Ask LaBricoleuse: Portfolios!
It's been a little while since i did an Ask LaBricoleuse entry, and since it is generally that time of year when those who are applying to bachelors and graduate programs and summer-stock theatres are getting together their portfolios, i thought this might be useful. It didn't actually come from a privately-emailed query, but was spawned by a more general post in the theatre_techies community.
My current job includes teaching grad school coursework in costume technology, and i see a lot of portfolios from folks applying to our program. This is one of my favorite things about applicants' visits--the opportunity to see their portfolios. I'm writing this post from purely my own perspective, what *I* think about how a portfolio should be set up and arranged. I don't make acceptance decisions here, but i do offer feedback frequently both to prospective applicants and to our own students in twice-yearly portfolio presentations/evals. Bear in mind as you read it, this is only my opinion and is not to be considered any kind of stone-carved hard-rule on the subject.
Unfortunately there is no standard for portfolio formatting like say, the Chicago Manual of Style for writing or somthing. This post is primarily directed toward those readers first compiling a portfolio, or those who aren't terribly confident about their portfolios, those with an interest in improving or streamlining a portfolio, etc. Certainly too, if you are one of my readers with an extremely extensive portfolio, i would love to have your input in comments as to how you have set up yours, hard-copy vs electronic, link to your online site, etc!
Whenever you are applying for a program or a job where they request a portfolio, don't be afraid to contact the head of the program or the shop manager and ask what they would like to see in that portfolio. They should be glad to tell you--one place might want to see the full range of your work from stitching to crafts to patternmaking to draping, while another may only want to see, say, your original design work and nothing else. Never hurts to ask, and if the program director or HR person or shop manager is rude and dismissive, well, IMO that in and of itself tells you something about what it might be like to work or attend school there. More than likely they will be happy you asked--it shows that you value both their time and yours.
Here are three basic things i always tell folks who ask me for hard-copy portfolio set-up advice:
1.) Get an actual plain functional portfolio binder designed to, you know, like, contain a professional portfolio. Certainly the work speaks for itself, and certainly no one's going to be denied entry to a program or passed over for work if s/he shows a portfolio full of genius-quality work JUST because they are presented in, say, a scrapbook with kittens on the cover, but it does make an impression of unprofessionalism or ignorance or immaturity. Invest in a good portfolio book to keep your stuff in. It doesn't have to be expensive, it doesn't have to be huge, it doesn't have to be genuine fine leather, but it should be clearly a portfolio book and not like, a bright purple notebook with a pirate flag on it or something. (This may seem like stating the obvious, but you would be surprised.) For my own portfolio, i keep it in a larger, ringbound version of this easel-based design. It is good to be able to choose whether to lay it flat on a table when interviewing with one person, or set it up like an easel when presenting to several people at once.
I recommend you get a portfolio with a ring binding that opens and closes, too, if you want a formally bound portfolio. In the long run, you will be glad you did. In the course of a costuming career, you will need to tailor the layout and order of your portfolio to whatever job for which you are applying. For example, if you are looking for a summer gig as a tailor's assistant, you may not even want to include craftwork or dyework pages since they don't apply to the job you seek...but if you are applying for admittance to a graduate program you may benefit from including the entire range of your work. If you are looking to stitch in a ballet costume shop, you will want to put your dancewear photos first, whereas if you are wanting to do craftwork at a Shakespeare festival, you may wish to feature some armor-making and period headwear. It will save you mucho time if you can just pop the rings and move/remove/add pages easily.
Or, you might want to mount your portfolio pages on loose separate illustration boards and transport them in a zipper case. This can be helpful for viewing, say, four pages at once, and it's very easy to reorder them, pass them around, etc. It also means that they may be more easily damaged or lost though, so that's something to consider.
2.) Regarding photos of stagecraft or costumes: be discerning. One decent photo is definitely better than no photos. No photos, though, are better than a blurry crappy photo that doesn't accurately depict the subject. You are wasting people's time if you show a portfolio of poorly-lit shoddy pictures, offering an excuse of, "These are the only photos i have of these costumes...but they were really great!" All that really tells the interviewer is that you neglected to take or obtain decent photographs documenting something you consider to be great work...which is NOT an impression you want to engender. If you don't have good photographs of something but you can still access the garment and take some, do it, soon! If you can't, take it as the hard-learned lesson that it is and make SURE you photograph things you work on, starting now. Multiple photos--different angles or detail shots or mid-process shots--are the best. Photos against a neutral backdrop are better than photos with a messy workroom in the background, but a good series of photos with a workshop background are better than no photos at all. I have a coworker hold up a sheet of muslin behind something or wheel a form in front of our fitting room curtain if i need a quick "backdrop" for a photo.
