Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Although the options for portfolio format and venue continue to expand, they
boil down to one of three delivery categories: portable, email, or online.
If you want to make your digital portfolio part of your in-person presentation
or need to send a high-resolution presentation to prospective clients or employers,
you will need some physical medium to hold it.
CDs and DVDs
Standard-sized discs are familiar, easy to integrate into a traditional portfolio,
and fairly sturdy. CDs are an inexpensive way of delivering a variety of types of rela-
tively small files (PDFs and player files, for example). DVDs are the best choice for
moving images.
People feel strongly—pro and con—about
receiving a disc portfolio. The people who dislike them
don't necessarily dislike discs per se, but groan because
so many people do a bad job of creating them. Typical
complaints range from bad organization to unreadable
file formats. Unlike a website, which can be revised as
you learn from your mistakes, a badly conceived or
executed CD will simply be tossed—or tossed around
a shop as an example of “portfolio fail”—Chapter 5,
“Organizing Your Work,” Chapter 9, “Structure and
Concept,” and Chapter 13, “Presenting Your Portfolio,”
address these issues, and will help you create a disc
portfolio that won't frustrate an art director.
Although discs are usually welcome in 3D and moving-image disciplines, they
are less attractive in 2D specializations, where there are more concise alternatives for
delivering a body of work. Graphic design professionals, for example, tend to prefer
receiving work via email: PDF attachments or a URL link. A disc is a commitment.
When designers or illustrators
send me a CD or DVD, I often find
that either I don't have the correct
software installed or the disc
crashes the computer. Either way,
in the trash it goes. In case you're
wondering, I'm not a Luddite, but I
know I'm not the only designer
who feels this way.
—Alex Isley
Mini CDs
Performers love mini CDs, otherwise known as business-card CDs, because they are
just the right size to hold a high-resolution image, a résumé, and a small slideshow.
However, they ruin optical drives, and they get stuck in slot-loaded CD trays (the skinny
ones that you slide a CD into and the mechanism drags it in the rest of the way). Many peo-
ple in the creative industries own some flavor of Apple Mac, and they will not thank the per-
son whose disc trashes their computer. Avoid them, especially for portfolios and leave-
behinds, no matter what type of computer you own.
