Icon layout: portolfio question

[Offelias]

Hi Guys,
Recently had a nice freelance job where I designed over 100 icons.
The trouble I'm having is how best to lay these icons out on an A3 format for my portfolio.

They can be split into categories, but some categories are significantly larger than others, while within one category, sub-categories can have significantly more icons than another.

So.. going for a grid structure I can't get it to look right because nothing really lines up.. lots of protruding and insets going on.
Grouping in categories looks much nicer, and I can divide the page accordingly eg using boxes. But obviously due to the differences within even one category, I'm struggling to find a consistency even in background boxes as each category requires both a different width, and length - and basing the width on the largest sub-category, there is also a different amount of negative space per category box. (Hope this makes sense).


Has anyone designed a lot of icons and then laid them out for a portfolio?
It would be very helpful if I could have some advice, or perhaps see an example where there are a lot of different amounts, but it still works.

Thanks
XXX

 

[Paul Murray]

Maybe pick a few that you feel are the absolute best and just try and work with those?

If you give someone an A3 sheet with over 100 small icons on it they'll probably just glance over it because they're bombarded with information and your skill and imagination will likely be lost in the information overload.

 

[Offelias]

That sounds like a plan

However choosing the best ones might be difficult - I want to show them all off lol.
They all have a uniqueness that I spent time individually on.
Perhaps I could write a small blurb alongside each category as to what the categories involve - cut down and show my favourites and let the viewer create the missing ones.

I suppose since they are related, there's a natural consistency between the designs so it won't be difficult for the viewer to fill in the blanks if they want to look that far into it.


When printing out for a portfolio - is it ok to lay out pages with a summary of the brief? As long as the layout is consistent across the portfolio?
For instance: Printing the format scaled leaving some whitespace at the bottom or side for a small text like what you would see accompanying large photo's in a book?