo pment can articulate lo e v e d l a fin through to sive..” a very persu p, Martin Trip e Agency. rector at Lif Creative Di
“Don’t try and show everything. Show what you’re proud of and what best sells what you can do.” “I think a great book is one that tells a story of where you started and where you are now. This way it shows progression. No black portfolio cases.”
“Show me an original way to present your work.” “Show scope and depth of thinking, use your scamp books to show how your mind works and the top five of your very best pieces highly finished. Be proud of your book - if your house was on fire, it should be the only thing you would save. It’s important, look after it.” Damian Howell, Managing Director at Indigo River Creative.
Final thoughts This document is packed with our thoughts on best practices. We’ve included our five golden rules and asked a load of Creative Directors what they think. Naturally, they don’t agree. This merely puts portfolios in with politics and religion as topics to avoid in the pub. Good luck!
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