Portfolio Reviews 2

The second round of preliminary portfolio reviews will begin in March.

• March 1, Wed.
• March 6, Mon.
• March 8, Wed.
• then we head into Spring Break that weekend

All students are required to submit the following for at least one class day, March 1, 6, and/or 8:

• design and/or illustration that has been revised, these can be composed in your folio layout, or as loose PDF or JPEG, or other singular images
• revised layout of portfolio, especially with type, grid, and hierarchy improvements made since round one folio reviews
• website portfolio should be a designed site done in Squarespace or your chosen content-management system, and it need not be public (we'll discuss this in class)
• PDF as spreads for print content
• functioning website, with a URL and operational links, interaction

This work counts as 25 points towards the 50 points in Portfolio Review 2.

• 5 points, use of grid system to organize 16 works (or slug for temporary identification)
• 5 points, use of size and space to create hierarchy, unity & variety
• 5 points, typographic hierarchy and labeling of content
• 5 points, progress made towards completed folio
• 5 points, formatting, presentation, following directions

The second and final component for Portfolio Review 2 is forthcoming. See the class syllabus for a complete list of point values, and how they factor into your final grade.

Student Works for Show Website

Preliminary review Feb. 15

Your Work: Select three (3) illustration or design pieces that will appear on the show website. Each image should stand alone in one layout, and work well when viewed small.

All three works should be different and they should all say something about you as an illustrator or designer. The three works you select need to be formatted as:

1. JPEG or PNG
2. RGB
3. Highest Quality, No Compression
4. 72dpi
5. Landscape format of 1024-1280 pixels in the widest dimension; but dimensions haven't been established yet, so for now get the work on Turnstile2 even as a hi-res PDF, TIFF, JPEG, or PNG and we will size it later

Your Bio: Revise your third-person biography for the show website, telling readers about you, your work, and your goals. Aim for 2-3 sentences, but if you can write more, 3-5 would work well too.

Your Headshot: This is still open: Will it be a photograph or illustration of each student?

Put your three images and also your bio (as a TXT or DOCX) on the class Turnstile_2 folder.

Participation, meeting deadlines, and following directions for this work will count toward your Show Participation points.

Photography How-To

Sampling of how-to videos for photographing your work.

Photography with One Softbox

How To Photograph A Beer Bottle/Product Photography

COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY | Shoe

Guide on how to do product photography on the cheap

Product Photography Tutorial using tabletop continuous lighting

Prodigy: iPhone for Studio Photography

Prodigy: Studio Photography from Beginner to Professional

Personal ID

Due Wed. Feb. 8

• student's personal identity
• for use on resume, business cards, portfolio book, and website portfolio
• use color expressively, but also functionally  
• every reader should be able to look at your identity, and read what's in front of them without you having to explain it to them
• present at least 6 different personal identities from the categories below
• two options: lettermark (one, two, or more of your initials)
• two options: wordmark (your full name, first and last name)
• two options: emblem (a lettermark inside of a containing element)
• students may bring other ideas in addition to the formats above, provided they've already done the required two each of the lettermark, wordmark, and emblem

Format

1. PDF placed on Turnstile_2 in our VCOM578 folder, with one identity per page
2. Put each identity in a 5 by 5 inch square

Consult the portfolio handout for more information, and see past students' personal identities on Turnstile_2 in our VCOM578 folder for reference.

Be expressive, but also be yourself. Be unique, but also be readable and legible. Your typography can have just enough flair, but it shouldn't go overboard. Make sure we can decipher what's in front of us.

Worth 20 points towards the 100 Personal Identity points:

• 4 Legibility: the reader is able to decipher one letter from another, recognize and distinguish one letter from another; letting the letters do the work, and communicate what's needed for the reader
• 4 Readability: how the typeface is applied and designed with, making it easy to read, and comfortable for the reader to experience; issues such as contrast between the type and background can factor into this
• 4 Proper Tracking: open tracking for all caps, normal tracking for mixed case, closed tracking for scripts
• 4 Kerning: attention to pairs of letters that need spacing adjusted, think about the pre-SPR vortex problem, and how you solved that
• 4 Presentation: following directions, formatting, spelling

Portfolio BLAD

Due Mon. Feb. 6

• Folio BLAD (book layout and design)
• DIFD students will present a mock-up of their website as a static (non-web) layout or as a framework they intend on using
• this is a preliminary look at how your portfolio will come together, and the way you will use a grid and typography to organize and present your work
• VCOM & ILLO BLAD designed as spreads in InDesign, exported as PDF in spreads, placed on Turnstile_2 in our VCOM578 folder
• DIFD site as non-web wireframe, layout, or other design as PDF, or web wireframe and grid-system viewable in a web browser
• these works will be reviewed and feedback will be shared with students

Goals: Order your works, as you would want them presented in your folio, with your best work first, and your best work last, sandwiching all other work in between. Use typography to create a small subheading that labels the work and smaller typography as a caption that describes the work. See prior examples on Turnstile_2.

Requirements: If you do not have a finalized work then you may use a slug, a placeholder. For example, if your thesis is not yet done, you can type THESIS on the page it will be appearing. If it will take two pages, put THESIS on both pages.

