General Principles for a Good Illustration Portfolio

Learn what to include in your portfolio, on Instagram and other formats, to sell your work to art directors and publishers

In recent years, Instagram has become an ideal tool for illustrators to showcase their work. At the same time, it is an excellent place for art directors and publishers to review and assess artists’ portfolios in seconds.

Sandra López is the founding director of PENCIL·ILUSTRADORES (@pencil), the first illustration agency in Spain, currently representing about thirty artists. She recognizes the value of this platform and offers valuable insight and tips to plan a portfolio that generates curiosity in potential clients.

Sandra López's experience designing and analyzing artists' and illustrators' portfolios is extensive; she knows how to present an illustrator's artwork and show precisely what a client wants to see.

Read on to learn the general principles to keep in mind when presenting your portfolio on Instagram and in other formats.

Portfolio criteria

A portfolio is a selection of images of your work. It is not a simple compilation and must be well-thought-out to show your work adequately. It must fulfill two criteria:

One: It is an accurate representation of your work. It must define you and project you artistically.
Two: It aims to generate assignments. You must, therefore, evaluate it from the clients' point of view. Make and show the selected work adequately.

Clients fall into different sectors. The work you select to showcase to children's books publishers will be different from what you would choose for the educational industry, and even more so if you want to create covers for literature aimed at adult readers. Therefore, you will need to create a new portfolio and even create new images for each separate sector. In any case, your portfolio must be complete.

What to include in your portfolio

Your portfolio does not need to include loads of images, but it must be complete. This means that it must be a reflection of everything you are capable of producing.

For example, suppose you are preparing a portfolio for textbooks. In this case, you will need to include examples of different subjects, aimed at different age groups, from infants to secondary school children. "To an art director, what is not in the portfolio does not exist", says Sandra.

What not to include

Sandra recommends not to include any weak work, anything that you'd present by apologizing. Also, do not include experimental exercises that appear as isolated samples within that portfolio.

Avoid including anything that no longer represents you, as you run the risk of having to complete work that you may not enjoy doing anymore.

A living document

Remember that a portfolio is never finished, it is a living tool, and we must add new work to it all the time, not just newly commissioned work.

If you use this as an excuse, you'll end up not presenting it.

If you’d like to know how to plan a strategy from scratch or optimize an existing one, sign up to Sandra Lopez’s course Creating an Illustration Portfolio on Instagram, and learn how to connect with your audience and boost your illustration portfolio like a professional.

You may also like:

- Keys for Creating a Professional Illustration Portfolio, a course by PENCIL·ILUSTRADORES
- Meet Illustrator Lapin and his Fantastic Universe
- How to Promote Yourself and Your Work to the Right People