Hi Everyone - I’m Margaret Helthaler, an assistant online program director with the Graphic Design Program. This presentation was compiled by Elizabeth Tilak, our senior full-time faculty member who oversees our Portfolio Center and our Internship Program. Elizabeth has shared an overview of the portfolio preparation process, as well as useful tips and resources to help you plan, develop and complete your portfolio. The presentation also includes sample student portfolios to give you and idea of the skill level and quality to strive for in your own work. You may recall from the Welcome presentation that a competitive portfolio is the most important outcome for your program of study. It’s more important that your GPA or the degree earned. You entered your program of study to develop a specific level of design and technical skills – and you must be able to demonstrate these competencies in a portfolio of your work. The most important point to remember is that it is never too soon to begin developing your portfolio. An early start will give you the time you need to build a strong portfolio that will help you find the right position in the industry and find your place in the design world.
Many students do not realize that the course project in most classes can be developed into a portfolio piece while you are learning specific skills. It is important to focus on what you are learning and go through the process but it is also important to pay attention to the quality of your work right from day one. At the end of a class, ask your instructor how the project can be improved upon for your portfolio and consider working on the project beyond the duration of the class.
Here is an example of a student portfolio. I invite you to focus on the quality of the pieces in the portfolio.
Note the quality of the photography, the typography, the layout and design of each piece.
Note the variety of content. You will be working on similar projects in your classes and you should consider each project a potential portfolio piece. You will also want to focus on your thumbnails and concept development. Potential employers want to see how you develop your ideas. Note how this student has included this kind of information in her portfolio and be sure to save all your thumbnails and concept development for each project. You may wish to review our video presentation on file management for tips on how to organize and save your work. Electives are also very important as they show your unique quality as a designer, artist, illustrator, or painter even if it is traditional media. Two important things to focus on as you begin your program of study is developing your design and technical skills AND saving your work correctly so you can continue to edit the work and include it in your final portfolio. In addition to focusing on the quality of the work in your portfolio, you will also want to find your visual voice or unique style that identifies the type of design work you are most suited for. Try to find patterns in your work as you progress through the program. Do you have an illustrative or a graphic style? Go online and study other designers. Ask yourself if you prefer typography, magazine spreads, print media or web and motion graphics?
Of course you should be competent in most areas but you will have some kind of preference. Begin developing those preferences. We created the New Student Guide to aide you in this process. I encourage you to download and review a copy of the Guide if you haven’t already – look for the download link in the Welcome Package. Here is another student sample. This student had strong illustration skills and she liked to doodle. She developed her branding based on her unique style and color sense. Of course she also included work that can be applied across the board because it’s a good idea to demonstrate a broad range of skills when you are starting out in the industry. While it’s possible to be a successful designer without a unique style, taking the time to identify and/or develop your visual voice can offer an advantage. If you have something special don’t hide it, your teachers are here to help – ask them for guidance.
In addition to demonstrating your design and technical skills and your unique style, a strong portfolio will also demonstrate your attention to detail. Good design is in the details. Elizabeth has created a short list of details to consider: Be sure you save your work correctly & retain the original file - this gives you the option to go back and redo or edit your pieces as you mature as a designer. Always use high-resolution images - stock image resources are available through the online library. Have good file management system – again I encourage you to view our file management recording listed in the Welcome Package if you haven’t already. Back up your work – I can’t emphasize this enough. Consider investing in an external hard drive or cloud storage to create multiple copies of your files. And please check your work for typos or spelling mistakes, you may have the best portfolio but if the interviewer sees a mistake they may reject your portfolio. It can be difficult to proof our own work. You may want to ask a friend or colleague to check your portfolio for mistakes. Remember, everything you “put out there” represents you as a designer. I encourage you to review the Presentation Tips recording listed in the Welcome Package for information. Your final portfolio should include 12 to 15 projects. It is difficult to illustrate your talents with too few pieces and too many pieces dilute the impact of your work and will not hold the attention of the viewer. Ideally, you will have approximately 20 pieces ready when you begin your final portfolio course, then your instructor can help you to fine tune the final selection. Quality is more important than quantity. Review each piece to make sure it exhibits strong conceptual and design skills AND demonstrates good craftsmanship. Remember potential employers want to see how you arrived at your concepts. Be sure to include some of your thumbnails and process work. It is also becoming increasingly important to demonstrate technical skills across a range of media. Try to include examples of both print and screen design. And of course, include pieces that reflect your personal style. A graphic design portfolio and marketing package typically consists of a resume, cover letter, business card, a self promo piece, a digital PDF portfolio, a website and a flat portfolio. This is what the industry requires. When you begin your final portfolio class, you will want to confirm exactly which components you will be required to complete for your program of study. So far we have been focusing on preparing your work for your final portfolio.
