3 tips & tricks to prepare an impressive design school portfolio

By TDV Faculty

Most design schools ask students to prepare a portfolio to showcase their work. Go through important things to keep in mind when making a portfolio for admission in a design school.

A design school, along with underlying attributes of courage, perseverance, compassion and awareness requires a brilliant portfolio.

A portfolio or a lookbook acts as a reflective document that includes an artist’s best work. Thus, a portfolio is a collection of an artist’s work demonstrating their creativity, personality, abilities and commitment.

Many design school aspirants end up not laying enough emphasis on preparing an effective portfolio that restricts them from properly showcasing their work.

Here are three tips and tricks that will help design students in creating an effective work portfolio to make that first great impression:

Keep it Neat & Minimal

• Your portfolio should contain all the required documents.
• Make it visually appealing and keep it neat. Simultaneously, don’t go over the top.
• Be selective while choosing your work for the portfolio as it is not about the volume of work but about the creative skills you acquire. Usually a selection of 10-20 pieces that best represent your work is more than enough.

Proper Presentation

• Remember that your portfolio should highlight your best work.
• Properly communicate about your work, talk about the ideas and sources behind it.
• Put your best pieces at the beginning.
• As a future designer, the typeface you choose, the size of the font, the layout and a loose structure to ensure a flow of content in the document are unspoken requirements.

First Impression is the Last Impression

• Paying attention to the details of your portfolio is crucial.
• Proper labelling along with a title and date of execution should be mentioned.
• Good amount of attention should be paid at the quality of the photos being used.
• There should be ample variety to be showcased.

About the Author:

Faculty members at The Design Village (TDV) have a lot of experience in the field of design education.