Need help prepping your zine portfolio or could use some pointers? Here’s a brief guide for choosing and organizing your works to make a successful portfolio!
Let’s start with artists.
What format should you use? Simple is usually best! Google Drive folders are often preferred because they easily display your work with no extra steps. Carrds, websites, or curated social media work too, so long as there is not extra material or posts hiding your work. Try to have as few clicks before seeing your work as possible, so no need to separate work into folders and certainly don’t require a mod to search your entire page for it—they may not have the time.
Make sure that your work is publicly viewable! Double and triple check that your Drive folder is shared publicly or your websites are not behind a password.
When choosing which pieces to include, always choose your best and most polished work. All works should be complete, in full color, and be fully shaded or rendered. Try to have at least some of your works be approximately something that would be found in a zine, which usually means about A5 sizing. Backgrounds are an essential skill for zines; make sure you show you can draw them well. Of course, sometimes some of these elements are excluded in a piece as a stylistic choice, but all are important skills to show you have.
If possible, try to include the topic of the zine in your portfolio. It does not need to be every single piece. If you only have WIPs or messy work of the topic, then it may not be worth it to include it and that’s alright (though make sure the zine does not require art of the subject when making that decision. Ours does not).
Most zines ask for featured works separate from the portfolio. These are the first things mods look at when evaluating your application. Choose your strongest three (or however many are asked for) pieces as your featured works. Typically, try to include art within the fandom as a featured work if you can. Try to have those vital skills on display in these as well (backgrounds, rendering, etc) so it’s immediately clear you’ve got what it takes.
No need for every piece to hit every point. Try your best for the portfolio together to hit most of them and meanwhile you can work on creating some art specifically to show off anything you’re missing!
There are some things you want to avoid including at risk of weakening your portfolio. A portfolio is only as strong as its weakest piece, so having less pieces is better than having weaker pieces. Only include polished work you’re most proud of. WIPs, sketches, or isolated character work may give the impression that you won’t provide a complete zine piece. Including multiple styles or mediums (especially ones that you wouldn’t be comfortable using for the zine) may confuse a mod as they might not know which you’ll use. If you include multiple styles, make sure that you are skilled and polished enough in all of them to use them for the zine. It’s totally fine to have a smaller portfolio, especially if you’re just starting out—don’t clog it with art that’s not your finest.
Merch portfolios are very similar to page art portfolios, but focus on character-centric work often without backgrounds. Do research on what makes a good merch design, because not all compositions translate well to physical products.
Photographs of merch you’ve made are excellent, but if you don’t have them then you can make mock-ups to help mods understand what you’re envisioning for the final product. Merch portfolios can be a combination of photos, mock-ups, and designs. Print samples may look very similar to a typical page art piece.
If applying as both a page and merch artist, you will likely want to have separate portfolios, as the roles require emphasis on different skills.
Writer portfolios are similar to artist portfolios in that they should contain only your best work. You may also use a Google Drive folder or another hosting website so long as it is highly curated and does not contain many other works to sift through. Typically, zines ask for 3-6 works under 3k words, but double check these numbers with each project you apply to.
If you’re applying to a specific role, such as poetry or article writing, try to have those kinds of samples ready. It may help to make a separate portfolio for those more specific applications.
Here are some other tips! Of course, there’s an infinite amount of ways to make a great portfolio, so if this guide isn’t working for you that’s totally fine. Experiment with different ways if you’d like!
Our applications open soon. Good luck!
Got additional questions? Send an ask here on Tumblr or on our Retrospring! We’re always happy to help or clarify.
