Comments on: The Lounge: Your Portfolios (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Go Sleeveless)

By: Watson

Watson — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 23:41:59 +0000

@Andrea LaBarge Mills

The reason many people include boarders is because these are no more sleeves to protect the edges of the prints. Unless hit with a protective coating spray, a full bleed ink jet print will take a beating and show wear and tear much faster at the edges.

Plus, as you mentioned there are also too many variables with printing large for full bleed, cutting down, scoring and punching the paper.

By: Peter Taylor

Peter Taylor — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:39:26 +0000

ok, maybe I am a bit slow on the up take here. but how are the pages held into the books with sleeves. I have not shown a physical portfolio in over 5 years but I want to again. I hate sleeves too. So once I have my prints, single or double side printed, what do I do with them? how are they bound? do I send them to a book maker, like a wedding album and have them bind them? or do I get adhesive hinge strips and put them into my portfolios that way? will the adhesive strips look ok with double trucks? will they hold up to much viewing?

By: No Plastic Sleeves — HeatherMortonArt buyer

No Plastic Sleeves — HeatherMortonArt buyer — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:48:49 +0000

[...] by this point, I think you know how I feel about Plastic Sleeves. Well now there’s a whole beautiful blog to back me [...]

By: Branding Your Photography Business: A Realistic View | LIGHTING ESSENTIALS For Photographers

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:19:55 +0000

[...] Heather Morton discusses portfolios here (part one) and here (part two). “And it’s a whole package: the quality of the portfolio itself and it’s case is part of [...]

By: Jon-Paul Mountford

Jon-Paul Mountford — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:34:28 +0000

This is a great article, and rings true to a lot of feedback I’ve been getting. I only wish I could have had this advise about three folio’s ago. Could have saved a lot of expense on useless bits of plastic.

By: Ask an Art Buyer: The Importance of Branding and Other Things — HeatherMortonArt buyer

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:36:15 +0000

[...] week, in response to the post about your portfolios, I received this question: How do logos and branding make Art Buyers see you? Does (stuff like [...]

By: tony fouhse

tony fouhse — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 02:04:07 +0000

A large part of me thinks that all the discussion about page layout, full bleed or not full bleed, the color of your portfolio cover, whether or not to include gimmicks and so on, is just noise. I say….do what you want, as long as that includes taking better pictures. The only thing I insist on for my portfolios is: no sleeves. I’m pretty sure that nothing else matters that much.

By: Andrea LaBarge Mills

Andrea LaBarge Mills — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:11:02 +0000

I’m curious about the page layout/design of many of the portfolios you’ve shown recently. I’ve been out of school for only 6 years, and I spent 3 of those years as a photo editor for a magazine, so I still consider myself emerging as a freelance photographer. Yet it seems like portfolios have changed tremendously in that short time! When I was in school, it was the norm to have the vast majority of pages as full-bleeds (and full-bleed double-page spreads for horizontal shots, as most books at the time were portrait orientation). Even as a photo editor, the vast majority of the books I saw had mostly full-bleed pages. But many of these examples here have borders. Personally, I prefer the impact of a full-page, full-bleed image, at least for the majority of the pages if mixed with some that are bordered/have multiple images/etc. – and now I feel so “old-school” for saying so!

I’m curious why the move to borders has become so common. Is it a technical issue – many people are buying the portfolio paper that is the exact page size and pre-scored (rather than larger and then cutting it down) and their printers don’t handle full-bleeds well? Is it just personal preference with regards to presentation? Has it just been decided that borderless looks too old-school? I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but I am curious as to the motivation for anyone willing to respond. Thanks!

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:13:24 +0000

Jaime- good question re: the importance of branding etc., I’ll address this in a post next week. Watch for it.

By: Jason Dailey

Jason Dailey — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:30:40 +0000

Great to see what people are doing, thanks for sharing. Five years ago I got the hinges and had a terrible time getting them on right. Did Graham just use a local bookbinder? “- pages glued, assembled and hinged by bookbinder”

thanks,

Jason