It's a collection of your work demonstrating how your creativity has developed over time. It shows your ability to work with different materials, themes and techniques, as well as how you research, develop and plan your ideas. And the mistakes you've made along the way.
It's a way of showing us your skills, personality and potential – we want to see you within the pages.
A digital portfolio is simply a digital version of a physical portfolio – the advice about what to include in each is similar.
It involves photographing or scanning physical work, such as sketchbooks and 3D objects, to turn them into digital files. Once your work is prepared, you'll create digital pages ready to upload later in the process.
It's important to consider the focus of the course you've applied to as they each have different portfolio requirements and selection criteria.
Include work from between 3 to 5 projects to show a range of ideas and skills. Remember to check your course webpage for specific requirements, but it could include things like:
Show us variety, even if you love a certain technique or material. If you select group work, make this clear and explain the role you played in the project.
We're not just looking for polished, finished work. It's about your potential and the journey you've been on, including experimentation and any mistakes you made along the way.
Organise your portfolio by project and tell us the story of each of them.
Show us how you got to your idea – from the concept all the way through to completed pieces.
Think: research → process → outcome
Now you've selected your work, get it ready to include in your digital portfolio. This is likely to involve taking good quality photos or scans of physical work.
It may also mean editing videos or sound files into short clips.
Lay out your work digitally using any software you like including InDesign, PowerPoint or Canva. These layouts will form your digital portfolio pages. A landscape page format is best.
Tip: Avoid overcrowding your pages with too much work or adding decorative backgrounds – white space can be a powerful presentation tool.
Keep any annotations on pages short, clear and concise. Size 12 font is the minimum size for on-page annotations.
Where relevant include details of the materials used, the size and scale of your work and the date it was created.
Once you've created your portfolio, you'll upload them to Google drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or any other cloud storage – and include the link within your application.
Pro tip: When organising your pages, start and end with your strongest work to make a good first and last impression.
This example shows a clean, well-organized collection line-up for portfolio content.
This example demonstrates another collection line-up to effectively layout your creative final outcome.
Double check your portfolio link to make sure it works properly.
3-5 strong projects are better than 10 mediocre ones
Include sketches, research, and development work
Let your personality and unique perspective shine through
Always verify your portfolio link works before submitting