How to Keep Your Portfolio Inexpensive

I have a lot of people who commented wanting to know how to make an inexpensive portfolio. Still being a college student, I am all about the savings. Here’s how I spent less than $200 buying and putting my portfolio together.

  1. For the actual portfolio itself, you can get a relatively good quality one inexpensively. The one I bought at Aaron Brothers was $65. And that was including extra pages. It was a leather-like material, six ringed portfolio that wasn’t cheap and had a zipper with a slot for business cards, a cd, and a resume/self promotional piece. You just have to know where to look. Like I said, Aaron Brothers is where I got mine. Dick Blick is a great site as well. My friend got a nice looking one for $40.
  2. Step 2

    I have a photo printer at home, so I was able to print off a good portion of my pieces before I ran out of ink (I was making two portfolios, so I had to print off 20 pieces, and I was reusing my fiance’s portfolio for one, so that helped a lot too). If you start out with two full ink cartridges(one black, color depending on the printer), you should have no problem printing out all ten or however many pieces. I didn’t start out with full cartridges.

  3. Step 3

    If you have an inexpensive color printer, or no color printer at all, Kinko’s is not that expensive if you’re just getting it on 8.5″ by 11″ regular laser paper. The paper does not look that bad either. I had 10 prints done with them for around $5. It is a lot less hassle than printing it yourself. You can also go to Office Max and Staples.

  4. Step 4

    If you do have a photo printer at your house and you decide to print yourself, you need to get semi-nice paper. Photo paper works the best with the photo printer. I prefer semi-gloss myself, but it is up to you if you want matte, semi-gloss, or glossy. Go to Wal-Mart if there is one near you. You can find deals online as well.

  5. Step 5

    Those are the biggest expenses you have to deal with if you have everything else I mentioned in my first article. Here’s what to do if you do not have a nicer digital camera or programs like Adobe InDesign.

  6. Step 6

    Most everyone has an inexpensive digital camera today. If that is all you have go ahead and take photos of your pieces with that camera on the highest settings to ensure that you get a good quality. Then you take the memory disk that it comes with, go to Walgreens, Bartells, even Cosco or WalMart and they’ll put it on a cd for you if you don’t have a cord or memory disk reader for your camera.

  7. Step 7


    If you don’t have any of the Adobe programs, you can download the 30 day trial at their website. However, that only does you good for 30 days. It should give you time to get everything done, but does not help you if you need it after that time. Really, this portfolio should do you for a while once it’s done. However I know people like to change stuff out so I have included a couple of links to free downloads of page layout programs.

  8. Step 8


    The best kind of double sided tape is the one used for scrapbooking

    To save on messing up your prints, use double sided tape. If your pages come with plastics that will let the pieces stay in place, you can even skip the mounting if you use the full paper.

Tips & Warnings
  • If you don’t have a digital camera, chances are you know someone who does. Ask them to borrow it to take pictures of your pieces.
  • If you have the skills to make your own portfolio out of wood or metal, you can make a seriously awesome portfolio with stuff you may have lying around your shop.
  • To download the Adobe Trials, you need to make an account with them, but it’s free.
  • If you are a student in the art field, you can get the whole Adobe Creative Suite for roughly $500. Yes I know expensive, but you can use it for as long as you like. Photoshop is really great for editing photos (you can also paint with it) and InDesign is a really easy layout program.
  • If you do use an inexpensive digital camera, make sure its settings are on the highest quality to ensure good reproduction.
  • The Adobe Trials are only 30 days, and you can’t uninstall then reinstall.