Final Folio Progress Review

On Monday Apr. 10 and Wednesday Apr. 12, the final round of in-progress portfolio reviews will take place during class. Place these items on the class server for one of those deadlines, either Apr. 10 or Apr. 12, and they will be reviewed and graded.

• personal website online, with URL accessible through a web browser
• VCOM + ILLO: book portfolio layout as PDF spreads
• DIFD only: printed leave-behind mock-ups, layouts, other visual prototypes

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

• 5 points, organization, use of grid system to layout 16 works
• 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

See the class syllabus for a complete list of point values, and how they factor into your final grade.

Morning Work March 20

Use our Monday March 20 class time in order to complete the followings tasks, all of which are due on Wednesday March 22.

Promotion and Mailing: each student must contribute mailing addresses and email addresses for us to send out the poster/mailer and save the date; use the Microsoft Excel template in our Turnstile_2 class folder to add content to each of the required fields; follow the formatting as shown in the examples, and if you don't have text for a field, leave it blank

Website team: prepare the site for a test run, seeing how it functions on the following, testing for mobile on tablets and phones using both iOS and Android; Poster Team should provide support where needed by providing the most up-to-date and finalize graphics from the poster

• Chrome mobile and desktop
• Safari mobile and desktop
• Firefox mobile and desktop
• Microsoft Edge (on Windows) 
• employ all class members to assist with testing (that should be 7 of the seniors who are not working on the website); Web Team should observe people using the site, give them scenarios to click through, things to find; Web Team should document any issues that come up with the images, text, and layout and if problems arise, identify what needs to be fixed

Social Media team: create/update the following accounts and/or events; Poster Team should provide support where needed by providing the most up-to-date and finalize graphics from the poster

• Twitter: need landscape header graphic and square profile graphic; needs bio text updated for this year
• Instagram: need square profile graphic, and be sure to post a "Save the Date" image with information about the event day, time, location; needs bio text updated for this year
• Facebook: create a Facebook page and also a Facebook event, and note that we are a non-needs landscape header graphic and square profile graphic, be sure to invite Chad to the event so he can share it with alumni these are the prior years' event pages for your reference in 2016 and in 2015
• AIGA Community Events: will need to include header graphic and feature graphic, sizes forthcoming

Venue team: we need a floor plan designed, including where the students' design portfolios will be displayed, round tables for watching the lecture, etc.

Catering team: food items will need to be decided on soon; see Ms. Ledwell for information about how to browse food for ordering at Sam's, one of the places we will purchase food; take inventory of the items we have on hand in the DoD faculty kitchen, with the help of Ms. Ledwell, counting existing plastic utensils, plates, napkins, etc.

Hospitality team: create a schedule for our guest artist's visit, including the days/times you want to have lunches/breakfasts with her, and when she can have "down time" to herself; see examples of schedule from prior years in our class folder on Turnstile_2

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