How to Make a Successful Portfolio and Build an Engaging Website
This guide covers:
➡ What to include in your portfolio and website
➡ Tips to ensure you present your work successfully
➡ Examples of sites we love and full portfolios by amazing creatives for you to reference
➡ Our individual approaches to website building
Written by: Shae Myles
Edited by: Shae Myles & Georgia Tooke
Introduction
It’s so important to showcase your work in ways that will show your practice off as best you can! Whether you’re a photographer, designer, painter or film-maker, taking the time to create a website to house your work, and putting together a smaller, more specific portfolio when applying for opportunities, is crucial in elevating your professional practice. Georgia and I have very different website design approaches, so in this guide we’ve talked about how we built ours and what we personally think makes a website engaging. We also had the help of our wonderful pals Cassia Powell and Rosanna Rose to show examples of super strong portfolios!
First things first… what’s the difference?
When we’re talking about portfolios, we mean when someone asks for ‘five examples of relevant work,’ or more generally, for you to send them your portfolio (duh). Your portfolio is basically a snapshot of your practice - a selection of images of your work that are relevant to whatever you’re applying to, and will probably need to be adjusted to suit each application.
You might be asked to submit a portfolio when applying for things like funding, jobs, exhibition proposals etc. They are usually required to be in PDF format, and there will most likely be stipulations set out in terms of length/what they’d like to see. It’s soooo easy to just send over a plain white document with Times New Roman text and a few images (no shade to TNR, I just hate it)… Putting together a portfolio can be time consuming, but TRUST ME !!!! Whoever is reviewing it will notice when you’ve put effort in; even something as simple as making the design consistent with your website/the rest of your application in terms of font/colour/style etc.
Now onto websites… where do we start?!?!
Essentially, your website should reflect you and your practice, and be a place to house the work you want the world to see. There’s so much we could go into in terms of coding, site design, which platforms to use etc, but we think it’s probably more helpful for us to be more specific in our tips that we’ve learned along the way, and try to inspire fresh ideas if you want to update your site! Your website will probably have a ‘portfolio’ style section on it, where the viewer can filter through your projects/work, so think of your website kinda like an much more extended version of your portfolio, where the visitor can find out more about you, how to contact you… it’ll allow them to get to the nitty gritty!
All in all, both your portfolio and website should allow the viewer to leave feeling that they’ve learned more about your work!
Part One: Making a Successful Portfolio
What to include:
▢ Your name and contact details (website/socials/email)
▢ Selected high quality images of works that are relevant to what you’re applying for/what the requirements are (if you’re unsure of they haven’t stipulated, it’s always best to ask!!)
▢ A description of the work you’ve included (more on that below!)
Our Tips:
Make it make sense!
Thoughtfully curate and organize your portfolio in a way that makes sense to the person viewing it. Show your growth and progression within your practice. Include all the necessary information about the piece too: title, date created, materials, measurements, duration (if it’s a video or performance), a brief description of the work (2-3 sentences - unless otherwise stated).Take some time to get organised!
We all know the feeling… you see a callout or a job or whatever and you’re GASPING for air bc it would literally be so perfect!!! But you have to work all weekend and the deadline is Sunday at 12pm and you simply have no time to put together a bangin portfolio… If you have a solid template that you can quickly change up in terms of the work included, and can add in the accompanying info, you’re set! So, the next time you have a chance, collate the strongest documentation of a wide range of your best work in a folder on ur computer, and put together a wee document that has all the info you need so you can just copy and paste it into your portfolio. The template can be made using the likes of InDesign, Photoshop, Procreate, Pages etc, whatever you like! It’s just one less thing to think about when you might also have to write a cover letter, answer questions in the application etc.Criteria
If you’re putting together a portfolio it’s probably because you’re submitting to something like a gallery for a group or solo show, funding opportunities, residencies, grad school applications, gallery representation etc. There are any number of different reasons why you might be putting together a portfolio, the important thing to remember is not one portfolio will fit all of these. Carefully read all the criteria before submitting your portfolio. Funding bodies especially can have hundreds of submissions to look through and if yours doesn’t meet a simple formatting detail, that can be an easy way for them to sort through and cut down applicants. Don't make a simple (but costly) mistake like that!
Examples:
We’ve been lucky enough to get our hands on two wonderful portfolios! Both of which are available for you to view in full as reference! Find them at the bottom of this page.
Cassia’s is the portfolio they submitted for a solo show proposal, while Rosanna’s was used when she was applying for a junior print designer role for a fashion brand! They were both successful, and you can immediately see why! We hope they are helpful resources, in terms of two contrasting disciplines (fine art and design) and as examples of what a portfolio might be required for!
To hear more about these incredible creatives and their work, you can listen to/watch/read our chat with them through our In Conversation With… podcast episodes or visit their websites, linked above!
Rosanna’s included gorgeous mood boards consisting of colour palettes, her inspirations and processes. She also showcased the evolution of her designs; from the initial repeat patterns created, through to the final pieces that were produced.
Cassia included full documentation of their work, as well as the work in situ on a mock gallery wall, and some beautiful detail shots. They also provided the gallery with a suggested floor plan, with artwork info stated all listed clearly on a separate page. This allows the gallery to fully understand the context of the work as well as Cassia’s vision for the show. This also highlights Cassia’s way of working, as well as their dedication and professionalism as an artist.
Part Two: Building an Engaging Website
What makes an engaging website?
