GRAPHICAL LAYOUT DOCUMENTS, PORTFOLIOS

A portfolio is a compilation of materials that exemplify designers' work and skills. It is a standard way to showcase one’s work in the design field and is essential when applying for a job. Traditionally, a portfolio was just a physical folder or a map with the designer’s work printed, drawn, or painted on paper. Today, portfolios are often digital and can be in a form of a PDF file or a website. Even physical portfolios are first designed and created as digital documents and afterwards oriented on paper.

Creating a digital portfolio is similar to creating a graphical book or a magazine, with a combination of vector line drawings, digital illustrations, visualizations, diagrams, photographs, and text. The advantage of digital portfolios is that they can include animated or interactive elements like videos or hyperlinks to web pages. Digital portfolios can be printed using either a physical paper printer or digitally into a PDF file which can be viewed on a screen.

A very popular standard software for creating graphical layout documents is Adobe InDesign.