Illustration Portfolio Checklist: 10 Things to Include Before You Publish

An illustration portfolio is not an archive. It is a short, deliberate argument about the work you want to be commissioned for next.

Most portfolios that underperform do so for unglamorous reasons. A hero piece buried behind a vague thumbnail. An email address that only exists inside a JPEG. Captions that explain nothing. None of that says anything about your drawing. All of it is fixable in an afternoon.

Work through the checklist below in order, or jump straight to the parts you already suspect are weak.

Lead with the work you want more of

If a client only looks at the first three images — and plenty will — those three should be the ones you would happily build a career on. Not the oldest, not the most technically difficult, not the piece a tutor once praised. The ones that point at the briefs you actually want to receive.

Set a ceiling on the number of pieces. Somewhere between twelve and twenty is usually plenty for a working illustration portfolio. Twenty-five is an exhibition. Forty is a hard drive with a web address.

Be ruthless about what goes in. If you would wince slightly when a client mentions a piece, it is already costing you. Take it out and keep the file somewhere private. You can bring it back when you have outgrown the doubt.

Show range without looking scattered

Clients usually arrive with a specific problem: a packaging range, a non-fiction spread, a set of editorial spots, a mural for a clinic waiting room. They need to know within seconds whether you have solved something like it before.

That means showing variety, but variety with a shape. Group related work together rather than shuffling everything into one endless stream. Editorial, books, packaging, character, surface pattern, animation stills — choose the three or four areas you genuinely want to work in and give each a clear run of images.

How much variety is enough?

If a client can guess the full extent of your range from the thumbnail grid alone, you have probably got it right. The aim is not to prove you can draw anything. It is to show there is more than one door into your work.

Give personal work and process equal billing

Personal projects are often the most persuasive thing on a portfolio, precisely because nobody asked for them. A series built around one idea — invented shopfronts, a visual diary of a commute, a study of a single colour — shows how you think when the brief is yours.

Do not bury it under a tab called “Other”. Give it the same care as client work: a title, a short paragraph on what you were exploring, and four to six images in a consistent format.

Alongside that, show a little of how the work was made. A page of thumbnails, a colour rough, one abandoned direction. Three images is usually enough: the problem, the exploration, the resolution. More than that and the finished piece starts to feel like an afterthought.

Write captions that earn their place

A caption has one job: to give the viewer something they cannot get from looking. Client, year, format and a sentence about the brief will do it.

• Who and when. Client or publication, plus the year.
• What it was for. A cover, a campaign, a book jacket, an internal report.
• How it was made. Digital, gouache, risograph, mixed media, screenprint.
• Where it appeared, if you are free to say so.

If a caption could be attached to any image on the page, it is not doing any work.

Confidentiality is not a problem. “Client: confidential, 2024. Character designs for an unannounced children’s series” tells a reader far more than a blank space. And write alt text for every image before you publish — one plain sentence describing what is in the picture.

Make contacting you effortless

This is the part people skip, and it is the part that loses commissions. A potential client who cannot find your email in ten seconds will not hunt for it.

• A plain email address, typed as text so it can be copied.
• A contact page listing the kinds of commissions you take.
• Your location and working hours, if you take international work.
• One or two professional profiles, not six.
• A line on availability: “Booking from March” or “Currently taking editorial commissions”.

A short about section helps too: two or three sentences, first person, saying what you make and who you make it for. Skip the list of every piece of software you have opened. Nobody commissions a portfolio because of a plug-in. Then test your contact form and send yourself a message. Silent failures are common and invisible.

Get files, formats and load times right

Technical mistakes are the easiest to fix and the most expensive to ignore. A slow, blurry or oddly cropped portfolio suggests a lack of care before anyone has read a single caption.

• Use web-friendly formats. JPEG or WebP for most images; PNG only when you need transparency or very fine line work.
• Convert to sRGB. Artwork saved in another colour space can look flat or shifted in a browser.
• Resize before you upload. A long edge of roughly 1600–2000 pixels is sharp enough for full-screen viewing without punishing anyone’s data plan.
• Keep file sizes sensible. A few hundred kilobytes per image is a reasonable target; most tools compress without visible loss at that size.
• Name files clearly. yourname-project-title-01.jpg helps everyone; IMG_4471 does not.
• Keep crops consistent. Mixed aspect ratios in one grid tend to look accidental rather than dynamic.
• Check on a phone. Most first views happen on a small screen, often on mobile data.

A short note on watermarks: a small, consistent mark in a corner is reasonable. Anything across the middle of the image will cost you more attention than it protects.

Run this before you publish

Here is the whole thing in one place. Keep it open in a tab while you work through your site.

1. Your strongest three images, first.
2. A trimmed selection of twelve to twenty pieces, with no filler.
3. Clear variety, grouped by discipline.
4. At least one substantial personal series.
5. Process images for your best projects.
6. Captions carrying client, year, format and brief.
7. Alt text on every image.
8. An email address and a contact page that both work.
9. Web-ready files: sRGB, sensibly sized, consistently cropped.
10. A final check on a real phone, on real mobile data.

Then leave it for a day and come back with fresh eyes. The pieces you skip past on the second look are usually the ones to cut.

A portfolio is never finished, only current. Review it every few months, or whenever a project teaches you something new. Keep the work you are proud of, remove the work you have outgrown, and make it obvious how to get in touch. That is most of the job.

Photo: Skylar Kang / Pexels