Thursday 20 September 2007

Your art portfolio in your pocket

You bump into someone (a potential client, a gallery owner or an old friend) and you wish you could show them your paintings… but your portfolio is at home. You can’t go around carrying an A3 presentation portfolio everywhere you go.

Technology can help you here. When I bought my iPod couple of years ago, I went for the video model with 30 Gigabite of memory. I am not using it for video, but I store my portfolio on it.




  • Although the LCD screen is small (5.2 cm x 4 cm), it has an excellent definition and is backlit.


  • In the menue, the pictures are presented as a mosaique and it is easy to find and select the one you want to show.


  • There is a slide show function if you want to show the whole porfolio. You can set-up the time per slide.


  • For the slideshow mode, the Apple software let you chose between different types of transitions between the slides (page flip, push accross, radial, etc.) or can pick the transition mode at random. It makes the presentation look very professional.
It is also possible to use the iPod as a harddrive to store documents. You could have some key Word documents always available:

  • Your artist statement


  • Your artist CV
In practice :
  • Take a model with sufficient memory to put your photographs in addition to the songs and podcast you will download.


  • Take the habit to refresh the portfolio on your iPod on a regular basis to make sure it is up-to-date and contains your most recent works. The best way is to schedule in your calendar a monthly refresh.
Take it further :

  • You may own another device like a Palm personal organiser or smart phone that could store your portfolio.


  • Take the different devices you own and think about how you could use them for your art or your art carreer.



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