A good promo portfolio stays on the desk after the meeting ends. Ian Tuttle, a commercial and editorial photographer in San Francisco, built his around people at work and at play: a scientist in blue gloves boxed in by laboratory racks, kitesurfers lifting off a choppy grey sea, a snail inching across the back of a hand, a woman in gingham in the studio. He wanted it to look high end and to put image quality ahead of everything else. Our enquiry form asks what matters most on cost, and Ian ticked the box that says he trusts us to get it right. We took that as a challenge.
The finished zine runs to 48 pages and is gloss throughout. Mike’s printer’s eye view: a spectacular, well put together portfolio that clients old and new will enjoy flicking through. Below, each spec decision is taken in turn, with reasoning worth stealing for a portfolio of your own.
Format: 165 x 216mm, a touch wider than A5
Ian’s first enquiry asked for plain A5 on silk. Three days later he sent a revised one with a custom size, 165mm wide by 216mm tall. That extra width is small on a spec sheet and large in practice. Spreads open into a broader, more cinematic shape, which flatters pictures composed for landscape, yet the zine still slides into an envelope or a bag.
The lesson: a custom trim looks deliberate before anyone has read a word. Settle it before layout begins so the spreads are built for the final shape, and if you are still deciding what goes in, our guide to shaping a photo portfolio around your own way of seeing is a useful companion.
Paper: 130gsm gloss inside
The switch from silk to gloss came with that second enquiry, where Ian flagged the job as high end and wrote that image quality was his highest priority. Gloss suits his work. Mike noted how the colours jump off the page, and the ridges of a clam shell and the moss on a forest floor both hold their detail.
Weight matters as much as finish. At 130gsm the inside sheets are, as Mike put it, neither too thick nor too thin: enough body for 44 pages of saturated photography, yet light enough to turn freely and flex open in one hand. Go heavier and a stapled book starts to fight its own spine; go lighter and image heavy pages turn flimsy. For a side by side look at the alternatives, read how gloss compares with silk, uncoated and recycled papers.
Cover: 170gsm gloss with gloss lamination
The cover photograph is a puzzle. Shot from directly overhead, it shows a man in glasses lying on the floor of a room crammed with framed prints, stacked books and gleaming brass. It takes a while to work out what you are looking at, and that pause is valuable: a portfolio cover that makes someone stop has bought you their attention. Ian’s name, city and web address sit in white type in the top corner, riding the strong diagonals of the scene.
Gloss lamination over 170gsm gloss deepens the blacks of that cluttered room and adds a protective film to a zine that will be posted and passed around. Mike counts the laminated cover among the big winners of this spec. The back cover works hard as well: a monochrome kitesurfer hangs above a band of rough water, so front and back show range before the zine is even opened.
Binding: wire stitched at 48 pages
Four cover pages plus 44 inside pages make 48, a comfortable count for staples. Wire stitching keeps the zine slim and the cost per copy sensible for a piece meant to be handed out. Our notes on page counts and files for stapled books explain why stapled totals land on multiples of four.
Layout: full bleed and no captions
Open the cover and you are straight into the pictures. There is no introduction and there are no captions; Mike lists the full bleed photography throughout as one of the main reasons the zine works. Close-ups sit beside distant views, animals beside people in action, and facing pages are paired by contrast. A white high-rise facade faces the orange heart of a flower. A misty, moss-hung forest faces a dark heap of glistening clams. A tiny snail on a hand faces that studio portrait in gingham, and a rainbow of coloured rods frames a bicycle wheel. Subjects clash while colours and shapes rhyme, so the sequence never goes flat.
Ian supplied a print ready PDF and wanted to move quickly, so we did. The finished portfolios were stitched and shipped to California, and he returned later with another print project. Ian’s spec, or a quieter version of it, can be priced through our page on printed portfolios for photographers.
Rikki Ward's portfolio has the same 44 inside pages on gloss, but we perfect bound it at A5, its 4mm spine wrapped in a silk cover with gloss lamination; see the Rikki Ward promo portfolio.
When a portfolio grows into a longer edit, our photobook printing page takes the idea further, with perfect bound and cased options and gloss papers like the 130gsm that carried Ian’s 44 inside pages.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
Product cataloguesA5, 28 pages, stapled£166for 100