Developing my Portfolio for studio visits

I am conscious I need to develop my Portfolio further before I go for any studio visits.  i found a couple of interesting articles:

Internships

Portfolio tips

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Examples of Portfolios

I want the digital portfolio to be like Lee Goater recommended, just a teaser so perhaps just five strong closeup images maybe.  I have been looking at ways of perhaps 'cutting' shapes out of images so the viewer only sees a small portion or maybe making all but a small portion coloured and the rest grayscale.

Portfolio Surgeries

My first attempt my own portfolio:

Feedback

Lee Goater

Lee is such a warm inspiring person I immediately felt comfortable with him.  He was really positive and complimentary about the work.  He thought the portfolio demonstrated a wide range of skills.  He thought I should try and 'tease' more and not show so much work on one page. Let the work unfold more as I tell the story.  He thought it would suit a large Branding Agency like Gratterpalm.  With regard to my 'creative' CV he feels that they are better kept simple, nicely laid out and to the point.
Take out the Loft space banners as this does not compliment the other work and actually cheapens it.
Chris Jackson

From Elmwood.  Chris was very thorough and to the point.  What I hadn't really thought about for the portfolio surgery was it was 'me' telling the story of the portfolio.  I had thought it was him looking at the work and giving me feedback which was really naive.  I obviously didn't 'sell' the work very well as he said its important to show you are passionate about each brief.

The main points:

There was about the right amount of work and notation on each brief although he said to check the typography more accurately (ragging!)

Include more work on the Typo brief as I had got his interest on the first sheet and he wanted to see more.

Think about the order as the person usually will remember two pieces of work so have your strongest at the front and second strongest at the back.

Put the YCN Commendation at the front as it is a well recognised achievement

With collaborative briefs be clear about what your contribution is.

He liked the fact I said the reason for some briefs was to learn new skills as this demonstrated my willingness to develop my practise.

You don't really need a CV in your portfolio.

Explain design decisions, contexts, typefaces, colours.  Tell the story.  e.g. the crown in the Sweetie apple

Keep images consistent ie if using iphone mockups use wither illustration or photos not both.

Received my copy of YCN Annual

Great to receive this from YCN (Bonus was I got two so I gave one to Amber for LCABAGD)

Pressision print visit

Sophie very kindly arranged for us to visit Pressision Print which is a printer Joe Gilmore from Qubik uses.

Great to see the human element running alongside the latest in technology.  James said the Lithoprinter is basically running 24 hours a day.  Great special print processes.

Business cards

So I don't spend too long on this Ive decided to stay with the L logo for now however I think I may get the cards printed square as it fits the L shape well

square-business-cards

Then I checked some prices online - at least £75 for 50!  Ive decided to stick with what Ive got and do some cheaper cards as I am sure my logo/id will change again before end of year.

I could get them 500 spot UV varnished at this printers £45 but they wont be delivered until 28 Jan and I would like these for the Leeds Print festival.


http://www.fullcolourcards.co.uk/best-sellers-400gsm-spot-uv-varnish-i-1046.html

Found a next day delivery printer who do 400gsm double sided much cheaper than Moo.  Worth a try

www.beanprint.com/


I've tried a few different typefaces and layouts as follows:

The original design was Century Gothic

Then Univers

I found this ITC Serif Gothic typeface whilst doing the Prospects brief.  herb Lubalin designed it in 1974 and tried to combine serif and sans serif

I thought the L worked better without the coloured box on the white.  I could have had one side gloss laminated for an extra £12 but still not 100 % about this design yet so will see next time.  Ive paid £22 for 250 next day delivery (free)

OUGD301 Evaluation Design Practice 3

This module has been extremely challenging both time management wise and also handling unforeseen problems.  I had set myself the target of focusing on Dissertation every Sunday and over reading week, which I have achieved, however I believe this has been to the detriment of the Design Practice on this module. 

At the stage where I should have had my eye on what four briefs I was going to focus on, I was desperately trying to get 500 leaflets screen printed for The Loft Space.  I have already discussed the  ramifications of this on this post http://l-whitaker1013-dp.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-loft-space-client-disappointment.html so I wont dwell on this here. 

What I learnt from experience is:

• Don't propose ambitious ideas which are not fully tested first . The Loft Space did not have a print budget so I thought a cheap solution to this was to screen print the leaflets. Although I had been reasonably successful at Screen printing before I had not tried anything like this before.

• Don't offer to do something just to please your client.  I should have just offered to design the leaflets and let Janet source her own printing.  Her budget is not my problem.

• Screen printing is best used for limited edition/special effects rather than high volume runs.

To get over the disappointment I felt after this experience I threw myself into the Circus and Typo briefs which was a positive way forward.  I did not however revisit my beautiful Excel Spreadsheet Project plan and revise it...EVER again throughout the module.  From a project management point of view this was not the best way forward as was to proved when I had five days to Module hand in and I had only just started the fourth brief, brief 2 What make a good App design. 

My Time management, something which is normally a strength has been atrocious on this module.  As well as what happened with the Loft Space and the Dissertation, another reason for this was the three main briefs Circus, Typo and The Loft Space were very research and content heavy.  This was deliberate on my part as I love really getting under the skin of a subject before I start concept developing.  Going forward I need to find a better balance with my process so that I have time to make my Design outcomes are as strong as the initial ground work.

On a more positive note I have developed and honed a range of skills including:

• Screen printing
• A simple way to create 'Spot varnish' using foiling and a heat press.
• Type and layout skills including my understanding of Typeface choices, combinations and best practises. For example I have a better grasp of what to do abut widows, hyphenation and hierarchy.
• In design skills - Becoming more efficient and consistent with approach. Paragraph Styles, Booklet design and printing, General grid and layout skills, managing images for print and screen, formatting paragraphs i.e. managing hyphenation, using features such as slug area and attributes such as overprint.
• Illustrator skills - more confident with vectoring and pen tool
• Photoshop skills - Using Filters such as Vanishing Point to create perspective,  experimented with different layer styles and blending options such as colour burn and multiply, drop shadow and bevel and emboss,  Correct resizing of images between RGB and CMYK
• Continuing to develop  Dreamweaver and Web design skills
• To check and re-check work after each change.  Spell check, proof reads, check consistent use of Typeface - all so vital when trying to achieve a high standard of Type and Layout.

My crafting skills still leave something to be desired but that was due to not using College facilities such as Vernon Street due to Time constraints.

One area which I am aware I did not fully exploit on each brief was I did not push the range or consider methods of distribution as much as I should have done.  I was deliberately focused on developing certain aspects of each brief i.e. Type and Layout in Typo and Circus rather than expanding the potential of what each could bring.

Going forward to FMP I plan to be more outcome focused and have less content heavy briefs.  

Although I did not use Digital as much as planned, I still have a real interest exploring how I can incorporate Design for Screen into my practice leading up to FMP. 

This is Real Art

Respect!  I have been using TheMusician's Union Monthly magazine for editorial inspiration and have just discovered who is behind it.  They are behind a whole lot more...

thisisrealart.