The best opportunity for you, as an artist, to make a lasting first impression with a Portfolio. So you should make it professional. To make portfolio professional, you need to be focused on three simple things: format, content, an advantage.

1. Format: classical or a digital? That is the question!

Actually, you can do both! The 21st-century artists should make a physical and a digital one portfolio. In this case, you can send digital portfolio via email or give a link to your website as a preview before you will meet your potential customers.Remember that the high-quality photos of the works are the most important part of the portfolio.

All the images you set up should have a universal format: JPG or JPEG.Keep everything organized well. The traditional format includes a lot of copies of your works: your original sketches or scans of your artworks.

2. Content that's what really matters

"So what kind of artworks should I include in my portfolio?" : the most typical question I have heard from young artists. Of course, we know, that the best of your works it should be there. But it's not easy to decide which ones are the best. And how many works should be included in the professional portfolio? The answer is: "Not too many, not too few.". Sometimes you have only two minutes to represent you, but sometimes a potential employer spends with you whole hour to discuss every one of your works.

That is the reason why you need to include a couple of works that could blow the mind and some impressive enough ones. Show your portfolio to your friends and write it off, how much works they look before they attention gets lost. If they need more than ten minutes to see all the content, that means you need to get out some.

If they need only couple minutes to view it all, that's not enough to value your talent. Ten works are good to build a foundation for your portfolio.

How to choose the best ones: If you can't do it by yourself, ask your teachers or another pro.

How you can take high-quality photos of the artworks: First of all, forget about any filters, it's not Instagram.

The auto balance setting helps you avoid typical mistakes. You should arrange your artwork correctly.

As a complement to good photos of your works, add short information about yourself as an artist and your creative process, some background to your portfolio.

Add a Cover Letter: The cover letter exists to catch the attention and highlight you among all the other artists. Don't forget to personalize the letter to each gallery you show too.

Artist biography and CV: Your bio should be written in the third person perspective. It should including information about your education, formal exhibitions, and some other details. Make the CV in the similar style to a traditional resume. Here you need to focus primarily on artistic achievement: awards, publications, major exhibits, gallery representation.

3. Advantage

Make sure that your portfolio is talking to a maximum row audience. Add a self-addressed stamped cover and stationery: Just a nice touch to include in the back of the portfolio. It makes easy and comfortable for the gallery representative to get in touch with you and return your portfolio.

Make everything you can do to give your portfolio that personalized touch. Make your portfolio original, some ideas from Lorena Alvarez and impression from Charlie Hebdo.

Just speaking your mind and making yourself different than everybody else is really what's going to get you on the map.
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