Portfolios – An Essential Primer For Today’s Competitive Market – Maura Keller

Embody 3D will now begin reviewing books that may interest our readers. We have some really exciting pre-release titles that we will be reviewing over the next few months that will surely be of great value professionally as well as provide some inspiration and entertainment for your design endeavours. Some of the books will be heavily geared towards industrial designers whilst others will be relevant to designers of any discipline so it will be interesting to cross fertilise ideas around different design industries. To get the ball rolling we have an absolutely fantastic book titled ‘Portfolios – An Essential Primer For Today’s Competitive Market’ by Maura Keller. I walked into this book thinking that I knew everything there was to know about effective portfolio design, but I walked away humbled about the many years of inconsiderate and poorly concluded portfolios I had delivered to potential clients, employers, marketers and salespeople.

This book also brought me down to earth in the standard expectations of portfolios in todays competitive design market. After seeing the stunning pictures throughout the book I was overwhelmed by the amount of capital design consultancies and studios are placing on their portfolio design. The designs are incredibly and it has certainly inspired me to get my act together and redesign my current portfolio offerings. Please read on!

Article by Martin Gibson – @embody3d @martingibson – 15.05.2010

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“Portfolios. They are the classic sticky wicket. If you do them right, you will thrive. If not, you can lose money and potential customers.” These are the opening words and premis of the book ‘Portfolios – An Essential Primer For Today’s Competitive Market’, where the author, Maura Keller, explores the intricacies of effective portfolio design in today’s market climate. Who should make a portfolio? How can portfolios be used? How should we make one? Who should we distribute it to? These questions are the essence of the book and nothing gets unanswered, making this highly visual book an unforgettable reference to any student, professional or design studio. The great utility of Portfolios is that it is valuable to students who may have no idea where to start or how to structure their first portfolio, but is equally valuable to an established design studio who maybe seeking a competitive advantage to woo their prospective clients

The most important and difficult part about developing a successful portfolio is really finding out who you are and what type of business you operate, and this might be more subliminal than one would think. What is your culture, what is your design style and philosophy, these considerations should filter throughout your portfolio. Not to mention, who is your customer, who is your target market and all these initiatives are clearly and well explained throughout. Portfolios gives you very practical strategies for creating your new dazzling portfolio. Throughout the book, it references real world portfolios that effectively present the concepts the book is trying to convey. These real world portfolios are enjoyable to look at and I guarantee will inspire your own creative desire to remix your current business or personal portfolio offerings. Portfolios should be memorable and some of the examples cited include a huge array of graphical genres including magazine formats, an interactive game, a pop up book, drink coasters, a childrens story book and even printed on the products they sell!

The book is structured in three main sections:

1. Planning Your Portfolio – identifying the purpose of your portfolio
2. Creating Your Portfolio – identifies creative strategies for effective portfolio communication
3. Implementing Your Portfolio – identifies how you should deploy your portfolio in the market place

This is then followed by some stunning case studies of successful portfolio implementations and then followed by some additional resources. These simple steps will lay the foundation for making your portfolio highlight your businesses strengths concisely and will create a wow factor when clients flicker through dozens of portfolios in a matter of seconds.

Later in Portfolios it explains how making connections and networks is so important simultaineously during your portfolio development. So the book really does serve also as a marketing guide as it presents ways of measuring the success of your portfolio financially and suggests strategies to increase sales like trying not to oversell and not to lack good follow up communication. The author doesn’t hold back on details on this matter including how much you should toot your own horn so to speak. Should you be overly confident in tone, or should you be humble or somewhere in the middle?

The aspect I found most interesting about Portfolios is that it considers the context of the traditional book styled portfolio in a world of increasingly digital domain. It acknowledges the increasing importance of digital portfolios in economies that are becoming more globalised and time schedules seem increasingly smaller that makes in person portfolio meetings more of a luxury. The book explains the advantages and disadvantages of the web vs print in a delicate and honest way.

There are also some great Q&A’s as well that will cover all of those finicky questions us designers have from time to time, including:

1. What should and should not be included in a portfolio and how should it be presented? (should I include sketches, computer renders, models etc.)
2. How often should designers promote themselves?
3. What role does the internet, websites and blogs play in todays portfolio environment? (where should I invest my resources?)
4. How big should my portfolio be?
5. How much detail should I get into for each project?
6. How creative or bland should I be in my portfolio’s aesthetic design/style?
7. In my new portfolio campaign should I also produce brochures, business cards, websites, interactive CD’s?

If I haven’t given you enough reasons to purchase this book right now let me give you 4 more, which really highlight the importance of the portfolio for any studio or design entrepreneur:

1. Portfolios get you noticed
2. Portfolios add to your credibility
3. Portfolios garner a level of respect
4. Portfolios build your confidence