Portfolio types:

For any new jobs or university interviews, portfolios are a great way to present our images. There are many types, all with pros and cons. I am needing an A3 size to show my work as a whole and to give more detail and more for the interviewer(s) to look at. There are many types of portfolios; display books, clamshell boxes, presentation folders and also online portfolios.

I have found a great website called "London graphic centre" which offers a 15% student discount. It can be found here: http://www.londongraphics.co.uk/

Display books:
These books have a fixed number of pages in, and are usually one orientation. This means that if you're images are different orientations (some portrait, some landscape) the viewer will have to turn the book. Therefore you will need to carefully think about placement, and having images of similar orientation next to each other. However, these can look very professional as they can be leather bound. There are multiple different types of books, some with fixed amount of sleeves and some where you can add up to 20 sleeves (40 images).

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PRAT Pampa Spiralbook A3 Black (including 20 Cristal Laser Sleeves): 

Can  be found here:

Price: £49.96

Description:

Our top selling display book range.

Soft cover made from bonded leather with a lappet closure.

Modular spiral mechanism enables you to replace or add pages easily.

Can hold up to 20 sleeves

Comes with 20 Cristal Laser Sleeves

The Cristal Laser sleeves are made from non-stick polypropylene closed on 2 sides and are archival safe & acid free

My thoughts: 

I am very impressed about the outside look of the book, however, I am not keen on the ring binder middle. This could easily break and pages could fall out. 

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PRAT Siva Classic Press Book A3

Can be found here:

Price: £63.99

Description

The PRAT Siva has a semi-rigid black cover with black saddle stitching which gives this book a stylish, professional appearance

It contains 20 super clear, archival safe, non-stick polypropylene sleeves which are permanently welded to the spine of the book

Each sleeve has an acid-free, black paper insert

It is not possible to add or replace sleeves to this book.

My thoughts:

I am very impressed by this book, it seems very sturdy and unlikely to break. The pages wont come out. There is alot of pages to fill, so i may find an alternative with less. However, this seems like the most likely to be brought. 

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PRAT Slimbook Press Book A3

Can be found here:

Price: £31.99

Description

The PRAT Slimbook has a rigid welded black cover which gives a slim, modern appearance

It contains 12 crystal clear, archival safe, non-stick polypropylene sleeves which are permanently welded to the spine of the book

Each sleeve has an acid-free, black paper insert

It is not possible to add or replace sleeves to this book.

My thoughts:

This looks very flimsy and cheap, compared to the book above. However, there was a smaller amount of sleeves, not leaving some unfilled sleeves. 

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PRAT Volga Spiralbook A3

Can be found here:

Price: £39.99

Description

Rigid cover black spiralbook

Covered in unique textured material

Modular spiral mechanism enables you to replace or add pages easily

Perfect flat opening

Can hold up to 20 sleeves (comes with 10 Cristal Laser sleeves)

Thoughts:

Similar to PRAT Pampa Spiralbook, I am not very keen on the ringbinder middle, this could help me have enough sleeves for my images, but it could break. 

It also looks very educational, like a folder of college work, instead of portfolio and showing your best work.

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Mapac Professional Presenter A3

Can be found here:

Price: 38.82

Description

A professional leather look display book perfect for presentations

Elegant appearance with soft, padded leather look outer

Includes 20 fixed polypropylene sleeves filled with jet black acid free inserts.

Thoughts:

I am keen on this book as the ring binder cannot be opened and matches the colour of the book. It blends in more, compared to similar styles. The outer book is leather and looks very sturdy and professional. Can have multiple sizes - A3 shown in picture (the biggest). 

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Clamshell and Portfolio boxes:

Archival Photographic Image Box A3

Can be found here:

Price: £58.91

Description

This high quality storage and presentation box has been designed to safely hold artwork, photographs and more

To protect your work even further, the box is made from acid and chlorine free materials and is museum quality

The box opens flat which is a smart and convenient feature for the presentation of your work

The boxes are black lined and have an internal depth of 38mm.

Thoughts:

All images can be seen at once, been shown on a table. This may be easier to locate certain, higher quality pieces of work to talk about in an interview. However, they wont be in a fixed order, can be mixed up easily. Very interactive with the interviewer(s), they get to be a part of your presentation. 

Social media and online portfolios:

Twitter
Tumblr
Pintrest

Facebook:

Facebook pages have many pros and cons; However, one of the most important thing is that they can be found via Google. Here, figure 1,  I typed in my page name and the first thing found was my page. This gives an bigger audience and that they can see your page from a simple search.   

Other pros of having a page is that you can separate work and personal life, once a page is set up. There is no need to filter through personal updates, you should always keep your personal life separated from business.  Possible clients can see your work without any changing of settings and very quickly, via a search of Facebook. You can still have messages, wall posts, comments and even sales/ competitions to max your audience (share and like the picture to be in a chance to win… ) 

The cons include posts only being seen by some of the fans, due to Facebook's settings and wanting to get money from business pages.  The photos you upload on Facebook are also not safe, part of the terms and conditions is that Facebook can use the images as they are its property. Therefore it is worth watermarking work, to show its yours and to also let audiences  know where the image has come from, meaning a higher audience reach. 

