Portfolio Layout Advice
Hey everyone! Welcome back to another post :) It’s Linda here, and I’m going to be giving you guys some tips to help you organise and layout your portfolio. This post mainly focuses on design studio portfolios which you submit as an architecture student, but some of the advice can still be applied to other types of portfolios, for example when you apply to university, or when you’re looking for a job.
1. Make your portfolio as you go along
Something worth mentioning is that your portfolio isn’t something to put together right at the end of a project, or your studies etc. You build up your portfolio as you progress through your design, developing it along the way and making incremental amendments as you improve your work. It is easier to get your portfolio together if you always have the layout of the final page in mind and apply it to the work you've currently got. The back-and-forth nature of the design process means that your layouts will change as you work through your project. Having said that, it’s worth making some upfront decisions about your portfolio layout early on so that perfecting it at the end goes smoothly.
2. Stick to a colour scheme
Sticking to a colour palette brings your portfolio together and makes your work more aesthetically appealing. Limit yourself to a couple of colours to use throughout your portfolio. If you're struggling to visualise which colours go well together, use Adobe Colour to build a colour scheme, or look at some examples of graphic design work to get inspiration.
3. Use complimentary fonts
Font pairings, sizing and weight should complement the work and be kept minimal so as not to distract from the visuals on your pages. Spend a bit of time looking into serif and sans-serif fonts and experiment with combinations that work with your style. If you're looking for that perfect font that isn't built into the programs you currently have, browse through the internet to find downloadable ones which appeal to you.
4. Align your work
Whilst the exact layout of each single page may differ as you adapt it to different types of content, elements like headers and distance between captions and images should remain constant if you want to maintain consistency throughout your pages. If you're working with Adobe, make use of rulers, margins and master pages in InDesign to ensure your work is perfectly aligned across your portfolio.
5. Pay attention to hierarchy
Emphasise the main talking points of your portfolio using different techniques of graphic design. Sizing up your content and playing with the qualities of colours are two examples of ways you can bring the focus of your pages to the most important subjects you want to show, which brings me onto my next point:
6. Focus on visuals, not text
Architecture is a visual subject, and we often hear something along the lines of ‘your work should speak for itself’. This means we have to communicate through images and graphics rather than written descriptions of what we are trying to convey. In other words, your drawings and visual content should always be the focal point of your pages. One main section of your portfolio where you should take care to implement this is in your research pages.
It’s likely that any client or background research you undertake will involve written information. Converting facts and statistics into infographics, or occupant research into storyboards and diagrams are good ways to get around this. Something that helps to do this effectively is defining a narrative for your project from this early research phase of the design process, which can inspire ways to visually depict the relevant information that applies to and sets the context for your project.
7. Filter through the 'over-crowdedness'
It can be tempting to try and fit everything you’ve worked on over the semester onto your portfolio pages. However, this can make your pages overcrowded and the information on there hard to digest. When you try to communicate too much at once, you end up not communicating much at all. Don’t be afraid to have less content and more space around your work. The next and final point addresses how to do this.
8. Be selective about what you include
Submissions are sometimes limited to the amount of work you can submit e.g. there may be an overall page limit to your portfolio. This means you have to be selective about which work you eventually choose to include in your portfolio. In the grander scheme of things, this trains you to be decisive about what you're going to show as your professional portfolio when you start working in the industry, as you have to be able to instantly capture the main elements of your projects as succinctly as possible. Part of being able to do this requires thinking ahead when producing your representational work.
When it comes to orthographics, decide on the most effective cutting planes for your plans and sections, so you require less drawings overall to communicate activities, spatial organisation and the features of the building fabric for your design. Select collages that communicate the narrative of your design effectively. You can still convey materiality and spatial qualities, albeit in a more abstract manner, but collages are an opportunity to tell a story of how your spaces are experienced in a more dynamic way than a detailed section or realistic render can. These are just some examples of ways which you can narrow down what you include, but don't worry if you struggle at first. It's a skill that you'll get better at over the course of your studies.
If you want to take a look at examples of great architecture portfolios, we recommend browsing through Issuu to see what other students have produced and how they've put their final work together.
Got more questions on portfolio layouts? Get in touch with us through our email dabbleenquiries@gmail.com or through our Instagram @archidabble, where you can stay up to date with our latest content.
See you next week where we'll be back with another post!
