Building Your Portfolio Part 3: Putting it All Together

Building your portfolio requires outside input--from books, other sites, professionals, colleagues and even friends. See our list of resources for a guaranteed polished presentation.

Building Your Portfolio Series:

Part 1 of this series covered what you should include in your print portfolio.

Part 2 discusses what to include in your web portfolio.

Part 4 of this series explains what major elements should be present in any online portfolio.

As you begin to piece together your print and web portfolio--no matter what position you seek, there are a multitude of resources both online and off to guide you through the process.

PREPARING THE PRINT PORTFOLIO

Keep in mind that a print portfolio, as we discussed in the first installment of this series, can be for any job, any person, any position--not just for designers and photographers. As you put the package together consider the following:

• Collect pieces from every job you've had. Sift through it all and put the best in your portfolio. These are the proof of your successes. If your success was less tangible, type it out on paper, explaining what you did and why it was so great, the challenges and so on.

• Show your portfolio to someone in your field that you respect and ask them to critique it. Implement their ideas, then show it to someone else.

• Prepare further by thinking of situations in which you demonstrated the particular skills an employer is looking for. Be able to give very specific, action-oriented answers with positive results. If you have any documented materials, add them to your portfolio.

• Attend any association gathering where people might be sharing their work. For example, the San Francisco chapter of the Graphic Artists Guild has a Portfolio Schmooze every year where members can see each other's work.

Resources for Portfolio Building

Books

• Creating Your Skills Portfolio
  by Carrie Straub.
  Carrie Straub of Resource for Success wrote this book to show you how to stand apart from the crowd. Learn how to create a positive, high-impact impression with prospective employers with a business portfolio. This little-known tool allows you to present a unique image of your experience drawn from some of the best examples of your previous work. It describes the seven steps to preparing an attention-grabbing portfolio and the best technique for presenting it during an interview. Also included is how to develop an electronic portfolio.
  

• The Art and Business of Creative Self-Promotion
  by Jerry Herring and Mark Fulton.
  This book really is for graphic designers, writers, illustrators, and photographers. It talks about the whys, whats, whens, and hows of self-promotion for creative people. The pieces range from the expensive and time-consuming to the cheap and quick. Even if you're not in the visual arts, it's inspiring to look through a book like this.
  

Websites

• Career Mag
  This site is the working person's dream. With links to job openings, employers, articles, and job fairs--everything you're looking for to help you in your career is here. Career Mag also has a resume bank, a message board, and a recruiter directory. Check out the "on campus," tools/tests, and "bizy moms" sections, too. Finally, browse through the numerous features written by well-known career columnists. Career Mag's search engine makes it easy to zero in on the subjects you're hunting for. Definitely worth a look.
  

• Interview Experts
  This site has material on Interviewing, Organization/Planning, Resumes/Letter Writing, Job Satisfaction, Communication/Presentation Skills, Selling, and Starting a Business. Take a peek at the sections "Just For Women" and "Just For Men." Books on all these topics are available for order from the site. (Look under the Job Search/Career Planning/Networking category of the booklist for Straub's book Creating Your Skills Portfolio.)

BUILDING YOUR SITE
To get you started, consider these two tips:

• If you like an effect on a page, download the code and study it. Don't steal the code, but you can do something similar for your site. In Netscape, go to View>Document Source. In Internet Explorer, go to View>Source.
  
  

• On the Web, less is more. Your visitors want pages that download quickly and don't require endless scrolling. Think MTV attention span.

Resources for Building Your Site

Books

• Hip Pocket Guide to HTML
  by Ed Tittel and James Michael Stewart.
  This was my first HTML book and still the one I reference most often. It's a straightforward guide that lists all the tags and their attributes.
  

• Designing Web Graphics
  by Lynda Weinman.
  Weinman is a recognized authority on preparing images for the Web. Explains when to use JPEGs, when to use GIFs and how to keep your files small. If you learn those fundamentals, you'll have no problem putting graphics on the Web.
  

Helpful Websites

• Writing HTML
  Alan Levine's "Writing HTML" is a tutorial for normal people--the ones without geek genes. These wonderful lessons have been used by thousands of people to help them put up their first website. Alumni quotes: "Best tutorial seen...only took three days to make web site." "Brilliant guide ... from no knowledge to a four-page linked site up and running in 12 hours."
  

• Webmonkey
  Billing itself as "A How-to Guide for Web Developers," HotWired's Webmonkey site is one of the oldest sites offering tips and tricks to Web workers. Chock full of crash courses on design, graphics and fonts, JavaScript, stylesheets, databases, Perl/CGI scripts and adding multimedia to your page. Check out the "About Webmonkey" link for a huge list of all the mailing lists, sites and projects Webmonkey has its hand in. Includes an HTML tutorial, but I still favor "Writing HTML" over this one.
  

A Few Model Sites
All these sites have easy navigation and clean design. They put the most important information front and center.

• Tom Geller's site
  PR flak does PR for himself to good effect.
  

• Sea Serpent
  Interactive designer Rosalind Lord displays portfolio and site links within a whimsical sea serpent theme.
  

• John Dorsey's site
  Editor and code warrior John Dorsey shows a how a site with minimal content can be efficient marketing tool for its owner.
  

• My site
  Another example of a portfolio-driven site. (As mentioned, plans are in the works for revision/expansion. Next version will have writing and programming samples.)
  
  

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