If you are interested in design and have no photos of a design you did but you have drafts or renderings, that's ok--it shows that you can and do draft or render. And, if you have anything else visual to attach to it (paint chips to show the color palette for a set, swatches of fabrics from a costume or scrims/drapes/soft props/upholstered furniture, etc) stick that in there too. An ideal portfolio shows the many facets of your skills and talent. A designer who has only stage shots of the final show is only displaying one facet of her or his talent--good designers also produce competent renderings, research, collages, make good fabric choices, etc., so any evidence of those skills is appropriate to include. This philosophy also applies to crafts artisans--you are selling yourself short if you only have finished photos of work for the stage. If you spend your summers, say, doing elaborate event decor or making intricately adorned bridal headpieces, it is certainly appropriate to include photos of that work.
3.) Label everything completely, consistently, and accurately. If it's a class project, note that ("Lion mask, Sculpture class project, Joe Blow High School, 2005"). If it's costumes for a show that was actually produced, put a label beside the picture(s) with the show title, your job, what organization did the show, and when ("Twelfth Night, stitcher/crafts assistant, Chicago's Shakespeare in the Park", Summer 2003). If it's a costume you made for a convention or Halloween or whatever, note that on a label, and especially if it is some type of cosplay thing, include an image of the character the costume is supposed to represent as well--assume people don't know the source material, and if your costume doesn't look all that great juxtaposed against the source material, then you shouldn't include it, period.
Once you have your portfolio basically set up--you have your binder, all your pictures and renderings and inserts and labels together and laid out onto pages and the like--the big question then is, how do you order it?
Consider, as i said above, the purpose: tailor what you include to what the employer or program wants to see. Ask them. I cannot stress that enough. Once you know what you are including, then turn an eye to what goes where. People will make a case for chronological or reverse-chronological order, grouping things by category (all designs together, all crafts together, etc), and those ordering-schemes certainly have their pros and cons. I am an advocate though of the "in with a bang, out with a bang" philosophy. Put something first that is really exciting and showcases something you are really proud of. You will be most confident talking about that first, and it will start you off with good momentum. Order the rest of it however makes sense to you, but make sure that the last thing in there is also something really cool.
Nothing is more anticlimactic than viewing an entire portfolio and the last thing you see is someone's oldest, least-skilled, earliest work. Just because you did something doesn't mean it needs to be in your portfolio, and going chronologically backward always leaves your interviewer with your oldest (often crummiest) work as their final impression. If you want to retain some photos of a project from the early days of your experience, structure a page in the portfolio as a juxtaposition to illustrate progress--something like, "Here is the first hat i ever made back in 1999, and here is a recent hat i made for My Fair Lady."
Also, i'm a proponent of "Don't bog it down with too much stuff." If you have done so much stuff that you have a hundred portfolio pages, that's nice, but no interviewer is going to give you the time to show the whole thing. Pick your best stuff. Ten amazing things, period, are a better portfolio than forty things of which ten are amazing.
One of the biggest questions in the field right now is whether to move entirely to digital/online portfolios. You are starting to see job postings that require submission of digital portfolios only. It is definitely going to be a big part of the future of the industry, whether it fully replaces hard-copy portfolios or not, and it would behoove you to generate some type of digital-format portfolio--mostly i've seen them either set up as PowerPoint presentations or an online site. My own site is linked in the sidebar--the last two jobs i've gotten didn't ask for a hard-copy portfolio at all; the site functioned as the sole source.
My own site is not as fully-developed as i'd like--i intend to add a downloadable/printable PDF of my resume and at some point a downloadable PowerPoint version of the portfolio. I don't maintain my own site--i barter with a friend who does web design--but many artisans do. If you want to set up an online portfolio and have no idea where to start, there are several services out there catering to the setup of an online portfolio. Qfolio, Portfolios.com, and Carbonmade are a few to get you started. In researching prospective designers for various projects, i've found the most working professional costumers using Qfolio, but for those with no budget, Carbonmade has an option for a free basic account.
Hopefully this is useful as a starting point, some advice on how to approach creating a portfolio. And, for any of you job-searching or hoping to shoot for acceptance into various educational programs in 2007, best of luck to you!
ETA (August 2007): You may wish to check out the resource volume, Developing and Maintaining a Design-Tech Portfolio for Theatre, TV, and Film by Raphael Jaen. This book came out in fall of 2006 and focuses specifically on portfolios in technical production and design in the entertainment industries.
