Start with your strongest project, end with your second best, have your third best in the middle, and the rest throughout. Try to keep it to 4-6 of your best work. That's the info I've received from a lot of my professors.

Personally I am a fan of chronological. This shows the evolution of your work and your mind. Following that strategy should lead to your last project being your best as well.

hierarchy...i can spell, i promise.

4-6 projects! hell. I've got about 10 major projects i'm looking at here. I'm coming from a multi-media installation art background. this whole thing is really overwhelming. in MFA apps, it's just 20 slides and a slide list and an essay.

I've always basically done what arketkt does. I don't get that specific about it, but I take the two strongest projects and use them as 'bookends' for the rest, because the first project is what gets them to look at the rest and the last project is what they'll remember most.

Well I have 4 major architecture projects and 6 smaller ones (poster design, exhibition design, sketches, etc.). However, there is no formula for a portfolio and sometimes it's better to go with what you like in terms of layout. But whatever you do, make sure to be selective in choosing your best work, don't overwhelm the admissions committee with mediocre work.

There is no best strategy.

A portfolio like any book tells a 'story.' You really just need to determine your 'plot line.'

Since you say you're from a multi-media background, I'd stick with the traditional methodology for art books and go chronologically. You could arrange by 'periods' assuming you have enough varied amounts of work that fit into two to four categories-- but this is more or less chronological by category.

You could turn your portfolio into a referential archive... but you need to adhere to some kind of rigid 'filing system' for that to work and make any sense-- i.e., category, alphabetically then by date.

If there's no prevailing theme, plot, category or enough work to comprise an 'anthology'... the bookend-wow-factor marketing tactic is your best bet.

Also, give weaker projects more white space. It makes them seem more important that they actually are unless they really suck.

i have a shitload of work. i've been showing in galleries, museums, and international fairs a lot the last few years, and have a collaborative effort as well as my own solo work. also, my work is pretty consistent, i.e. it all looks like I made it, personal style, what have you. in the art realm i feel pretty confident, but putting the work into an architecture paradigm and the requisite language is very foreign to me, so I don't quite know how to frame it. it sure as hell doesn't look like the portfolios I've seen on issuu so far.

for what it's worth, i'm applying to Columbia, Harvard MDesS, MIT SMVisS, and Cranbrook. this question pertains mostly to Columbia.

and thanks so much for all the responses! really helpful.

Really good cover
Table of contents with some words of interest.
Best project first
Well designed graphic design layout showing hierarchy of drawings, images, process

Each person on an admissions committees sees hundreds of portfolios.


Never have a chronological portfolio. Ever
Never show bad work
Never give pencil sketches the same importance as final work
Never have a section of personal photographs unless you majored in photography and are a Cartier-Bresson

why not chronological?

Because the work from your teens or early 20s is invariably underwhelming. Perhaps embarrassing.

Not a good first impression. Admissions committees want to see talent and ability. Then corollary items like statements and letters. Finally GRE scores and TOEFL. There is no protocol in the process to tabulate 'really bad, but a prospective diamond-in-the-rough'

I hope your success in art galleries has been well-documented and promoted. It sounds promising.

thanks!

Having a chronological portfolio does not mean include all the crappy work you've done. You still only include your best work but in a way that shows progression...and promise of future progression within the desired program.

my folio layout goes from XXL (an Urban Design Competition proposal), XL (a Mixed Use), L (Natatorium), M (a house) & S (Digital Fabrication Detail) followed by three pages of professional work. (i can't say if this has worked for me)

this one http://issuu.com/howdyhassss1/docs/portfolio_final seems to follow the first last middle and then sprinkle throughout model of goodness. I think it works fairly well. it's also someone i'm apparently competing against. but my portfolio will look nothing like this even were i to try.

"Having a chronological portfolio does not mean include all the crappy work you've done... You still only include your best work but in a way that shows progression."

Doesn't that contradict itself? If you're showing your own progression then you're showing how your work has improved, therefore showing worse work at the beginning?

My recommendation is also for the first/last/middle instead of chronological. When I applied to architecture last year from fine art I got input from my studio profs, and the best advice I received was from my (then) current studio prof. She told me that your first one needs to pull the admissions committee into your work; the last page of your portfolio is the one that they leave open on the table/up on the projector/etc. while they deliberate if they will accept you or not. When that happens, you want them to be impressed.

i dont think my earlier work is worse than my later work, just different. perhaps i'm delusional. also, to put it in context of bands, isn't their first album usually the best one? of course, there's exceptions (Radiohead, Black Sabbath).

but I get you, I was sort of feeling the same thing. bang at the beginning, dazzle at the end. now let's just hope they go for my bananas layout.

If I done over 20 iterations of a project and most of them are bad models as I went through the learning process of making good models, should I include them all in one page in chronological order, or should I only include the models that my professors like?

I have some great drawings from when I was 17. They conceptually prelude and reinforce all my later design ideas. They're placed on the first page next to my most recent project. The penultimate is diverse installation/graphic work and it ends with sculptural pieces related to those first drawings.