portfolio surgery / receiving feedback
Today I had a portfolio surgery with Andy Lodge just to receive some feedback and some tips and information about how to present my work for the portfolio. As I hadn't put a lot of my portfolio together yet I went showing the presentation boards that I had been working on for submission. In terms of layout I received some encouraging feedback, the layout was clear and consistent but varied in terms of different projects. Obviously for the actual portfolio there would be less text on the boards as it wouldn't be a process of explaining the complete journey in such detail, but a passage about the concept and the final products would be relevant.
We spoke about the best was to try and display publication design and Andy suggested some websites that would be useful that displayed similar things, suggesting it was best to photograph face down, birds eye view.
In terms of varying the photography and the presentation of the boards, do not show any photos that keep showing the same thing, they need to be varied with what area of the design you are showing.
This was really helpful for me to be able to concentrate on properly after submission. The key with the portfolio is taking professional and high quality photographs of the work, this is something I have definitely learnt the importance of in third year and the difference between the final photographs in third year in comparison to first and second is huge. Andy also mentioned to bring some actual printed designs to an interview as they might be interested in seeing the project in a bit more detail as opposed to looking at photographs on the boards, but this is something I would need to judge at the time.
Finally when sending a digital portfolio out to people do not put all the best bits in there, if they are interested and call you for a face to face interview you need to go being able to show either your best work or bits that you haven't already shown in the PDF portfolio.
Plan of action, next steps
Understanding exactly how to lay out your portfolio and taking the right kind of photos of your work can make all the difference and its really just about bringing it all together and presenting it in a way thats appropriate and complimentary of your work. I will look to address this properly once submission is over, however I have started looking at particular briefs that I want to feature in my portfolio and that could potentially need rephotographing.
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