Layout:

• Use a grid, and have margins on each page
• Vary the size of your imagery, but have a consistent "shape table" or "shape scheme" when it comes to the size of your image boxes
• You can "flood" images across the page's gutter, so one image takes up two pages (the left and right), but keep in mind that things may get cut off when it's printed and bound
• Put things in context, especially if they are illustrations for a magazine, lay them out in a magazine composition so that we can see how they would work
• Think function first, and be sure that titles, subtitles, and captions are big enough to read, but not so big that they take attention away from your illustration and/or design
• Size of caption type can vary, depending on the font used, but as a rule of thumb, 7 points to 11 points is a good range to work in
• Use a grid, oh wait, I said that above in the first line, but this is a friendly reminder

Required Reading: See THE PORTFOLIO link cluster in the right sidebar menu.

This work counts as 25 points towards the 50 points in Portfolio Review 1.

• 10 points, use of grid system and organization of content
• 5 points, ordering of 16 works (or slug for temporary identification)
• 5 points, typographic hierarchy and labeling of content
• 5 points, formatting, presentation, following directions

Further Show Poster Development

Due Mon. Jan. 30

• Work at 50% to 100% of finished 18 by 24 inch size.
• Refine and revise the poster that's been identified on your sketch sheet as a final contender.

Keep the following in mind, also stressed during the first creative stage:

• theme and general conceptual direction is open at this stage, so you can come up with any idea, any theme you like
• the poster needs to communicate the theme/concept to a wide audience
• you need to be appropriate when communicating that concept
• others need to get what's happening in the poster without you having to explain it

If any sketches from your first poster ideas did not receive feedback, and you'd like to campaign for them, bring it for a discussion. New ideas may also be shared during this time if you have new concepts.

Print your posters, and hang them on the wall in RUTL 221. This second stage is also worth 20 points, and will be factored into the 100 Show Promotion points.

• 5 craft
• 8 composition, layout, use of form
• 5 concept, message, meaning
• 2 following directions

The Resume

Due Wed. Jan. 25. A 200-word typed biography, stating who you are, what you do, and your interests. This text "resume" will become part of the senior show's website, where your biography text tells readers who you are. See past class websites for examples.

Due Mon. Jan. 30. Students must have a 1-page print out of their resume prepared for class. This will be a "content only" resume review and the resume does not need to be designed with an identity, aesthetic, nor look & feel to promote you. This is just the resume text.

1. Include your name
2. Run spell check
3. Include relevant work experience
4. Your email address and phone number
5. Mailing address not needed
6. Logos, icons, or other "personal id" not needed for this review
7. Names of references not needed

All reading assignments below include content you must take into account and put into practice when crafting your resume. If your resume needs edits, revisions, or additions to get it up to the standards of these articles, make adjustments to it.

Read from the book Talent Is Not Enough:

• Cover letter and its length: pages 27-32
• Personalizing your application with good writing: pages 120-128

And read these tems too:

• http://aiga.org/content.cfm/resume-common-mistakes
• http://aiga.org/content.cfm/resume-writing
• http://aiga.org/content.cfm/a-word-to-the-unwise
• http://aiga.org/content.cfm/after-school-special
• http://aiga.org/content.cfm/the-first-career-stages-of-a-young-designer
• http://www.aiga.org/interior.aspx?pageid=3079&id=2759

As you build your own resume, remember:

• include a header with pertinent contact information: your name, email, maybe a phone number too, mailing address isn't needed; references aren't needed
• then list:
  
  1. university degrees earned (or to be earned); GPA is optional
  2. relevant work experience; in other words, your stint as a telemarketer may not apply here; but consider what freelance work you can include and any other "actually produced" projects, internships, etc. 
  3. if you've done work in a class that has been used on campus, such as a poster for Winthrop, this is considered either "in-house design" work, and can be couched as such, provided you mention that this was for a class, and you had client interaction; VCOM 444 for VCOM students is also usable here, and can be titled Studio 351 on your resume
  4. honors, awards related to your work; scholarships apply here too
  5. organizations, be they student or professional
  6. also consider, especially if you're an illustrator
  • exhibitions
  • commissions
  • self-published works
• use spelling/grammar check
• be concise - keep it to 1 page, a one-sheet with everything on one side
• be yourself
• be succinct
• use spelling/grammar check
• do not exaggerate
• remember that any/all social media that you put out there (across the Internet) is also subject to being reviewed, scrutinized, and assessed when it comes to people hiring you or just plain old looking at you; so be yourself there, whether it means being creative, tasteful, humorous, or having no taste; as one of our former graduates put it to me years ago, "if they can't handle the shit I put on Twitter, then I don't want to work for them anyway..." That's one way to look at it, but it may limit your options.
• use spelling/grammar check 
• use spelling/grammar check a second time

Final and overall Resume Assessment will be based on:

• hierarchy of information; layout
• spelling & grammar
• relevance and appropriateness of content
• application of assigned reading information to student's resume content
• meeting the 1-page length
• handing material in on time
• following directions

The Jan. 25 and Jan. 30 reviews are the first of many milestones for your contribution to the senior show and also the resume portion of your own professional materials.