An interesting statement about building a portfolio.

anomandarius

Many of you guys were so helpful on my "Attracting a Quality Artist" thread that I've been looking for some way to give back something that may be helpful to you. I ran across this article and specifically the below quote and because I've looked at a lot of portfolios linked here I thought it may spawn some good conversation. The quote is by Liz Danzico , who is the head of the School of Visual Art's MFA program in Interaction Design

A portfolio of work is a curated experience. It's an applicant's chance to shape the way that I'm viewing his or her approach, methods, process, and best thinking; but oftentimes, a portfolio only contains final pieces, as applicants are overly concerned about presenting perfection. Polish doesn't communicate process though, and therefore I'm left with only part of the story. Messy problems -- and how applicants work through them -- can show a great deal more in a portfolio than one finished, airtight solution. It's then the applicant's job to curate those into an experience for the portfolio viewer.

Article Here


It seems like she's advocating almost a story board approach to a portfolio. Does anyone use this type of "narrative" approach?

ZacD

She's not talking about game art in particular, but just "visual arts" as a whole.

She's an instructor, not your next boss, a boss will interview you and get the "rest of the story"

ericdigital

Sometimes guys will have the portfolio with all the finished stuff and then have a blog additionally to post WIP shots and other goodies. I think this approach works a little better and keeps some organization.

Though generally people in our field do have breakdowns of wireframes, texture flats, normals etc in the main portfolio. It sounds like she may be referring more to graphic design and websites I think where their portfolio usually just are a single image of the website or such.

aesir

my opinion on portfolios has always been, just show them stuff you think is cool. Rules are ghey

Campaignjunkie

The difference to me: You pay an application fee for admissions to look at your portfolio, so naturally they'll spend more time on it and be more thorough.

Canadian Ink

I like the idea of showing a mix of finished renders, wires, textures flats...etc. It really does give the viewer a much deeper view into your skill set.

Mark Dygert

Wow them with polished shots first, provide break down shots in case they want to check them out. They'll only ever care how you made it if they like what you made first.

If I see polished work I like without break down shots, its not a deal breaker they'll probably get a phone interview so I can feel out their construction methods. Of course if I see polished work on the same level and they provide break down shots, then that saves me a step. If they're two competing candidates I might not have time to do a phone interview and will just call the guy with the break down shots, in for an interview. So beauty only shots can stall you out as a candidate.

Just like less clicks to get to the center of the art is a really good idea, so is giving them all the info they might need without cluttering things up. We're probably hiring you because we're all over worked so any thing you can do to expedite your movement through the process (even if that the answer is no go away) will be helpful. You either have what they want or you don't, trying to hide some stuff and trick them into contacting you so you can use your crazy Jedi mind powers is only going to delay the inevitable hire/no hire decision and probably just stall you out as a candidate while others progress onto the final round(s).

Always put your best foot forward never do the hokey poky, putting your best foot in, and then taking it out, then putting your worst foot in and shaking it all about, that just leads to no call backs. Think of it this way, you put in one amazing piece that's +1, you put in a mediocre piece and that's -3.