The Benefits of Portfolio Reviews

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Graphic design blog You The Designer featured a great post on the importance and benefits of Portfolio Reviews. Written by photographer and Behance user Gerome Soriano, this post was inspired by his involvement with Behance Portfolio Review Week and recaps some strong points on how valuable feedback can be for the creative community.

Here are some main points he made:

• Get valuable feedback from people that know what they are talking about because they themselves have been through the same struggles you’re having
• Step back. Being artists, we have the tendency to be too absorbed in what we do and the works we produce. Portfolio reviews are a good time to separate the work from the artist.
• Know where you can go. With the feedbacks given by the reviewer and your answers to their questions you will have a better gauge of where your work is heading.
• Address your dilemmas. Portfolio reviews are also a good time to bring up questions you’ve been struggling to answer.
• Learn a trick or two. Successful people love recounting how they got their “break” into the industry.
• Practice communication skills. Most artists, especially new ones, have problems speaking about their artwork. Portfolio reviews are great for practicing, enhancing and evaluating your communication skills.
• Study how the experts do it. Study how the reviewers communicate. Evaluate their speech, the words and phrases they use.
• Develop relationships. Portfolio reviews are a great way to gain new friends and business contacts.
• Opportunities. Portfolio reviews can be a venue where you get “discovered”.
• Step it up. Portfolio reviews are system shockers. They reveal your greatest strengths and lowest weaknesses. They state the reality of the market for your work.

Full article HERE

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