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.