Due to the coronavirus outbreak, many of our arts and media courses are replacing an interview with online portfolio submission – read our tips for making your work stand out digitally.

When applying for certain arts and media subjects at the University of Brighton, we ask you to supply a curated online portfolio which we then select from to invite you to an in-person interview where you can show us a full portfolio of your work. Other courses may invite all qualified applicants to interview and see your work for the first time when we meet you.

However, because of the coronavirus outbreak we are changing our application processes for 2020. If you have applied, you will have received an email about how we would like you to submit your artwork. To help you with this we have put together some FAQs below about creating a digital portfolio.

What format should it be in?

The easiest way for us to access your portfolio is on an image sharing website such as Flickr, Tumblr or on a blog – you then submit a link to the page on the applicant portal. Please ensure your submission does not require a password to view and is publicly accessible. If you would rather upload a pdf to the applicant portal you can do to this. We do not accept submissions via Facebook.

How do I prepare my images?

All images should be in jpeg format and 72dpi resolution. Ideally they should be flattened and optimised for screen viewing – you can do this using Photoshop if you have access to this application. If you are attaching a pdf, the file size limit is 2mb.

How should I label the images?

The name of each image should be the title of the work. We recommend you include a brief description of each piece of work, including the date the work was made.

How many images should I include?

Your online portfolio should consist of 15 – 20 images of your work.

What kind of work should I include?

Your portfolio should contain work relevant to the course you’ve applied for and that showcases your talents and interests. We are excited to see your work so far and your potential – so what we’re really trying to get is an impression of you as an individual artist, your artistic interests and influences, and your aspirations.

General content:

• Anything that demonstrates your motivations and interests as an artist.
• Your ability to develop an idea from concept.
• Your potential to experiment, imagine, and explore ideas and techniques.

For visual arts and media courses, this could entail showing:

• A good understanding of drawing, composition, form, proportion and colour.
• Images of working sketchbooks – our tutors are interested in your working process, not just final results.
• Images of 3D objects you have made; paintings; prints; fashion and textile designs; photography; typography; illustrations.

How do I send my online portfolio link?

You can then send us your portfolio as a link or an attachment under 2mb as a message through the admissions portal. You log on to the applicant area of studentcentral using your University of Brighton username and password.

Will there be an opportunity to ask more questions?

Our online ambassadors are always available to answer questions – go to the course page you are interested in and start chatting with the ambassador who pops up.

We also have online events coming up related to different subjects so keep an eye on this page and sign up to any of these events.

We have a page on our website for COVID-19 advice for 2020 applicants and offer holders.