Customer Reviews

Designing a Digital Portfolio

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the best books on its topic that I have ever seen. From the title, I expected to find advice on preparing images for the screen, how to put them on a CD or DVD, etc. Those things are there, but the book begins in a logical place that I wouldn't have considered. Brown's approach is truly holistic.

Check out page 23 for the first page of a three-page self assessment check list. It has you evaluate your professional strengths and weaknesses, goals and personality.

Chapter 3 asks you a bunch of questions to help you identify who your audience really is and focus on them.

The rest of the book covers various digital formats, how to organize your work, how to get images of 3D and oversized work into your portfolio, including choosing a camera and setting up for shooting.

Ms. Brown covers editing your images to remove the most common problems, such as moire, sharpening needs, bad crops, etc. And ... she devotes a section to creating written content to accompany your stunning images, telling you how to write to that audience you defined earlier.

She explains the differences between a monitor screen and a printed page. You need to know that to design the correct interface for your portfolio. She also has a full chapter devoted to marketing and copyright issues.

The entire book is scattered with quotes (in friendly green type) from experts and those who have gone before you. The quotes tell you what agencies are looking for in a portfolio, how others have found success at this, what things you can do to streamline the process, etc.

For several months I searched for an appropriate textbook for a course that I was developing. Several days prior to the deadline for the course outline, "Designing a Digital Portfolio " was published. After reading the book, I realized this was the authoritative text for anyone in a creative field. The book asks and answers all the essential questions. It is perfect for the technological savvy multimedia programmer or for any artist with limited technology expertise. I urge anyone who is even considering developing a digital portfolio to buy this book. Without qualification, this is the most valuable book on the market

Multimedia Portfolio Instructor/Art Institute/Art Institute Online
Subject Matter Expert / Curriculum Development Multimedia Portfolio

If you set can aside the near 100% focus on digital media (though it is excellent for that kind of format) and not hyperventilate in feeling like you need to come up with Flash or DVDs after reading this, it offers solid points on portfolio content, whatever format you choose.

It covers what should go in, what should not go in, how much should go in, how/if to deal with process pieces, storyboarding,
thematic ties to pull a disparate portfolio together, and sage advice on basics like the kinds of written copy you want to include, such as design briefs, problem statements, and tag lines. It's my favorite book for this effort right now. My husband's, too. I have to pry it off his desk.

It's also savvy when it comes to marketing, so I think it will have a long shelf life in my library for the days when I need to market myself on other things besides landing a job, like marketing my firm.

It has some printed web site design examples which offer visual eye inspiration for printed page layout. It even has great image workflow tips, towards preserving the best image quality with the least needed resolution, that are comprehensible to the lay person as well as meaningful to someone with a high degree of digital photographic processing background.

Most artists can't do everything - usually they are somewhere in the middle of a chain of production responsiblities that don't include the skillsets involved with presenting a portfolio, digital or otherwise. Many points of insider knowledge are invaluable - I was on the cusp of using PowerPoint for my CD portfolio (my wife has strong skills with this) before being warned that this bussiness presentation software's would be viewed with derision by art directors, and that a high resolution version of a website format is the way to go here - this one parcel of knowledge was worth the price of the book alone, but it is far from the only lesson imparted. Highly recommended - it doesn't stray into realms of esoterica for the sake of pagecount.

I read through this book once, just to get an overall feel. I was totally delighted with the quality and the depth of material. I've read many books on portfolios and many more on website design, but all of them together couldn't do what this one book did. I was finally ready to create my portfolio (months later) and prepared to go through it again making detailed notes when, to my deep consernation, the darn thing went missing.

So I just bought another one, started skimming through it and then reading it carefully, making notes. I am again wowed by the sheer amount of information pertinent to what I am trying to do. From detailing what types of pieces make sense for which type of designer (and even helping you figure out which type you really are), to resumes, to how to present yourself and your material, to desiging the site, it's all in there.

Along the way, she sprinkles comments from some of the greats in the field on what they expect. On top of that, there are so many great examples of sites in the book, that it can serve simply as a top notch idea book when you're done building your portfolio.

I can't say enough about how helpful this book has been. Every few sentences, I get a great idea and have to go work on it, so it will take me a while to get all the way through the book a second time. But I know I'll have something that really represents me and what I do best, and what I want to continue doing.

This handbook is targeted at beginners in designing portfolios to submit their artwork or photos when job hunting. It is filled with information, however most is very basic and will only be a review for most readers.

I found this book to be helpful but to be a bit to much for me. It was a bit technical and has a lot of jargon in it for me. This would be a great book for someone that has a bit more digital design experience than me. It really tells you how to create great portfolios, but unfortunately I wasn't able to do all the technical stuff.
I would recommend this book for someone that's familiar with web design, especially flash. Great tips if you want to create websites professionally.

I have to be honest, when I ordered this book for a recent portfolio class that I've been taking, I wasn't really that excited. However, upon reading this book after it arrived, I was absolutely stunned at the great information and the concise way the author writes. It is a great book and one that I will consider very valuable in my collection from now on. Thank you for a great book!

I'm a graphic designer and I needed this book for a class and let me tell you... I used this book SO MUCH!!! Probably the best book I had to use during college. THIS IS THE BOOK TO HAVE IF YOU ARE BUILDING YOU PORTFOLIO!!!!!

I had to purchase this book for a college class and found it to be quite helpful. I referred to it often as I was looking at what I wanted in my portfolio and how I wanted it to look.