Lessons
Part 1
1The Importance of Having a Portfolio
09:03 2What to Include & Why
09:27 3How to Stand Out from the Crowd
10:59 4Having an Online Following Behind You
06:25 5How to Show Your Work & to Whom
15:47 6Gathering Inspiration
08:33 7How to Set Up Your Artboard
05:38How to Build Your Intro Page
09:12 9Build Your Table of Contents Page
10:05 10Creating Your Online Presence Page
11:12 11How to Design Process Page & Collections
21:01 12Build a Sample & Examples Page
07:12 13Create a Contact Page
17:30 14Printing Options & Digital Publishing
13:29 15Ready Your Supplies
05:09 16Going Over the Process
03:48 17Prepping Your Pages
09:09 18How to Build a Portfolio Cover with Fabric
42:13 19Add Final Touches on the Cover
07:19 20How to Stack & Bind Your Portfolio
08:41Part 2
Part 3
Lesson Info
Gathering Inspiration
Ok, so the next thing we want to do is gather inspiration for our portfolio it's pages and the look of the final of the final book, so you can start doing this by creating an inspiration board. I'm a big fan of inspiration boards for everything I do in my business from surface pattern zain toe block posts to portfolios. So sometimes I make a hard copy er, inspiration boards so I, like have a literal board that attack things up on the love that inspires my work there like colors or chipped paint chips or things I found in nature that I like or whatever. And then of course, you can keep like a style file on your computer if you keep a just a file of things that you like to refer to the inspire you and then of course, pinterest is a great way to keep online inspiration um all categorized nicely too, so you can really start reviewing other handmade books. I am going to show you several and just a few minutes, and you can also just do some searching around the web for handmade books and han...
dmade portfolios and to start getting an idea of what the possibilities are and what you might like yours to look like. So I like to think sophisticated scrap booking really making pages special on making them stand out um and move away from just the plain stuff so you can start thinking about printed pages. My all my pages were printed. You could also do painted pages, actual sketches or illustrations. If you're not, if you're only making one, then you could really spend some time doing some live work in your portfolio found bits that you find inspiring, like I would be tacking up on my board. I could include in my portfolio and then accents like wash she taper photo corners you can see, like the possibilities are totally enlist with what you could include inside. So my next question is, what is one extra that you can include in your book? And I would love for people at home to think about this to, for example, not in the one that I have today, but in a previous portfolio I have included on envelope with actual sketches from my sketchbook and it just so they can see just so they can see how I work and what my sketches looked like before they get turned into patterns and things like that. Do you guys have any ideas of what you could include? I have to do my sketch back as well, yeah, that's what I think. I call like my doodles are my sketches but a good friend of mine she's still calm doodles he that they're more stylized or something else but they're just think, you know, kind of designs in that it is definitely where things evolve from me I think if you could open it up and like almost like a pop up book in some way maybe I don't know if I could learn how to do pop up book that kind of a neat e don't know that that's been another class make a puzzle out of one of you one of your designs a puzzle sort of the office into a puzzle how fun that's a great idea and you can do custom you can have custom puzzles print and I know yeah, so people I think really connect when they see your process so if you paint like having something that has actual paint on it that hasn't been scanned and computerized just something that shows your process and how you like to work um I think that I made a mistake by not including that in my earlier versions and got feedback that they really wanted to see how you work because from for my particular industry you can work a ton of different ways you can work from sketches, which is what I do or from direct, you know, directly with an illustrator or things like that so example here from hudson holidays in the chat room, who says, when I sent in my portfolio, I added a beautiful handmade bookmark that had all of my information on it. It was something that people could reuse and still see that information whenever they had it and paintings by k e gilmore says extras that they include possibly an actual poor drip of dried paint that they use, maybe in a plastic bag to show that it's translucent or show the nature of the paint that they would be using that's really cool uh, that's a great idea, and I love the book mark because I bet that was what they were able to keep going. So is something beautiful they could keep? It also had her information on it as a way to remind them, just keep them fresh in their mind. So I have some examples that I want to show you from other artists. First, I guess I'll show you mine, tio I'm not going to take too much time, but this is what we're going to be building later today is a hard bound look, we're going to cover and covered it with fabric, and I'll talk to you about how I printed my pages and we're going to design several of these pages as well I won't put through the whole thing, but that's one of mine the first example I want to show you is from ashley goldberg this is not her portfolio this is actually her journal but I thought it was a great example of the possibilities I loved how she used photo corners she's an artist and a photographer on dh she's done watercolor accents all over the pages and s o her website is actually goldberg dot com and you can find on instagram with her handle ashleigh goldberg and I know that she shares a lot about how she actually does pages like this too if you're interested in seeing that annika olson isa surface pattern designer who just made these beautiful portfolios is she I know she's going to be sharing a upcoming post on her blogged which is you can find a anna colson dot com and she's going to be sharing exactly how she made this portfolio so I know that she printed her pages on watercolor paper so that it had a really nice texture to it um the cover that that black cover that you see was pre made and I know that she will be sharing the source for that as well and then she's tied the binding for that which I think just gives it a really nice look. Chris chrisman is a photographer and I have two slides for him because I wanted to show this is a great example of a simple portfolio that is really impactful hey has use this crew post method which is what we're going to use today his cover goes all the way around and it's a soft cover but the inside pages are one sided and they only have one photograph on each page and that's how he shows his collections you can see over here on the right that you just puts a card on the front on then he also has a great video on his web site about his process I recommend you going to look as well but you can also see he has one page in the back with his name and contact information and that's all and so um it's a great opposite version of my super complex one that still really impactful and beautiful um to show off your photographer heidi ahmed's is really fun she's used hand marbled paper the's she lets people keep so she's made several there like envelopes style she feels them with the wax seal I think she's titled and given a story about most of her she's a painter most of her collections and this is a just a beautiful way toe send your work and let people keep it so I hope that that didn't overwhelm anybody but just inspired you let you see mind today and then a ton of other options that are available to you in orderto and make your own book really stand out and be a true reflection of you and your work
Class Materials
Bonus Materials
Bonus Materials
Ratings and Reviews
user-d55306
Bonnie, I want to give a super big Thank You! You have helped change my life. I was recently laid off from my full time job. Due to your courses, I have dedicated my time to continue designing. You have helped my heart come out on the pages. Thank you sooooo much! :) thankful & very happy, Dawn Stratchko https://www.behance.net/dawnstrat5b137
KarenEm
I thought this class was engaging and informative. Bonnie Christine has such a natural way of presenting the information and never seems to lose her concentration. I really wanted to learn more about how to put together a professional but handmade portfolio and that is what you get. Thanks for the great class!
a Creativelive Student
Absolutely loved this course! I learned so much and feel confident now on how to present my company in a consistent and professional way.