Applying to university or the world of work is an exciting next step and your portfolio is an important part of this process. Here you can discover some tips on how to build a strong portfolio for your university application or for use in applying for apprenticeships/future jobs.

Just as every art student is different (with individual strengths, experiences, passions and ideas) every art school and job has different requirements and expectations. While some universities and colleges have strict criteria when it comes to preparing a portfolio, others are open and flexible.

What is it for?

It demonstrates your creativity, personality, abilities and commitment, and helps people to evaluate your potential.

What should it contain?

Greatest Hits of You Examples of your best work displaying the range in your skill-set. What is is that you can do well?

Experimentation Show your testing, process, experiments and ideas that have lead you to your final work. Interviewers, Universities and the staff you see and speak to love to see "behind the scenes" of finished work and the journey of how you got there. It also demonstrates that you can select what is worth developing and that you are able to progress with ideas instead of going for the first/easiest choice!

Carefully photographed physical processes/outcomes Use a high quality camera where possible. Take care that lighting is good, that there are no background distractions, that photos are cropped and edited to be as professional as possible. Remember, this is their first impression of you - do you want to show you have attention to detail or that you are sloppy and rushed?

Digital work Take care that digital files are carefully uploaded at high resolution. Don't photograph digital work from sketchbooks/screens, use the digital file!

Range of work From all your creative A Levels - remember they want to see evidence of your time at college. The skills you have, the projects you have completed and the different types of media you can use/are confident with. This doesn't have to be everything that they already do on their course (or what would be the point in you studying it!). It needs to show that you are passionate about creativity and are open to trying different things. You are not a one trick pony!

Be Yourself! Reveal your personality and interests. Never submit art that is an imitation of someone else’s. Aim for artwork that is new, fresh and about something that matters to you. Don’t replicate any of the portfolios you see online/in your research.

Fantastic Beginning, Middle and End You should tweak your portfolio for each course/job that you apply for to make it specific to any requests they make or information on the job specification. Hit them with an amazing starting piece, make the middle have a logical flow and finish on another great piece to make a lasting impression.

What format?

Digital Most submissions are now digital. A few housekeeping rules: make sure to send/attach your work as a pdf. This makes transfers/downloads much faster and easier for end users to open on a range of devices, they are also not editable (so your carefully laid out pages won't move/re-format and un-do all of your hard work!). Save it as "Your Name Portfolio" so that it is obvious who it belongs to/is easy for a user to find in their download folder. Powerpoint / One Note / In Design would support several slides or pages and are easy to navigate and use. They can then be uploaded to cloud storage and shared easily with prospective employers/universities via shareable links.

Physical Some subjects that are strongly tactile or typically use fewer digital processes may prefer to see the work in person. Think of intricate textile processes or how different paintings look "in real life" for example. In this case choose a size and scale appropriate to your work. Mount work carefully on boards: measure and use a set square to ensure work is mounted straight (remember, attention to detail!) Think about negative space - does this support the key elements, focal points and help guide the eye? Keep all boards a uniform colour: white works best to display the colours/tonal range of creative work without overpowering them (your background should fall back, rather than grab attention) Use appropriate fixative and take great care not to transfer gluey marks, finger prints or smudges onto creative work or backing boards!

Look at portfolio examples to gain a visual understanding of what is expected Examples of real portfolios is one of the best ways to understand the standard you are aiming for (and to gain your own art portfolio ideas). Many university and college art portfolio examples can be found online and this is true of jobs too. Try social media or YouTube and follow the advice of candidates who were successful. For universities in particular these illustrate the range of different portfolio styles that are possible and help to show how submissions for particular specialisms or degrees might differ from one another.

Check Out This Example from ex student Emily Schofield:

Emily gives great advice and talks you through her process using examples from her A Levels and Art Foundation here at Ashton Sixth Form. She has just graduated from Leeds Arts University and is currently working on her first children's book deal! Keep an eye on her socials to watch her progress @art_with_em