How's Your Portfolio Looking These Days?

Remember near the end of school, you bought that sexy black portfolio case that was so expensive you were forced to subsist on ramen noodles for months afterwards? Along with the box, you picked up the 3-foot sheets of Letramax and meticulously cut them down to uniform rectangles and adorned these with the best of your student work.

What ever happened to that sexy box? While you've been creating newer work and perhaps updating your website with medium-res jpegs are you neglecting the physical design boards that you worked so hard over?

I was guilty of that for over a year.  Whenever I got pieces from a completed print job, I'd grab 5 or 6 pieces and toss them into the box and forget about them. Today I have 2 annual reports, 3 different brochures, 4 brand new logo designs, and a book that I've not mounted for display. It's time to get my samples together AND to get rid of some of the older pieces that are no longer relevant in my portfolio box.

The reason for this newfound commitment to updating my portfolio is the sexy new portfolio box that I found in Plaza art  in MT. Vernon last month. The new box has a brushed copper finish, binder rings for extra copies of my resume or references, it accommodates about a dozen 8x10 Letramax boards, AND it fits in my sleek brown leather briefcase (this thing barely holds my 13" MacBook). This is smaller than anything else I've ever seen in school or with other designers.  More than that, this bad boy cost me $12.

I also picked up some rich brown, textured leather (some sort of swamp reptile, I believe) to conceal the top cover and give the box a very expensive look. I want the casual observer to glow green with envy of my luxurious little case.

I have two different portfolios that I show; a Web only version that holds 10 samples, and a Web & print version  that holds 9 samples. So, this weekend, after I finish up a freelance project, I'm mounting 19 new boards and ordering them in the manner I've been taught, and putting them in my sexy new box away for another year.