Let’s assume you’ve read everything I’ve written up to this
point - and you still want to pursue
Commercial Art. You know what categories
you’d like to work in, and you have some favorite styles you believe you’re
good at. What now?
Briefly
– you make money in this industry when someone hires you to create artwork for
them. Usually, they’ll want to see some artwork you’ve already done. Then they can decide whether or not you’re a
good fit for their project. So the next step is to develop a portfolio.
A portfolio is simply a collection of your work. Years ago
artists would carry a leather case – called a portfolio – with them to show
their work. That’s still done today, but
now the portfolio is more apt to be digital.
That’s true even if the artist is a traditional media artist - using paints
(acrylics, watercolors, etc), inks, pencil drawings, or any of several other
media. He or she is creating physical art,
but representations of it can be stored and distributed - or carried around
digitally, on a laptop or tablet for instance.
Digital portfolios have numerous advantages. The main ones:
- They can be sent to
prospective clients digitally as in a PDF (Portable Document File) via
email.
- You can post your work
online on a web or blog site, and send prospective clients to your site to
review your work.
- It is possible to post your
work to forums and other venues where you can have it reviewed by others -
which is a great way to get feedback from people who have no personal
connection to you.
Let’s talk a little about the portfolio itself, the work,
not the leather case. What should be in
it? Obviously your work; but what work? All
of it right? Wrong!
This is actually where unbiased opinions can help you a lot.
Why? Well, let me tell you a little story.
I mentioned in an earlier post in this series that I have a
rep (Artist Representative). I actually met with this particular art rep
several years before he started representing me. I’d received his contact
information from another artist, and gave him a call. He told me at the time
that he would not be able to take me on because he was already representing as
many artists as he could handle. He also
said that he already represented someone doing the style of work I did. He did
agree, however, to take a look at my work and give me an honest critique. That
turned out to be an eye-opening experience!
It was, without doubt, the most honest – almost brutal - critique
I’d ever received – and one of the most useful! Bear in mind - this guy’s
business is connecting clients with artists, so his reputation rides on his
having a critical eye. He let me have it. The good, the bad and the ugly, and
he did it in an amazingly short period of time!
I don’t remember word for word what was said but it went
something like this.
“First of all, you have way too many pieces in here. I’ll
look through it, but don’t ever show this much to a client. They don’t want to
go through this much stuff. They aren’t going to love your work as much as you
do.
“This one’s okay.
“Lose this one…and this one too.
“In fact lose all of these. It’s not that they’re bad, but
there’s no market for this kind of stuff. I can’t sell it anyway.
“This one’s not bad. I could pitch this as a product
illustration.
“All this abstract
stuff is useless.
“This one’s pretty good. Do more pieces like this.
“Lose this one, and this one too,..” And so forth.
By the time he got through - probably in less than fifteen
minutes - he’d weeded out two thirds of my portfolio. Of the pieces remaining,
some were slightly less than adequate stand-ins for better and more focused
versions that I should be creating as
their replacements. I was most surprised that, of the pieces he liked the best, none were my favorites!
You might be thinking that, at this point, I was very
discouraged. You would be right. When I got home that night I went through my work
again. I spent a lot of time looking over the pieces that he actually liked and
thinking about his comments. It became apparent that the pieces he liked the
most were the ones with the most commercial application.
Up to this point I’d had my own reasons for liking some
pieces more than others but then I’d never looked at my own work from the
viewpoint of a prospective client, or with the idea of trying to sell it in a
commercial environment!
You can find tons of information on how to set up a
portfolio but here’s the general gist:
1) Set
up your portfolio to target your intended clients. Digital portfolios make this
easier to do. If you work in several categories and styles, it’s worth the
effort to set up multiple pages or even multiple sites, each catering to a
specific category.
2) Always
lead with a strong – possibly your strongest - piece.
3) Don’t
show a lot of the same imagery. If you have done a series of images for a
company, don’t show the whole series. Even if they are all great, no one wants
to see twelve different soda cans, or six different wrenches, or multiple images of anything. Pick the best one – possibly two if they’re different
enough - and leave the rest out.
4) Don’t
show too many pieces. Six to eight is usually enough. Twelve to fifteen is probably
tops. If they want to see more, send them a link to your website.
5) Don’t
show anything that isn’t at least very good! If you don’t have a lot of
work to show, it is better to show fewer pieces than it is to show more that
includes some weak pieces. Your portfolio is only as strong as your weakest
piece. Don’t put any weak pieces in
it.
6) Close
with a great piece.
Curt
