<p>From what I've seen and heard, I'm under the impression that most students who submit art portfolios submit nice paintings and photorealistic drawings.</p>
<p>Would it be strange or inappropriate to send a collection of simplistic drawings, design and comics as a portfolio? People tend to write off cartoons as petty non-art, but I'm hoping that colleges will at least find it refreshing.</p>
<p>I can’t answer your question as I’m not into art but a friend of mine has a daughter that went into drawing comics and she went to a school which had an art department. One or two years in, she started getting gigs for doing comic books to the point where she was making six figures so she quit college. Her college then wanted her back - to teach there.</p>
<p>If you using your portfolio in conjunction with an application I would say to make sure you have some 2D and 3D foundation pieces in addition to the cartooning and design. If you are an accepted art major and submitting a portfolio for a specific scholarship the foundation pieces are probably not as important.</p>
<p>I’m applying to liberal arts colleges as a psychology major–I have no intention of applying to art schools. Thanks for the advice, though.</p>
<p>If cartoons are your forte, that’s what I would send. The issue is whether the people in the admissions office will see it or somebody in the art department who might look down on cartoon art. (I think that’s fairly unlikely though.) When we went to accepted students weekend at Tufts one of the “typical students” they paraded for us was an English major who did cartoons for the Tufts paper about student life.</p>
<p>Submit it! It’s a skill and a talent - one that differentiates you from the other students applying. At very worst, it won’t get sent to the art dept for evaluation, but that’s no reason why it shouldn’t be part of your application.</p>
<p>If your cartoons are artistic, witty, funny… go for it. If they tell a manga-like story, go for it. If you put a lot of time and thought and invested your heart into them, go for it. But… If they are just stick figures that you sketched in just a few minutes, I do not recommend wasting your and the adcoms’ time.</p>
<p>^ What no stick figures like [xkcd:</a> Adam and Eve](<a href=“http://xkcd.com/]xkcd:”>http://xkcd.com/) ?</p>
<p>mathmom, I bet many folks find Xkcd stick figures witty, humorous, funny and creative! :)</p>
<p>justina, if you are not applying as an art major, why are you submitting an art portfolio?</p>
<p>If the university’s art department will be reviewing your portfolio, I’m afraid they will not particularly find it kind of fun. Sorry. They particularly don’t like to see manga in portfolios either. They are specifically looking for technique, composition, expression, point of view, talent and fine art skills in a variety of media.</p>
<p>I never said I draw manga. I draw real cartoons.</p>
<p>I’m submitting an art portfolio because it demonstrates that I have interests beyond the realm of academics.</p>
<p>Not at all strange. Cartoons are a recognized genre. Best of luck!</p>
<p>Make sure you check on what specific supplementary material each college you are applying to welcomes. Many selective universities are quite specific. For example, from Yale’s website:</p>
<p>"You should think carefully before submitting supplementary materials with your Yale College application. Most successful applicants submit only the items that we require. There are cases in which too many submissions, or submissions that do not reflect a high level of talent, can actually work against a candidate. Because the Admissions Committee gives greatest weight to the documents required of all applicants, we recommend that you focus your energy primarily on those elements of the application.</p>
<p>Supplementary submissions may make sense for students with substantial and well-developed talent that cannot be conveyed adequately in the rest of the application. Due to the large number of applications that Yale College receives, we cannot evaluate all supplementary materials. Admissions officers and faculty members will be selective in choosing which submissions to review."
[Supplementary</a> Materials | Yale College Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.yale.edu/supplementary]Supplementary”>Supplementary Materials | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions)</p>
<p>Another example: “Dartmouth applicants may submit the Arts Supplement, regardless of their potential major area of study. The Admissions Office is not able to return arts supplements to applicants. When you send the Common Application Arts Supplement to the Dartmouth Admissions Office, we will submit your portfolio or solo performance to our faculty for evaluation as follows.