Your website should reflect your practice to the best of your ability, whether that’s by taking an approach that highlights the work in a clean, classic way, or making the site a piece of work in itself. Everyone’s idea of an engaging website will be different, but it’s important to make sure that you stick to being true to you!! Keeping it updated is super important too, and overall, YOU and your work will be effortlessly engaging, it’s about applying the same creativity and eye for detail that you display through your practice!
What to include in your website:
▢ About you (your artist bio and statement, and any other information you want to share about yourself)
▢ Contact details (how can people get in touch with you, what do you want them to reach out to you about, and what services do you offer (if appropriate)
▢ Where else can people find you? (socials, other projects/external websites/projects)
▢ CV (your CV should include details on your education, awards, commissions, residencies, links to features/press, any art-related work you’ve carried out, shows you’ve been in/curated)
▢ Your work!!
TOP TIP! Refer to our support guide about documenting your work to ensure you have the highest quality images on your website!
Other Ideas: A blog section, a shop… anything else that’s relevant to your practice (e.g. Shae has her design portfolio, commission section…)
The look of your website:
It can be tricky to settle on how you want your website to look, and even more tricky to know where to start to look for inspiration, so here’s some tips to get the ball rolling!
Make a Pinterest board of things that inspire you (this could be design elements you like, page layouts etc, and don’t have to explicitly be other website pages, rather, zines, books, posters, sketchbook pages)
Think about which artists inspire you the most and why you are drawn to their websites (remember it’s really important not to blatantly copy other artists work and this extends to website design/formats, so think carefully about how you can adapt the elements you like to make them your own!)
Your inspiration can of course be drawn from other websites, regardless of what their function is (I like to look at https://www.awwwards.com for design trends and colour palette inspiration, while Georgia loves this resource for colour palette generation!
There are many different styles of websites, from experimental to interactive, or classic and simple. Make a list of words you want the viewer to feel or experience and think about how you can achieve that!
For example:
Bold - play with colour, customised elements like cursers, moving elements
Professional - clean, clearly organised and carefully curated
Examples
Here’s some examples of different approaches that we adore:
Shae’s Picks!!
Aerial Community Radio ☞ https://checkyouraeri.al
I love the interactive elements and the video background!
Molly Soda ☞ https://mollysoda.exposed
So much to explore with this one and it reflects the artist’s practice soooo well!!!
Georgia’s Picks!!
Rachel Maclean ☞ http://www.rachelmaclean.com/
Even though Shae doesn’t like her work, I do love her website. I think it’s playful, clean and colourful. I like the use of unique graphics for each work and how every page is customized to fit the theme of each work.
Rebecca Goyette ☞ https://www.rebeccagoyette.com/
(I’m pretty sure we used the same Squarespace template lol) I love how the homepage has a list of all her artworks that you can scroll over and an image appears to give you a sense of each work before you click on anything. Oftentimes (with short attention spans or ppl just don’t have time) the less clicking the better. Obviously it’d be amazing for everybody to take the time to go through your website work by work, page by page but that’s unfortunately not always the case. Try and have some highlights of your practice on the homepage.
Part Three: Website Specifics
Both Georgia and I have very different approaches to our website design, so here’s some final thoughts on our individual approaches to our current sites and some tips we’ve learned along the way!
Georgia: I love websites that are immersive and feel like a work of art in themselves and all I wanted to do was make one like that for myself. However, web design is sooo not my forte and I ended up just getting frustrated and putting off making my website. So I opted for a clean, simple design that would be easy for me to manage and keep updated.
Edit down!!! When I was still in school and didn’t really have a lot of work, I included everything I made on my website with all the visual info I had; photos, videos, installation images etc. (even if the quality of that documentation was bad). After redoing my website two years out of school, I’m able to edit down to just my best pieces and I chose to include only the strongest documentation of the chosen works.
Remember this is your platform to show off your work, that you have complete control over. J&J's 3 C’s!! Keep it clear, concise and compelling.
Shae: It’s so important to me that my site is fun to explore! I have a special ~hidden section~ (bonus points if you’ve found it!!!) and also a few silly click-throughs … like you have to click a floating key to read my diary. I like to be as creative as I can to make the user experience more exciting and approachable! Since my work is usually quite raw and personal, I wanted my website to really reflect that! Every click gives you the opportunity to showcase something new, and there’s so much room to play with how you want the viewer to be involved in that! I have quite a lot of info on my site, but all the important things are super easy to access, so I think it works well for those who are wanting a quick flick through what I do, as well as for someone to spend a bit more time exploring!
Planning is soooo key to making a website that you’re happy with! Collect images, sounds, ideas, for a while in whatever way works for you (I like to sketchbook about the look of my website bc I can clearly map out my priorities and elements I’ve thought of!)
YouTube/research helps!!! If you’re thinking, okay I want ‘x’ to spin… or I want ‘y’ to make a sound when someone taps on it… a simple Google search can usually get the exact answer you’re looking for! I have no coding experience but there’s so many helpful YT channels out there that are specific to the big-name website builders (Wix, Squarespace etc), so keep that in mind when you’re choosing where to make your site.
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We really hope this guide has been helpful in getting the ball rolling… whether you’re starting your first website or updating your current one, or making a portfolio for an upcoming deadline!
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Remember these are some tips to get you started, and that we’re both learning and growing with you! If you think we missed anything in this guide, just let us know!
Lots n lots of luv,
Shae and Georgia xo