Are portfolio listings sites worth the money?

December 3, 2006 2:14 PM

Are artist portfolio promotion web sites like childrensillustrators.com or portfolios.com worth getting involved with?

I have a friend who is a starving artist of the illustrative variety. She's trying to drum up more contract business for herself, and has been looking at some of these portfolio promotion sites. The deal seems to be that the artists pay a fee per year or month to be listed on these sites. Some supposedly promote your art as part of this, and others seem to just be listings sites where you hope someone who has work will go to find an illustrator, photographer, whatever.

This sounds a bit dubious. There are no guaranteed returns, so it's hard to know if you're really getting any benefit from them. Can anyone comment on these sites, or suggest alternatives that have worked for you? Thanks!

posted by autojack to Work & Money (3 answers total)

I've been on a hiatus from illustration for a few years, but I think theispot.com and alternative pick (if your friend's style is edgy and different) are decent portfolio sites.

Beyond that, try winning illustration competitions like Communication Arts illustration annual.
posted by edlundart at 4:24 PM on December 3, 2006

I second edlundart's two suggestions- I freelance for a large daily national newspaper, and when I've hired illustrators those are the two sites I visit first to in order to research what else is out there in the event that none of the artists who we usually call on have design styles that are a good fit for the concept of a given article.
posted by stagewhisper at 6:47 PM on December 3, 2006

I've often wondered this about the writing-related sites like writers.net. If I may piggyback, if anyone's got experience with those I'd be interested to hear about it.
posted by loiseau at 8:42 AM on December 4, 2006