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Hi, my name is Kaitlynn Redell and I am an admissions counselor
at Otis College of Art and Design. I am also a recent Otis graduate.
I graduated just a couple years ago so I totally understand
what you're going through in terms of applying to art school.
Applying to art school is very very different than
applying to a state school or university and one of the most important aspects of
how it is different
is the application process in terms of submitting your portfolio.
The most important thing to think about when you are applying to art schools is
really research the art schools you're thinking about going to and look at their
portfolio requirements
because every portfolio requirement is going to be slightly different.
Some schools have specific assignments, some schools
require that you submit a digital portfolio, some schools require that you
submit actual physical work.
So what we're looking for at Otis
is 10 to 20 images of your best and most recent work,
and the reason why that's a little bit more open ended is because we want to
see what you think your best work is.
Now if you feel photography is your strongest
work, maybe you don't feel as passionate about drawing,
as opposed to showing photography and drawing, if you feel
photography is your absolute best work - that's what we want to see in your portfolio.
So your portfolio can be a range of things in terms of visual art work.
It can be photography, can be illustration, it can be graphic design,
if you're interested in digital work, it can be things like animation,
it can be obviously a little bit more traditional items like drawing and painting
as well as sculpture. There are some students who are
interested in a combination of things and maybe have more mixed media work and
that's absolutely okay as well.
Other things we are interested in ... we want to see
again technical skill so that's really tuning into your
showing what you can do in terms of technique. So whether that's drawing and
beginning to show you know strong line quality, composition,
as well as proportion. Maybe that's what technical skill means to you.
If maybe your focus is more on graphic design, maybe that's
those technical skills are your computer based skills. Now in terms of
creativity what we're looking for
is your voice as an artist. So we want to see
what you're passionate about, what makes you want to make art.
You can submit your portfolio by uploading Jpegs
as well as moving files as well if you're interested
animation through electronic website. A lot of schools are moving in this direction
because it makes it much easier for students to
do everything from your computer at home. You just have all your work ready to go,
upload your images, and then press submit and the work goes directly to the school.
Most often work that you've done within the last three years of your high school
career is going to be much stronger than work let's say that you've done in
8th grade.
So you want to try to focus on that work and what I always suggest to students
when they're trying to edit their portfolio is put out all your work
on the floor and look at it. You're gonna see which pieces are the weakest,
and you can take them out. So think about putting pieces
that you feel are strong
in the beginning so we have a very good outlook when we first open
your portfolio.
Think about how one piece leads into the next piece.
So maybe that means you don't have
all your brightly colored pieces together, maybe that means
you have a little bit of variety and you space them out.
Again this is how you feel your work
will look strongest in a portfolio setting.
I hope you have learned some valuable tips in terms of putting together a
portfolio,
and having a better understanding of what an electronic portfolio is.
We wish you the best of luck as you begin to apply to art schools and in
your college career.