Now we will discuss the steps involved in putting the whole portfolio and marketing package together. First, you need to develop your brand identity. Decide what field of graphic design you would like to enter. Remember the identity should reflect you as an artist. Take pride in that identity. You can write your own creative brief, treat yourself as a client. You will be walked through this process in your portfolio course, but I encourage you start earlier. Start thinking about it now and continue to revisit the idea as you move through your program. An early start will enable you to focus on tweaking and bringing your final portfolio and marketing package together into a professional presentation when you begin the 5.5 week portfolio course instead of starting from scratch. 5.5 weeks goes by quickly. An early start on your brand will also come in handy if you encounter opportunities to freelance as you are completing your degree. Take the same amount of time and energy you would if you were a client. Based on your creative brief create a visual identity for yourself. Create a logo (which may or may not include a symbol – your name in an attractive font is acceptable so long as it is used consistently) and a design template where you identify a color scheme and typefaces. Your solution doesn’t have to be complicated, but it must be clean and professional. Adapt your design template to each media piece in your marketing package. Consistency is key to a building a successful brand. Here is a student portfolio sample that demonstrates a clear brand identity. Note her consistent use of a clean typographic identity on the bottom of each page. You do not have to come up with an illustrative logo unless that is what reflects your style – such as the previous portfolio for the student who liked to doodle. This student also developed a simple color bar design. As we move through her portfolio package, note how she adapted this design to the stationery, letterhead, resume, her website and other collateral materials. Here... Take a look here, you’ll see how it’s adapted over from her portfolio presentation You can see she developed a consistent logo and brand and a consistent layout, as well as excellent work. These are the key ingredients in a strong portfolio. We hope this presentation has inspired you to begin thinking about your portfolio now, but we don’t expect you do it alone. We encourage you to visit the Portfolio Help Center – which is housed in the Student Help Forum - where you can find tips and advice at any level in your program. Let’s take a look together. You may recall from the software training video if you watched that that at the top of every assignment thread in your graphic design classes is a button that enables you to access the Graphic Design Help Forum. When you click on the button it will bring you to a page that looks like this, and you scroll down and select the click here to access the Graphic Design Help Forum which will bring you to the actual Help Forum. You can also bookmark the URL and access it directly once you access it the first time. You will also want to log in and register so that you are able to see attached files. You are not able to see attached files if don’t register and log in. So let’s scroll down and take a look at the Portfolio Center. Again, there are a few sections here. A section for basically each stage of your program. If you are beginning, you will want to check out the Beginning Section, which focuses on expectations and the initial preparation of materials. If you are in the middle of program you’ll want to check out the Intermediate Section which identifies the type of work and collateral materials to include. And if you are nearing the end of your program, you’ll want to check out the Advanced Section which offers guidelines for compiling and marketing your portfolio. The Portfolio Help Center also houses two portfolio guides. Which basically compile the information from Beginning to Advanced that’s available in the first three sections. Now here is where you need to make sure that you register and log into the Help Forum because if you are not registers, if you haven’t logged in, you are not going to be able to see this attached file here and click and download. You will be able to see all the other information in the Forum, but you are not going to be able to see the actual attached files and click and download. You’ll be able to see that a file is attached you just not going to be able to see the actual attached file So again, make sure you register and log in when you visit the Help Forum So that you are able to see and download these attached files. The final section in the Portfolio Help Center is the Critique and Discussion area. This provides a location for asking questions and sharing work in progress for feedback. And this is also where it’s important that you are logged in in order to contribute to the discussion and you also need to note the file size requirements if you are attaching any work for critique or feedback. You can only upload files that are under 3 MB. If you have files that are larger than this, you may need to house them elsewhere and simply share a link for access. I encourage you to take advantage of this section. Elizabeth monitors this area and will respond to your questions and provide feedback on your work in progress. So be sure to take advantage of this support. I encourage you to visit the Student Help Forum. Bookmark the URL and specifically go through the content here in the Portfolio Center. At this time I’d like to remind you of the other support options available and encourage you to take advantage of them as you move through your program. These resources are listed in the New Student Guide and we also tour a few of them in other video presentations. You will want to refer to the Welcome Package for the list of topics and links to the recordings. We hope you found this presentation helpful. We hold a live Q&A session at the end of each month, and I encourage you to attend. Look for an invitation via email or in a course home announcement. Questions can also be directed to our email alias. We’ve provided it here and it’s also listed in the Welcome Package. Remember, we’re here to help. We wish you much success.