An illustrator’s portfolio, one commission at a time
Art directors, editors and publishers commission an illustrator whose work already fits the brief in front of them. They decide from a handful of pieces, and from the names they recognise beside them.
Studio hangs three to eight of your illustrations in a gallery, each with its label: the title, the client, what the job was, the year and a line on the brief. Visitors meet them one at a time, so the order you choose makes the case.
Then come what you do, who you are, the names you’ve drawn for, and a form that sends each brief to your inbox with the budget band the client picked.
What your site shows
Your name and your field
First comes your name, with a line on what you draw and for whom — books, packaging, the press —, which doubles as the description Google reads for the site.
The pieces, in order
Covers, spreads, spot illustrations and posters hang one after another, portrait or landscape as they were drawn, so a small spot isn’t lost beside a double-page spread.
Who it was for
Each label names the client and the job — “Book cover”, “Editorial · Weekend supplement” —, the year, and a line of yours on the brief: what the text was about, what the image had to do.
What you take on
Your fields as single words — Editorial, Books, Packaging, Murals — each with a sentence; then a paragraph about you and, if you have one, your agent.
The brief
Art directors write the brief into the form and tick one of your budget bands. The line above it is yours to write, and the best place to ask about usage.
Have this ready
- Between three and eight finished illustrations (JPG or PNG), sorted in the order you want them met.
- For each: a title, the client, what the job was, the year and a line on the brief.
- Two to six fields of work — one word each, 14 characters at most — and a sentence for every one.
- A few lines about you, your agent if you have one, and the clients you may name.
- Budget bands for your usual commissions, and the line that goes above the form.
- For the form, a Web3Forms key tied to your email; for briefing calls, a Cal.com link.
Worth knowing
Hang the work you want more of
Whatever hangs on the walls is what you’ll be asked for. If you want more book covers and fewer logos, the covers go up and the logos stay in the drawer, however well they paid.
Ask about usage before quoting
Illustration fees are commonly set by usage — where the image appears, for how long, in which territories —, as the UK’s Association of Illustrators advises. Ask for those three in the line above the form, and the first message already carries what you need to quote.
Wait for the reveal
A cover or a campaign often has a publication date the client controls. Hang it once it’s public, and check the contract for anything it says about showing the work in your own portfolio.
Label personal work
Self-initiated pieces can hang beside commissions and show where you want to go next. Mark them “Personal” in what you did, so an art director knows which images had a client and a brief.
Questions
- Can one frame hold a series of spot illustrations?
- Each frame holds one picture. For a series, lay the images out on a single sheet before adding it — the frame takes the sheet’s proportions — or spend two frames on the strongest of them.
- My agent handles commissions. Where do the briefs go?
- Wherever the form sends them: a Web3Forms key is tied to the email address it was created with, and that address can be your agent’s. Name the agency in the paragraph about you, and link its page from the footer.
- Can people copy my illustrations from the site?
- Anything shown online can be saved. The wizard scales any picture larger than 2,400 pixels on its long side down to that size before it goes into the site, so the print-ready files stay with you; it adds no watermark.
- An art director asked for a PDF. Does the site make one?
- No. Keep the PDF where you host your files, with a public link, and add it to the footer, which takes up to six links. The site itself is the portfolio you send first.
- Can an animated piece hang in the gallery?
- Only as a still: the wizard takes JPG, PNG or WebP, and each picture hangs as a single image. Hang the strongest frame of the animation, and link the moving version from the footer.