The Portfolio Center is a division of Student Affairs at Columbia College Chicago.
Formed in 2004 to address the professional needs of arts students, the Portfolio Center focuses on helping students develop their body of work into a professional, presentable, well-organized portfolio.
The Portfolio Center works with students on a variety of levels, with all steps of the portfolio creation process. Portfolio Advising matches students with a professional working in their future field; advisors provide guidance on selection, sequencing and presentation, as well as guiding students on how to add samples to their portfolio and how to best utilize the finished product. The Portfolio Center Events bring hundreds of professionals to the college each year, also to help students build, revise and polish their portfolios. Events take place as larger panel dicussions on one topic or inidividual meetings, or Show Off, where professionals meet one-on-one with students and provide targeted feedback on the students' work and portfolio.
The Portfolio Center also offers Portfolio Production which matches students who need help building their portfolio with students who have the skills they need. The Portfolio Center specializes in building web portfolios, print books, reels, demo CDs, PDF portfolios, mini-books and business cards.
While these services are only avalable to Columbia College students, the Portfolio Center also maintains an extensive collection of articles, interviews and podcasts, which are available to anyone who needs a little advice from a professional. The Portfolio Center also publishes a frequently updated and widely read blog, which provides consantly current updates and information from creative professionals and organizations around the world.