Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2012 - 49

familiar with that particular service or software and who might be willing
to share his or her advice.

Just because you can put every picture
of every production you've ever done
online doesn't mean you should.

Images
The most important part of your digital presence will be the portfolio. Here
are a few things to consider when putting together these images. Most web
services organize your images in galleries. A gallery can contain a single
show or you can group shows in categories like musicals, operas, dance,
etc. When creating your galleries, make sure there's an easy way to get
back to the main gallery on each page. Labels should be easy to read and
give as much information as possible. Give credit to your fellow designers,
the director, and maybe key technicians. Crediting the production team
is more than good manners; visitors to your website might know some of
them and thereby establish a personal association with you. Use the best
pictures possible; don't use a blurry picture, even if it's the only record
of the production. The resolution of your images should be between 150
and 300 dpi and should be large enough to see the details of your work,
but no larger. Photos that are too large take too long to display. When putting paperwork online, you'll need to convert your plots, charts, or lists
to JPEG images. Be sure to adjust the dpi and size, just as with photos, so
the information is easy to read online. If you want people to be able to
download and print out a copy of the paperwork, PDF is the best format.
Videos can also be a good way of documenting your work. Keep the clips
short-less than two minutes-and use only clips that clearly show your
work. Often the company you work for will create promotional clips that
you can link to on your website. Finally, you must have permission from
the photographer and/or the producing organization before you post any
images not created by you on your website.
When putting together your portfolio, remember to keep it simple. The
portfolio is the best representation of your work, but not a complete history.
Think about your physical portfolio and use it as a guide to how much work
you should show online. Just because you can put every picture of every
production you've ever done online doesn't mean you should.

Résumé
A résumé or list of credits is essential for every online portfolio. Posting
yours can be tricky if you want it to look just like your paper version. The
design websites mentioned in this article take three different approaches.
Poppy Armitage's CV is a simple text-based list of her professional experiences. Ronald Grinshaw provides a link to download a PDF copy of
his carefully formatted, multi-column résumé. Colin Chauche also has a
downloadable PDF, and he has created a JPEG image from his PDF résumé
that is displayed for online reading. Remember that your online portfolio
is very public. It isn't appropriate to include names and contact information for the people who have agreed to be references for you. That information needs to be provided only on request.

Proof Your Work
Once the site is done, have others look at it, including those who may not
be familiar with your work. Ask them to not only check grammar and
An example of a Squarespace website for lighting designer Colin Chauche. His design portfolio
starts on a page where all the shows are listed. Clicking on one of the shows opens another
page with full-size production photos. Chauche's résumé is displayed on screen as a JPEG
image and can also be downloaded as a PDF. Note that he provides references by request.
f

2012

theatre design

& technology

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2012