Types of materials our faculty can review for your Arts Supplement : The Studio Art Department will review portfolios of 10-12 full-page prints (preferred) or slides. Please do not submit CDs for Studio Art. Prints should be 8x10 or 8.5x11 and should not be bound. Slides should be submitted in a plastic sleeve.”</p>
<p>Don’t know OP’s school list, but there are equally specific requirements for Brandeis, UC Santa Barbara and everything in between.</p>
<p>I appreciate your passion for cartoons, but no one on a list like cc can really advise you about the quality of your cartoons and how they may be viewed. I’d suggest you have your art teacher at school take a look and give you suggestions on if and how to submit them. She or he should have experience with art supplements and know if you will be helping or hurting your application. Art supplements are not easy since they are a pain to organize, label, photograph submit (schools typically have conflicting formats, requirements, instructions) and the feedback on your art work from the schools Studio Art faculty (most adcoms forward your work to be evaluated) will then affect your results. There is that risk.</p>
<p>I agree with madbean. If you were my kid, I’d advise against submitting extra portfolios of any kind unless you were applying to a department where you know and expect they would be interested in evaluating them. This would apply to writers, artists, musicians, etc.
There are ways to convey that you have interests outside of academia in your application. You can do it with your essays, your resume or activities list, and even through your teacher or counselor recommendations. Any kind of activity or award that is related to your interest will tell the admissions committee that you are involved.
They are not going to accept you because they like your cartooning. The FACT that you are involved in cartooning is interesting and worth mentioning in some way on your application, however. Good luck!</p>
<p>I would say you should only submit an arts supplement if it will demonstrate that you are really, really good at that particular kind of art. This should be based on the evaluation of somebody beside yourself. In your case, have you won awards for your cartooning? Have you had cartoons published? Does your art teacher think they are excellent? If they just show your interest, don’t send them.</p>
<p>“They are not going to accept you because they like your cartooning.”</p>
<p>I disagree. If the cartooning is exceptional, it has admissions value just like any other talent. A student with a strong portfolio might well jump ahead of competitors with similar academic qualifications.</p>
<p>Hunt is right that someone besides the student should evaluate whether the cartoons are exceptional. My standard is: if you DID want to get into a selective program for animation/graphic design/illustration, would this portfolio make you a solid candidate? If so, send a supplement to the liberal arts school. Your school’s art faculty is good place to begin answering this question.</p>
<p>Cartoons can be exceptional even if they would not be exceptional in an animation/graphic design/illustration context. Xkcd being a great example – a portfolio of those cartoons would be a great part of an application to Brown, but not necessarily to RISD.</p>
<p>(But I agree, we should be talking exceptional, not just nice.)</p>
<p>BTW, the person I knew in college who has been the most economically successful in life did it primarily with cartoons . . . and not necessarily cartoons that would have gotten her into art school when she did them, either. Here’s one of the first ones she did: <a href=“http://www.sandraboynton.com/sboynton/hippobirdiecards.html[/url]”>http://www.sandraboynton.com/sboynton/hippobirdiecards.html</a> She started drawing cartoon greeting cards because she couldn’t find a summer job, and within a couple years she was paying for college herself, then becoming a one-woman multimedia industry. You can bet the college is pleased as punch to have her as an alumna.</p>
<p>Have you asked this question over at CC’s subforum for Visual Arts and Film Production?To find it, go to “Discussion Home” (top left of this page); click and scroll below all the listed Colleges and Unis, to “College Majors.” I know you don’t want to be an Art Major, but they might help you evaluate your art product on their terms. I think you can expect a critical audience there.</p>
<p>I’d send them no matter what - I’d put together a small group of just the best ones, package it however the school requires - or if an art supplement is not on the list - I’d just send it as is directly to the admissions office. I think it’s unlikely to hurt you even if the admissions office thinks the cartoons are lame, and (assuming they are good) there’s a decent possibility that someone on the admissions committee will like them.</p>
<p>Yes, I am a published cartoonist (I make comics for a major college newspaper–I’m applying as a transfer student, by the way), but I have never won any awards (I’ve never submitted anything to any sort of competition).</p>
<p>I haven’t taken an art class since I was in middle school, but art teachers, other teachers and peers alike tend to praise my work. I don’t think the aesthetic of my newspaper cartoons is particularly exceptional but I can at least say that they are funny, which never hurts.</p>