I was recently asked by a publisher to submit a PDF of my portfolio by postal mail and immediately felt both excitement and panic. Excitement for the obvious reason, panic because my brain was finding it impossible to resurrect a clear set of images that fit what was being asked of me. “A PDF…in the mail? Like, with a mailman? How does that work again?”

Yes, thanks to the new fancy-pants world of iPads and smartphones, I had allowed my promotional material to devolve to an alarmingly non-analog state. With nothing on hand for such a task, I was going to need to whip up something pretty darn quick. Thankfully, I already have a basic design theme in place that I use for pretty much everything; I just needed to apply it to a CD in a nice case that could also house a few additional promotional items.

Here’s what I came up with: