BYU–Hawaii, Department of Visual Arts: portfolio requirements

The Brigham Young University Hawaii (BYUH) Visual Arts department is now requiring all majors within the Visual Arts program to keep an ongoing portfolio.  The following outline and steps are required in the process of building this portfolio.

You are required to follow these instructions for each of your visual arts courses if...

You are a pre-art major applying for a BA
You are a pre-art certificate student applying for a Certificate
You are applying for a Visual Arts Scholarship
You are a transfer student seeking equivalent Visual Arts Course Credit

You are applying for the BFA

If you need assistance with setting up your site, using the template, or editing the blog, please see one of the lab assistants during open lab hours.

Follow these steps to get started on your portfolio:

Step 1 

Create a Google account. Click here to create your own Google account

IMPORTANT! – Write down your e-mail and password as you will need them to access your account.

Note: If you already have a google account then move to step 2

Step 2 

Create a Blog. Click here to create your own Blog

IMPORTANT! – You will need a Google account in order to create your blog.

1. On the screen click on New Blog.
2. Title the blog with your name.  (example. Hans Solo)
3. Type the address using your name and BYUHVA. (example. hanssolobyuhva)
4. Choose Simple for the template
5. Click Create Blog

Step 3 

Edit the look of the Blog. 

1. Click here to edit the look of your Blog
2. Click on the name of your blog.
3. Click Template on the left hand side.
4. Look for a button that says Edit HTML and click it.
5. Delete all the code from inside the document window.
6. Select all the code on this page and paste it into your document window.
7. Click Save Template
8. Close
9. Click on  Settings
10. Click on Basic
11. Next to Description click Edit and type in BYU-Hawaii, Visual Arts

Step 4 

Photograph your work.

You should try to professionally photograph your work in two ways.  

1. Studio Photographs
2. Context Photographs

Here are examples of work shot in the studio:

Here are some examples of work shot in context.

There are three critical ideas to remember when photographing your work both in the studio and in context.

• Silhouette (does the image have an interesting and dynamic contour)
• Cropping (this includes full shots, detail shots and should not have unnecessary tangents)
• Story (does each image tell a different story? i.e. front, back, detail, or sketches)

Note: Check out this link it has some great ideas for photographing your work.

PRO TIP: Shoot with your flash off just before the sun comes up or just after it goes down, the light is nice and even and you can usually get a decently lit product shot.

IMPORTANT! – You should avoid low light situations and dark shadows.

Step 5 

Adding your work to the template.

You will present your work by carefully adding it to a photoshop template.

1. Download and unzip the template files from here.
2. Open the template of your choice in Photoshop CS. (The vertical to show vertical work, the horizontal to show horizontal work and the basic template to create your own layout.) Don't have Photoshop, download a trial version here. Or go to the Lab.
3. Fill in your information in the lower left hand corner.
   example:
   John Brown
   Art 201
   Professor Soinso
   Winter 2013 
   Project 1
   
   
4. Add your photographs in behind the white border.
5. Fill in a descrition of the project in the upper left. (Note: Delete the word description when you do this.PRO TIP: On the Vertical and Horizontal templates that have three boxes, use one box to show the final artwork or design,  the second for a detail shot, and the third to show your preliminary sketches.
6. Save as a .jpg

IMPORTANT! –Do not change the template, size, type, just add your images and fill in the information.

Note: Don't know your way around Photoshop, start here. My best advice however is to get some help from a friend or from a TA in the Lab.

Here is an example of how the work might be presented on the template:

Step 6

Upload you .jpg files to the blog.

Lastly you will upload your work to the blog.

1.  Click here to create a Blog post
2. Click on the orange button  with the pencil in it next to the name of your blog.
3. Click inside the document window and then press the image icon.
4. Click Choose Files
5. find the .jpg you created and click choose.
6. Select the image you want to add and then click Add selected.
7. Click on the image to highlight it.
8. click on X-Large
9. click on Left

Repeat steps 3-5 to keep your portfolio up to date.

Step 7

Use the labels widget to organize the blog.
This will help add navigation to your blog.

1. In Blogger Dashboard Click on the left navigation tab Layout to edit your blog Layout.
   
2. Click on Add a Gadget to the right of the Blog Posts and above Links.
3. Scroll down the list of gadgets and find Labels then click the blue plus icon to add it.
4. Rename the Title of the Gadget to Class List instead of Labels.
5. Show All Labes, Sorting Alphabetically, Display List and click Save.
6. When you make a blog post click on Labels under the post settings on the right side navigation.
7. Name your labels with the names of your courses, example: Art 112, Art 210, Art 212.  
8. At any time you can go back and add or change a label under Posts > Edit.

 * This post is labeled 'Blog Creation' and appears in the navigation on the upper right.

Step 8

Turn Off Auto Enhance.
This will get rid of the 'grayed out look' on your blog posts.

1. You should disable auto-enhance on all your uploaded pictures.
2. Go to the google+ settings (https://www.google.com/settings/plus)
3. in the Photos section you can uncheck "Automatically enhance new photos"

There is an excellent post about how to Turn Off Auto Enhance for Blogger Photos Here.