My Facebook page shows my logo and I also have the opportunity to have my best picture, at the moment,  as a cover photo, to enchant the audience into browsing deeper. It could be a collage of images, or perhaps just a slogan – but it must say something about the page. All my images are in the corner, in a sort of box shape, which again, gives the audience a view on my current shoots and adventures. This could be changed into my portfolio, at the side. 

Figure 1:

Figure 2:

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Behance:
This website allows you to show different projects you have worked on, both WIP and completed. It shows you one main page, where all of the projects are located, illustrated with a cover photo (that summarizes the project) and then allows the audience to click the icon and see all the pictures. It allows you to add the creative field it belongs to, tags  (about the image so people can click and see relevant work) and even a description, to give more content, see figure 1. This could also allow  you to organize and show your work more professionally.  Figure 2 shows the opportunity ,after publishing your page, to link and show more audiences that you have made a project. Again, attracting the audiences attention in more than one site.
Figure 3 shows my first project, you can leave appreciations,  comments and also share the project. Perhaps this project is a portrait session, this could be shared by the model and then attract more clients.    Figure 4 shows the beginning of my portfolio, one it is done it will allow the audience to scroll through all my work and begin to get an idea of my style of photography.

Here I have posted an update on my Facebook page to my Behance. My audience on here would then click and see my projects. They could then share it on and I could reach more audiences.

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Wix and other online website makers:
Having your own website is similar to an in hand portfolio; within a quick flick or click, you can see all your best images. The one difference is that on the website you can organise your images into pages, which all of names. You can have an about and contact page, letting all sorts of clients come and contact about prices etc. This gives you a direct link to the audience and lets you know how to improve on your website. You can link to other social media, shown below, which expands your audiences on all the media. However, your home page needs to be captivating and showing your best, eye catching, bright and inspiring work. I have done this via having a slideshow of 6 images, one from each catergory, highlighting my skills and just giving the audience little information. They can then click onto the image and it will send them onto the correct page where they can see more work. 

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Twitter:

Pros:
Can link to other social media
Easily give updates and links to other social medias
Great way to communicate to different audiences.
Wide type of users/audiences. Different ages etc

Cons:
Not very good for viewing of images - mostly used for text and sometimes settings means that the audience has to click to view - or even misses tweet.
Caption characters are limted- cant describe shots, talking and information about business is limited.

Louise West: cotton to concrete and beyond

Date: 8/10/14                                                                            Speaker: Louise west - Lace

She has used a variety of designs and techniques to get to her point at the moment. Beginning by defining lace, she described it by “a collection of threads combined to make patterns and holes”. This was something in history, first beginning at the Egyptians and turning to England in the 16th century. The traditional lace masters not only brought the tools, they also brought seeds and veg still used in England today. The 19th century brought machines and the great exhibition brought and showed the Maltese lace.
She then described her work and qualifications, starting with city and guilds in 2005, and the diploma in the following year. She then did a BA hons in textile design in Derby University. Whilst this happened, she was asked to work for Nottingham contemporary, in creating lace, from a design, so they can make a mould from this.
However, there was issues and she ended up needing to Photoshop for 35 hours to create this lace. Eventually the mould was created and used concrete to add detail to the foundations of the building.

She finished her BA in 09, then went onto a masters (MA) and began focusing on flowers, drawing and researching as much as possible to create her work as good as possible. She began using silver clay, to create flowers, but it still has the concept, the holes, of lace. She then went to glass and for her final pieces she used glass, and wire for a sculpture. She described how the studio she was at, placed in the university, wasn’t good or big enough and then moved. This allowed her to have more space and to create her sculpture. She used a pillar, then created a wire mesh and her lace around this. Once finished, she had work in the Bowes museum.
She highlighted the BA as a big starting point and this was similar to Gemma G. She now does bobbin lace classes, for 6-8 people. Situated at the WEA, The Mill, Lodge Lane, Derby, DE1 3HB

Artists opinon: 

"A couple of weeks ago I posted the photo of the piece of Wisteria lace which I had recently finished, I have now finished a piece of pyrography of this design as well. I have only just started using this medium, but I really like the way this piece has worked in it, and now on the look out for more pieces of nice sycamore wood to work on. My late Father would now be laughing as I always said I wasn't going to get into wood! The pyrography panel is 135% of the original lace, this allows me to create 'lace' much bigger than the original design."

I am really inspired by this picture. It shows the lace design, but with ink. The colour is very dark and brown and reminds me of an old, withering away plant. From her talk, plants are one of her inspirations for this shoot. The print is big and inspires me to try different ways of showing my images and presenting them. This is including pyrography (the art of decorating wood or other materials with burn marks resulting from the controlled application of a heated object such as a poker).

Louisewestlacedesign.co.uk