I am in the middle of making my art portfolio to apply to art/graphic design internships and I have two questions:

1- I am wondering if employers would accept that I would use Inkscape as opposed to Illustrator. Many job postings say "Must have experience in Adobe Illustrator" but would they mind if I use a similar program. As much as I would love to use illustrator, that alone is way too expensive for me, especially the student edition.

2- What would you suggest on an art portfolio? SHould I have a variety of subject matters, should they be all united by some sort of theme? I have made some artwork before off from GIMP, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign but I am still not sure where to begin the art portfolio. What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance, looking forward to showing off my work here soon.

I'm not an artist, but I can certainly make some comments as an older and wiser person.

1 - If the job posting says that you must have experience with AI, then you darn well better HAVE experience with AI! Inkscape and AI are NOT interchangeable; you can't learn Inkscape and expect to be able to use AI effectively in a new job! If Adobe is all that they use, you'll be out of a job pretty quick.

Now having said that, they are very similar programs. In many cases, they work the same way, but simply use different terminology. For example, I think the command that Inkscape calls Union, is called Combine in AI. But AI has many more features than Inkscape has, including some very complex tools which can't be picked up overnight (gradient mesh, for example). And Inkscape has some tools which AI doesn't have, but they won't help you if the new job uses only AI.

I don't know about this, but maybe it would be possible to find a job where they would offer you training. Maybe with a good portfolio, they would be willing to provide an Adobe license for you to learn on -- maybe like an apprenticeship, or internship, or something like that? Employers know as well as you do, how expensive AI is, and surely wouldn't expect someone fresh out of college to be able to buy it. I'll bet there are programs out there somewhere!

2 - Not being an artist, I can't speak to the contents of a portfolio, with any reasonable knowledge or experience. It seems to me that a portfolio showing a wide range of skills with both vector and raster tools, would be the best (assuming this if web-based art). And especially for apprentice or intern to also have manual skills (hand sketching, painting, etc.). But it might depend, to some extent, on the particular job that you're submitting it to.

For example, if I was applying to a job where a wide range of skills was important, I would include every single job I've ever had, in a resume. If it was more important, in the new job, to have some very specific skills, I would include in the resume only those jobs that showed that experience. On the other hand, if the new job had asked for a full work history, I would put every job I've ever had in a resume, because it's important to show that you can follow instructions. It might not seem so, but the ability to follow instructions is a very important job skill.

But maybe some others here can give you some idea how to get started with a portfolio

I'm specifically looking for an artist at the moment but just in the sniffing around stage and I'd strongly prefer Inkscape just because of the open source thing (I'd like users to be able to contribute to this site too but want an artist to kick it off) and honestly I'm thinking it is going to be more difficult because less people use inkscape. I've hired artists for one-off custom art before but this time I am looking for something a little more long term.

As to a portfolio, to me it is all about showcasing your style more so than technique. If you are freelancing by individual item, a lot of the time the final product is more important than the software that has been used to make it. If you are doing something for web, you're probably going to be providing the final work in some rasterised format as well as the vector format, depending on how clueless the people you are working for are.

This part assumes you have your portfolio on a website somewhere:

Break your portfolio up if you have more than one style, eg fantasy art, cars, architectural drawings, stick figures, icons and UI components etc. If your portfolio is very large, tag your work with keywords so it can be searched both from within your site and from the internet. Some people make their portfolios all clean and pretty and so forth and they look *lovely* but the internet is a big place and people are surprisingly short on time so please do remember to add those keywords and descriptions. It is nice to know that the person you are potentially hiring is literate as well as artistic. And add pertinent details like if you are still in college, what country you are in etc.

the tool its not great problem.
if you know inkscape you can easy learn AI / CorelDraw and vice versa.

Just my two cents about portfolio : with digital technologies it's very easy to create a virtual one on a USB key. You could keep all your stuff on your hardrive and choose each time what you want to put on the key, so you can adapt your portfolio to each enterprise where you apply. If you now a bit about.html