Creative portfolio advice from Rosie Black who heads up creative and design perm at Major players
ABOUT ME
The about me section of your portfolio is of massive importance to us as recruiters and also your hiring managers. This section is one of the first things I look at in a portfolio and what it should do is paint a picture of you as a creative person. Therefore you need to take us on a journey throughout your career, talk us through your professional and personal achievements and how you have arrived at where you are now. Then express where you might want to be going moving forward.
When it comes to the work that you are showing in your portfolio, lead with your best or you’re most favourite work. It is really important you show the campaigns that really inspire you. We want to feel inspired as recruiters so by showing us this it shows your passion. It is an incredibly saturated market out there in the creative world. Therefore it is really important that you have work in your portfolio that sets you aside from the next creative.
DESIGN
What makes a really great portfolio is a blend of live and speculative campaign work. The live work is brilliant because it shows us what you are capable of, on a day to day basis, including all the work that has run. Also don’t be afraid to show things that haven’t run, as they might just be your best ideas but were not suited for that particular campaign. Or show off your speculative work that you work on outside your day to day. At the moment a lot of what we see is a lot of live work in portfolios, which can often pigeonhole people into a particular sector.
CAMPAIGNS
When it comes to your portfolio it is really important that you are giving your campaigns a sense of context. Outline your brief, outline what the insight might have been and outline the solution, all through copy. You don’t need to over saturate your portfolio with loads of content, however do give us a top line understanding of how you got that brief and how you arrived at that solution. Therefore each project within your portfolio should clearly articulate your idea.
WHAT WE LOOK FOR
It is great to have your beautiful craft on show within your portfolio, however please don’t be afraid to show us your rough ready raw scamps in your portfolio. This is so we can find out if you have that conceptual capability, to be able to run with an idea and take that right the way through.
