1. Use only your best. You’d think this would go without saying, but sometimes artists are so in love with a particular piece that they fail to notice that it has become dog-eared, stained, creased, coffee-stained or just not their strongest work. If you’re tempted to include a piece or two just to give your book extra pages, don’t! See #2.
2. Ten to twenty pieces is plenty. The art director or buyer probably doesn’t have time to look at any more than this, and it forces you to edit your work down to the very best. Unless you’ve been specifically requested to bring a great many pieces (and you probably won’t be), this is really a situation where less is more.
3. Keep it small… or at least medium. Remember, you’ve got to carry this portfolio AND show it on someone’s desk. Forego the behemoth book for show-and-tell. (If you already have one, keep it in your studio for storage.) A page size of 8.5 inches x 11 inches is probably the most convenient to carry and show. It also gives you the option of using 3-ring binders as portfolios. (See #4.) You can always photograph or photocopy larger pieces. Page sizes up to 11 inches x 17 inches are workable. You will regret anything larger, especially after you lugged it around all day on portfolio shows and knocked over the creative director’s coffee with it.
4. Keep it clean. No, this is not censorship: that’s up to you. But you need to keep your work physically clean and neat. The best way to do this is to use plastic sleeve pages. You can then put the pages in a 3-ring binder or a portfolio with binder rings. Advantages of each? 3-ring binders are less expensive and many can be customized with slip-in sheets on the front covers and spines. Portfolios come in zippered and unzippered varieties, may have handles and an assortment of inside pockets for leave-behinds, business cards, etc.(see #5), and can be made of luxurious materials that add to the aura of your work.
5. Keep it stocked with leave-behinds. You want the buyer to remember you and know how to get in touch with you. So, keep your portfolio stocked with business cards, resumes, sell sheets, postcards, or whatever you use (or should be using!) regularly in your marketing efforts.
6. Consider slides and disks – but with caution! It’s great to include more media in your portfolio, but not to the exclusion of traditional pages. Not everybody has a slide projector or even a light table to look at your slides. Staring up at slides by the light of the ceiling fluorescent is not likely to do justice to your work. And having a disk that’s incompatible with a potential client’s system is not likely to win you an assignment. Put these media in appropriate sleeve pages at the back of your portfolio, use them when it seems appropriate, and treat them as nice extras.
7. Keep a stock portfolio. If you’re at the stage of your career where you have more than twenty wonderful pieces, keep samples (and duplicate copies are like gold – see #10!) in plastic sleeve pages filed in a large binder in your studio. You’ll have them for reference, you’re less likely to lose or wreck them and, best of all, you can use them to create specialty and custom portfolios! (See #8.)
8. Customize! It’s futile to show your collection of logos to a client who’s interested in children’s book illustrations. Before your next portfolio show, go through your book with a critical eye. Put yourself in your prospect’s place and look at every piece with that person’s needs in mind.
9. Update! If your portfolio is a mini-retrospective, it should be a very recent one. Buyers are generally interested in what you’ve done lately. Anything more than a year or two old should be very carefully considered before inclusion in your portfolio.
10. Label the portfolio with your name, business address and phone number. Even if you never leave your portfolio on drop-off days, portfolios do occasionally go missing. If you’ve labeled it, you’ve got a fighting chance of having it returned. For security’s sake, you should probably list a business address, just as you would with luggage when travelling.
Numerous guitar music lovers look up to top professional guitarists of both long ago and current ones, speculating on just how they rose to become master guitar musicians. Many people think such profound greatness comes from a simple natural endowment. However, many would be dumbfounded to find out that a high number of these artists did not really have that natural ability in order to rise noted players, some of them never even thought of being first-class musicians from the start. On the other hand, there are many young masters who display awesome feats when young that do not always mature to being well-known master artists later in life. Indeed far more of the top prodigy players go barren as they become older for one reason or another.
So why does one guitarist become great and another one not? For some it could have been good management, big publicity or just simple luck. Although for most all of the top guitar players in existence, one key item that shows itself as the driving catalyst to greatness is the passion not only to become a better player, but also a superior artist. Many outstanding talents have the right skills (perhaps the right lineage) to become a good guitarist, however they do not necessarily have the vast desire to be unsurpassed in their craft. There exists even a bigger risk for prodigies to loose stake in their ability as they get worn of being ?sensationalized? during their younger years.
Those who may just have some talent yet also have the exact amount of bent for guitar playing may possess a far more likely chance to becoming great, considering that they would have the passion that drives them to their goal. One should hold or develop a strong enough desire to instill enough of a discipline that will keep one doing one's work. Naturally, passion by itself would not make one a great guitarist immediately, since key steps need to be taken to do so.
Firstly, one should learn from a teacher or a mentor. Why there are some rare cases of do-it-yourself successes, great guitar players more often than not have learned from great masters as well. There are millions of things that only a teacher can impart. Not even thousands of volumes of books and online lessons can replace the vast knowledge a teacher can give.
Secondly, an aspiring great guitarist has to dedicate unrelenting hours of practice over many several years. It is very true that even the great guitarists of today still practice a lot to make sure that they do not let their hands get rusty and their minds not tarnish. Even if you have the best mentor in all the world, you would not develop or improve your guitar playing much if you do not practice. But it would also be futile to practice aimlessly without a teacher telling what to practice, so these two keys are inseparable.
Thirdly, an ambitious musician should have great forbearance and a realistic self-evaluation. One should not expect astonishing advancement immediately. The road to superb guitar play is a lengthy one indeed. There will be times of quick advancement and those times that are slow. While you should be greatly encouraged when progress is quick, you should not give up hope during those times of many mistakes and moments that you think you are not learning too much.
Fourth, start the steps to greatness as soon as possible. Procrastination, as in almost every instance, is detrimental. So too it is in the music world. As much as possible do not put off lessons and practice sessions. Dedicate a special portion of your daily time to practices and lessons.
Many numerous steps exist to become a superb guitarist, but these ones mentioned above are the foundations to help get to master levels. It takes hard work and long time to become a great player but if you are dedicated to the craft, you are just a few inches behind to greatness.
Both Carol Pentleton & Arland Kent are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Carol Pentleton has sinced written about articles on various topics from Your Online Business, Guide Guitar. Carol Pentleton is a designer, artist, writer and jazz vocalist. She is also the creator and webmaster of The Digital Artist (http://www.thedigitalartist.com). The Digital Artist is an exhibit site for artists, designers and artisans. Free exhibits includ. Carol Pentleton's top article generates over 880 views. to your Favourites.
Arland Kent has sinced written about articles on various topics from Gardening, Build Muscle and Affiliate Programs. For further help to advance your guitar playing skills, click on this link .The author, Arland Kent, dabbles in numerous topic matters includ. Arland Kent's top article generates over 5400 views. to your Favourites.