Re Carbonmade, one of my students has begun to set up his portfolio on there and is really pleased with their service.
My current job includes teaching grad school coursework in costume technology, and i see a lot of portfolios from folks applying to our program. This is one of my favorite things about applicants' visits--the opportunity to see their portfolios. I'm writing this post from purely my own perspective, what *I* think about how a portfolio should be set up and arranged. I don't make acceptance decisions here, but i do offer feedback frequently both to prospective applicants and to our own students in twice-yearly portfolio presentations/evals. Bear in mind as you read it, this is only my opinion and is not to be considered any kind of stone-carved hard-rule on the subject.
Unfortunately there is no standard for portfolio formatting like say, the Chicago Manual of Style for writing or somthing. This post is primarily directed toward those readers first compiling a portfolio, or those who aren't terribly confident about their portfolios, those with an interest in improving or streamlining a portfolio, etc. Certainly too, if you are one of my readers with an extremely extensive portfolio, i would love to have your input in comments as to how you have set up yours, hard-copy vs electronic, link to your online site, etc!
Whenever you are applying for a program or a job where they request a portfolio, don't be afraid to contact the head of the program or the shop manager and ask what they would like to see in that portfolio. They should be glad to tell you--one place might want to see the full range of your work from stitching to crafts to patternmaking to draping, while another may only want to see, say, your original design work and nothing else. Never hurts to ask, and if the program director or HR person or shop manager is rude and dismissive, well, IMO that in and of itself tells you something about what it might be like to work or attend school there. More than likely they will be happy you asked--it shows that you value both their time and yours.
Here are three basic things i always tell folks who ask me for hard-copy portfolio set-up advice:
1.) Get an actual plain functional portfolio binder designed to, you know, like, contain a professional portfolio. Certainly the work speaks for itself, and certainly no one's going to be denied entry to a program or passed over for work if s/he shows a portfolio full of genius-quality work JUST because they are presented in, say, a scrapbook with kittens on the cover, but it does make an impression of unprofessionalism or ignorance or immaturity. Invest in a good portfolio book to keep your stuff in. It doesn't have to be expensive, it doesn't have to be huge, it doesn't have to be genuine fine leather, but it should be clearly a portfolio book and not like, a bright purple notebook with a pirate flag on it or something. (This may seem like stating the obvious, but you would be surprised.) For my own portfolio, i keep it in a larger, ringbound version of this easel-based design. It is good to be able to choose whether to lay it flat on a table when interviewing with one person, or set it up like an easel when presenting to several people at once.
I recommend you get a portfolio with a ring binding that opens and closes, too, if you want a formally bound portfolio. In the long run, you will be glad you did. In the course of a costuming career, you will need to tailor the layout and order of your portfolio to whatever job for which you are applying. For example, if you are looking for a summer gig as a tailor's assistant, you may not even want to include craftwork or dyework pages since they don't apply to the job you seek...but if you are applying for admittance to a graduate program you may benefit from including the entire range of your work. If you are looking to stitch in a ballet costume shop, you will want to put your dancewear photos first, whereas if you are wanting to do craftwork at a Shakespeare festival, you may wish to feature some armor-making and period headwear. It will save you mucho time if you can just pop the rings and move/remove/add pages easily.
Or, you might want to mount your portfolio pages on loose separate illustration boards and transport them in a zipper case. This can be helpful for viewing, say, four pages at once, and it's very easy to reorder them, pass them around, etc. It also means that they may be more easily damaged or lost though, so that's something to consider.
2.) Regarding photos of stagecraft or costumes: be discerning. One decent photo is definitely better than no photos. No photos, though, are better than a blurry crappy photo that doesn't accurately depict the subject. You are wasting people's time if you show a portfolio of poorly-lit shoddy pictures, offering an excuse of, "These are the only photos i have of these costumes...but they were really great!" All that really tells the interviewer is that you neglected to take or obtain decent photographs documenting something you consider to be great work...which is NOT an impression you want to engender. If you don't have good photographs of something but you can still access the garment and take some, do it, soon! If you can't, take it as the hard-learned lesson that it is and make SURE you photograph things you work on, starting now. Multiple photos--different angles or detail shots or mid-process shots--are the best. Photos against a neutral backdrop are better than photos with a messy workroom in the background, but a good series of photos with a workshop background are better than no photos at all. I have a coworker hold up a sheet of muslin behind something or wheel a form in front of our fitting room curtain if i need a quick "backdrop" for a photo.
