3 key ideas to building a successful architectural visualization portfolio.

Wearing the hat of the recruiter feels kind of weird for me, but also rather eye-opening.

I’ve spent years on The CTRL+Z Blog teaching to Italian young architects and students how to build their portfolio, and now that I’m evaluating applications for The Big Picture (my architectural visualization studio) I see a common thread of mistakes, shared between architects and architectural visualizers.

I quickly realized that the Internet doesn’t tell much about how to build a strong archviz portfolio (being our industry relatively new), so I wanted to throw my two cents in and give three quick tips to applicant 3D artists.

Enjoy the read!

Don’t put on the autopilot! Research and focus.

One common, big mistake that both architects and visualizers make when job searching is sending autopilot applications.

What's an autopilot application?

Simply put, it’s an application that includes samples of work that have little or no relevance to the recipient, generally sent without even looking at the office’s portfolio of works.

One tangible example of a very common mistake? Sending highly detailed interior renders to an archviz office specialized in making exterior images for competitions. I can tell you by experience that this kind of application gets rejected 99.99% of the time.

Our line of work is all about catering the right kind of image to a target audience, so, if you’re applying for a 3D artist position do your research on the firm you’re applying at and take a moment before hitting the “Send” button. Could your images be interesting to your potential employer? Are they in line with what they show on their website/social profiles/etc.?

Be consistent, but show a broad range of skills.

Staying consistent is key when it comes to building an archviz portfolio. It’s important to focus on what you’re good at, and bring to the table several examples of it (provided that your line of work is interesting to the recipient of the portfolio, of course).

Usually, 6 to 10 solid images will do the trick.

However, it’s equally important that you diversify your portfolio. Showing images with different approaches, composition styles, moods, project type and scale, tells loud and clear to the art director that you’re a versatile artist, a good problem-solver and that you can think outside the box. And that’s usually a bingo.

Always remember to stay within the range of interest of your potential employer. That’s usually the tricky part, but when done correctly, it greatly pays off.

Be mindful of your time-management skills.

This is for those of you looking forward to having full responsibility in the pipeline.

Senior artists are expected to complete image sets in commercially reasonable times, so don’t base your portfolio on personal projects that took months to finish.

Your ability to finish images reasonably quickly will be usually tested by the company with an art test, so take that into account when you send your portfolio and be self-aware of your time-management skills.

In conclusion...

...one last word of advice. before sending your application, have friends and colleagues review your portfolio.

You can’t imagine how helpful it is to have fresh eyes looking at your images. We usually fail to be objective on the quality of our work and we easily become enamored with our images.

And please, please, I beg you… do not apply with architecture portfolios to archviz firms.

Much appreciated.