The portfolio that gets you hired
The exact six-part structure the author uses - and why your contact details go last.
10 minute read · one activity · lesson 19 of 21
A client will find you one of two ways: word of mouth, or visibility. You cannot manufacture the first. The second is a website, and the book gives you its exact running order - psychology and all.
The six-part page, in order
- 1. A rolling gallery of your very best frames at the top. Not sequences - single, jaw-dropping images. Wow factor.
- 2. Beneath it, demonstrate your levels of storyboard style (line / tone / colour), so a buyer can see what they can order.
- 3. A professional photo of your face. Smile.
- 4. A short paragraph introducing yourself, your work and your experience.
- 5. Recapture attention: strong FRAME-TO-FRAME sequences showing your storyboard language - not pretty pictures, but visual storytelling.
- 6. LAST - after you have made an impact - your contact details.
Why contact goes at the bottom
Because a contact form at the top is a request made before you have earned it. The sequence is deliberate: impress, prove range, become a person, prove you can tell a story, THEN ask.
The step most artists skip is #5. A gallery of beautiful single frames proves you can draw. Only frame-to-frame sequences prove you can BOARD - and boarding is what they are buying.
Filling it when you have no clients
- Find free, open-source scripts and self-direct your own storyboard project. Board it as you imagine it. This is entirely legitimate portfolio work.
- Work in free creative partnerships with film-makers found in forums and groups - volume, and real briefs.
- University or college work can go in, but remember this is a STORYBOARD portfolio, not an illustration portfolio. Ruthlessly cut anything that is merely a nice drawing.
- Internships and unpaid positions may be great experience but rarely produce work you can actually show.
Where to put it, and how often to touch it
- Your own website is best; LinkedIn, Behance, and the freelance platforms are all free and will do until you have one.
- Make one banner from your best frames and use it across every profile. One face photo. One introduction.
- Post frame-to-frame examples regularly and link back to your site.
- Keep private life OFF it. No links to personal social media.
- Refresh your examples in QUARTERLY BATCHES as your work improves.
- Never post work under NDA. If you want to share it later, ask the client after the product is out.
“A client shall find you through one of two methods - word of mouth vs visibility.”
- Mitchell James Hughes, Storyboard Art
Build the six-part page
Not a redesign. A restructure. The order is the product.
- Lay the six sections out in order - on paper, in a doc, or in whatever site builder you use. Order first, content second.
- Section 1: choose your five best single frames. Be brutal. If you hesitate, it is not one of the five.
- Section 2: show the SAME frame at line, tone and colour, side by side, labelled. Now a buyer can order a level.
- Section 5: this is the one you are probably missing. Put in at least one complete 6–12 frame SEQUENCE that tells a story on its own. If you do not have one, board one this week from a free script.
- Write the introduction paragraph. Three sentences: who you are, what you specialise in (Day 2), what you have worked on.
- Contact details last. Then read the whole page top to bottom as if you were a producer with eleven minutes and four artists to review.
What you should have at the end
A portfolio in the six-part order, with at least one full sequence in it. Then diarise a recurring quarterly reminder to refresh it - because the version of you that gets hired is the version that is visible.
Day 19 in one line
Wow factor, then levels, then face, then story, then sequences, THEN contact. And a portfolio without a frame-to-frame sequence is an illustration portfolio, not a storyboard one.
This course is free and stays free. If you want to board in the suite Mitchell James Hughes built for his own work - script, shot list, storyboard, animatic, AI artist - the free tier opens every app with no card.
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