If you are interested in design and have no photos of a design you did but you have drafts or renderings, that's ok--it shows that you can and do draft or render. And, if you have anything else visual to attach to it (paint chips to show the color palette for a set, swatches of fabrics from a costume or scrims/drapes/soft props/upholstered furniture, etc) stick that in there too. An ideal portfolio shows the many facets of your skills and talent. A designer who has only stage shots of the final show is only displaying one facet of her or his talent--good designers also produce competent renderings, research, collages, make good fabric choices, etc., so any evidence of those skills is appropriate to include. This philosophy also applies to crafts artisans--you are selling yourself short if you only have finished photos of work for the stage. If you spend your summers, say, doing elaborate event decor or making intricately adorned bridal headpieces, it is certainly appropriate to include photos of that work.
3.) Label everything completely, consistently, and accurately. If it's a class project, note that ("Lion mask, Sculpture class project, Joe Blow High School, 2005"). If it's costumes for a show that was actually produced, put a label beside the picture(s) with the show title, your job, what organization did the show, and when ("Twelfth Night, stitcher/crafts assistant, Chicago's Shakespeare in the Park", Summer 2003). If it's a costume you made for a convention or Halloween or whatever, note that on a label, and especially if it is some type of cosplay thing, include an image of the character the costume is supposed to represent as well--assume people don't know the source material, and if your costume doesn't look all that great juxtaposed against the source material, then you shouldn't include it, period.
Once you have your portfolio basically set up--you have your binder, all your pictures and renderings and inserts and labels together and laid out onto pages and the like--the big question then is, how do you order it?
Consider, as i said above, the purpose: tailor what you include to what the employer or program wants to see. Ask them. I cannot stress that enough. Once you know what you are including, then turn an eye to what goes where. People will make a case for chronological or reverse-chronological order, grouping things by category (all designs together, all crafts together, etc), and those ordering-schemes certainly have their pros and cons. I am an advocate though of the "in with a bang, out with a bang" philosophy. Put something first that is really exciting and showcases something you are really proud of. You will be most confident talking about that first, and it will start you off with good momentum. Order the rest of it however makes sense to you, but make sure that the last thing in there is also something really cool.
Nothing is more anticlimactic than viewing an entire portfolio and the last thing you see is someone's oldest, least-skilled, earliest work. Just because you did something doesn't mean it needs to be in your portfolio, and going chronologically backward always leaves your interviewer with your oldest (often crummiest) work as their final impression. If you want to retain some photos of a project from the early days of your experience, structure a page in the portfolio as a juxtaposition to illustrate progress--something like, "Here is the first hat i ever made back in 1999, and here is a recent hat i made for My Fair Lady."
Also, i'm a proponent of "Don't bog it down with too much stuff." If you have done so much stuff that you have a hundred portfolio pages, that's nice, but no interviewer is going to give you the time to show the whole thing. Pick your best stuff. Ten amazing things, period, are a better portfolio than forty things of which ten are amazing.
One of the biggest questions in the field right now is whether to move entirely to digital/online portfolios. You are starting to see job postings that require submission of digital portfolios only. It is definitely going to be a big part of the future of the industry, whether it fully replaces hard-copy portfolios or not, and it would behoove you to generate some type of digital-format portfolio--mostly i've seen them either set up as PowerPoint presentations or an online site. My own site is linked in the sidebar--the last two jobs i've gotten didn't ask for a hard-copy portfolio at all; the site functioned as the sole source.
My own site is not as fully-developed as i'd like--i intend to add a downloadable/printable PDF of my resume and at some point a downloadable PowerPoint version of the portfolio. I don't maintain my own site--i barter with a friend who does web design--but many artisans do. If you want to set up an online portfolio and have no idea where to start, there are several services out there catering to the setup of an online portfolio. Qfolio, Portfolios.com, and Carbonmade are a few to get you started. In researching prospective designers for various projects, i've found the most working professional costumers using Qfolio, but for those with no budget, Carbonmade has an option for a free basic account.
Hopefully this is useful as a starting point, some advice on how to approach creating a portfolio. And, for any of you job-searching or hoping to shoot for acceptance into various educational programs in 2007, best of luck to you!
ETA (August 2007): You may wish to check out the resource volume, Developing and Maintaining a Design-Tech Portfolio for Theatre, TV, and Film by Raphael Jaen. This book came out in fall of 2006 and focuses specifically on portfolios in technical production and design in the entertainment industries.
Re Carbonmade, one of my students has begun to set up his portfolio on there and is really pleased with their service.