2) Online Graphic Design Portfolio
It is essential in this day and age to have an online portfolio. So what will you need? Website space is a good start if you plan on presenting it on your own site. You can get free space at places like Yahoo, but then you have to display banners which will without a doubt interfere with the design and flow of your site.
Paying for a hosting service gives you a clean slate to work with no banner ads. Hosting your portfolio on your own site will show that you are taking things seriously and that you have the technical know-how involved in setting things up. Any hack can put a website on Geocities.
It's also a very good idea to obtain your own domain name like
www.fredlastname.com. Once you have this domain name, you can use it also for e-mail. So once you own your own domain, you can create an e-mail address like
contact@fredlastname.com. Add your new custom e-mail address and website address to your business cards, letterheads, resumes, portfolios, and anywhere else you can. You now have a very easy way of people reaching you.
The Design....
The layout and design of your website portfolio should be easy to navigate, and once again show off your samples. Having too distracting of a website can take away from your work. Make sure there is strong, clear navigation on EVERY page so that the viewer knows where they are, where they can go, and how to get back to where they were.
A technique that most portfolios employ is the use of thumbnails for your samples. These are small versions of your samples that can give the viewer a preview of what they are about to click on. This gives the viewer the feeling that they are in control, rather than you dictating what order they are to view things.
As for the actual samples, they should be no smaller than 300 pixels wide, and no bigger than 800 pixels wide. Many tend to stick around the 600 pixels wide range. Keep the image samples themselves to 150kb or less. Remember that not everyone has high speed Internet, and making people wait is a sure way to frustrate the viewer.
Did You Just Flash Me???
The use of Macromedia Flash has really become a trend for portfolios in the graphic design realm. More so for multimedia and web design specialists. Most web browsers these days will show Flash right off the bat, so you don't have to worry too much about companies in related high tech fields not being able to view your portfolio presented in Flash. Keep in mind however that more traditional companies focused on print, typesetting, prepress, photography, and other more traditional media might not have the latest browsers installed.
It's better then to use a straight up html site where anyone can view it.
Although it is more work, often there will be 2 options on a site. "Click here for the Flash version of this site, or click here for the html version of the site". This gives you the more creative options of Flash without alienating those who cannot or do not want to see a Flash site.