December 13th, 2007
A Children’s Illustration Portfolio: 10 Things to Include
Published in: Uncategorized
1. Your best possible work. Don’t include work just for quantity sake – make sure each piece you include is at your highest standard. Most people recommend you include 10-15 pieces.
2. A unique illustration style that draws you out from the crowd. There are SO many children’s illustrators out there that it’s important to have a unique style or approach that will help potential clients remember you. Differentiate yourself in a manner that is comfortable and natural.
3. Children with different expressions, moods, movements, interacting with other children.
4. Children in different settings. These settings can include children at school, on the playground, at home, at a pool party, and the list goes on!
5. Children of different ages along with parents, grandparents, teachers, etc.
6. Children of different ethnicities.
7. Animals.
8. Illustrations of different sizes and compositions. Be able to demonstrate your ability to work your illustrations into a book layout or a magazine article. Having examples of two page spreads or spot illustrations are important to emphasize your understanding of composition and design.
9. A series of illustrations with the same characters carried throughout. You may be able to draw an expressive, wonderfully charming character the first time, but being able to repeat this character many times is an important skill for picture books.
10. A business card and take-away samples of your work. Make sure both these items are reflective of your style as an illustrator in both design and format.
I’d love to know if you have more you’d add to the list!
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Wow!great tutorial and advices! Thanks a lot!
A very helpful blog post. I often struggle with trying to perfect my portfolio and make it as marketable as possible. It is nice to have a simple guide like this that can help steer people having trouble with their children’s illustration portfolio.
I’ve saved this on my reader for a later reflection. Here I am, months after, appreciating such precious advice. Thank you so so sooooo much Rachelle. Now, I gotta put my brains (and hands) into working. :)
Tarsila – I’m glad my post can still be helpful! Good luck with your work :)
Hey Rachelle!
Thanks for this helpful post. How large would you recommend a physical portfolio be, dimension-wise? I’ve heard it’s best to have something that is easy to handle and store, but there are so many sizes between 8.5×11 – 11×17 out there! Also, for children’s illustrations, is it better to have a vertical or horizontal portfolio? Vertical is the traditional, but maybe horizontal is better for showing a book layout? Any advice would be much appreciated! Thanks :)
Yifan – The size and format of your portfolio should be chosen based on your type of work. For children’s illustration, a smaller portfolio is sufficient as your work shouldn’t be too large to begin with. I have been told by various people in the past that smaller portfolios are more favourable as they are easier to handle :) If you are mostly showing landscape children’s illustration spreads, I would opt to choose a landscape format portfolio. Ultimately it’s your work that will speak for itself – you just want to make sure you’re displaying it in an easy, clear format. Pick a portfolio shape/size that fits best with your work. I don’t think it matters too much if you pick 8.5×11 or 11×17 – these sizes and anything in between are all great, manageable sizes. It’s also very important (if not MORE important) to have an online portfolio for potential clients/employers to view. Almost all my work is acquired through my website so I couldn’t recommend this any higher.
Hope this helps!
Thanks Rachelle…it definitely does help :)