A student cuts out artwork using an X-Acto knife.

Art, Design & Film Portfolios

Demonstrate your strengths and experience in visual arts, design and film.

Your portfolio helps us get to know you and your experiences, perspective and interests.

What to Include

We want to see your best work – the pieces that showcase your skills, ideas and passions – regardless of media. You may choose to include work from a variety of media or select one area of focus you want to highlight. Your portfolio should demonstrate your creativity, showcase your skills and highlight your ability to communicate ideas. You may include work completed in class or independently, individual and collaborative projects, and finished or in-progress work. 

Submit 15–20 examples of work, ideally from the past two years. For time-based media, one minute is equivalent to one piece. 

Transfer applicants who have completed at least 18 credits in studio art are encouraged to include work from each college-level studio course completed. In this case, you may include more than 20 examples of work in your submission. 

Your portfolio may include any of the following types of media.

  • Animation of any length; individual and/or collaborative productions

  • Architectural models, model construction, set design


  • Book arts, zines

  • Collage, mixed media


  • Crafts: ceramics, metals, textile design, fibers, glass, jewelry, furniture

  • Design: posters, book covers, web graphics, typography, etc.

  • Drawings from life: figure drawing, still life, landscape

  • Experimental drawings

  • Fashion, costume design, wearable sculptures

  • Film/video of any length; individual and/or collaborative productions. Indicate your role in collaborative projects. Screenshots of film/videos also permitted.

  • Illustration, storyboards, character design, concept art


  • Installation: site-specific objects in the environment

  • Interactive media


  • Paintings: oil, acrylic, watercolor, etc.

  • Photography: traditional, digital, black and white, color


  • Printmaking: traditional (etching, monotypes, silkscreen, etc.) and digital

  • Product and toy design


  • Sketchbooks/process books

  • Screenshots from original animations, films, interactive media or video

  • Sculpture: metal, plaster, stone, wood, found materials, etc.


  • Website authoring: site design, site graphics


Submitting Your Portfolio

All students applying to visual art, design and film programs are required to submit 15–20 examples of original work.

Your portfolio images can be submitted at the same time you are completing your application or after submission via your applicant portal. Once you have added and labeled all images/files, you’ll need to confirm your complete creative submission via the form in your applicant portal. 

Email admissions@uarts.edu if you need any support accessing your portfolio or labeling your images.

File Sizes and Types

We support media files as large as 5GB, but be advised that larger files will take longer to upload from your internet connection and might stall if you are on a wireless connection or one that cannot sustain a connection for the necessary period of time. Uploaded documents may contain no more than 75 pages. We support the following file formats.

  • Video: .3g2, .3gp, .avi, .m2v, .m4v, .mkv, .mov, .mpeg, .mpg, .mp4, .mxf, .webm, .wmv

  • Audio: .aac, .m4a, .mka, .mp3, .oga, .ogg, .wav

  • Slide: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .tif, .tiff

  • Document: .doc, .docx, .odg, .odp, .odt, .pdf, .ppt, .pptx, .rtf, .wpd

  • Link: Students may upload a link to work hosted on Vimeo, YouTube, etc.

Learn about Creative Writing and Screenwriting portfolio requirements.