Folio, Card, Resume Hand In

On or before Friday April 21 at noon, students need to submit all of the following portfolio items:

1. physical portfolio; the instructor needs the physical folio for grading, but will return it next week, beginning on Apr. 26
2. 3-5 printed business cards that are kept in the VCOM archives
3. 3-5 printed resumes that are kept in the VCOM archives
4. URL, a.k.a. web address of online portfolio
5. DIFD students: one printed leave behind kept in the VCOM archives
6. PDFs of business cards and resumes
7. PDFs of folio as spreads
8. PDFs of folio as pages

PDFs go onto Turnstile2 in our VCOM-578 folder. All PDFs must be submitted for High Quality Print:

• from InDesign, export using…
  File > Adobe PDF Presets > High Quality Print
  needed in two separate files, two separate formats: 
• once as spreads saved as lastname-folio-spreads.pdf
• and then single pages saved as lastname-folio-pages.pdf
• spread control is in the PDF export dialog

DONORS, PARTNERS THANK YOUS

During our Monday April 24 class from 8:00 a.m. to 10:45 a.m., all students will sign posters and thank you cards for our donors. I will have pens/markers on hand, as well as posters and card.

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.

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.

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

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

Your Portfolio Website

All students are required to set up their own personal portfolio website, and it is part of the term's overall grade. See the syllabus for more information on pages 2 and 3 and also read this folio handout.


The website need not include everything that you’ve ever done, and it may or may not include things from your printed portfolio. For example, your website could have video, which would work better online than in your printed portfolio. Your online portfolio should have your best pieces, that showcase what you are really capable of, and what you want to do long-term as an illustrator or designer, or both.

Design Continuity
Visually, the website should have some components from the identity system used on your business cards, resume, and also your printed portfolio. Brand yourself with your identity materials, and make sure things are unified across your website portfolio, portfolio book, business cards, and resume: color, placement, fonts, hierarchy, rendering styles, etc.

Your website should have between 8-10 pieces: you can have some pieces only in your printed portfolio and perhaps some only in your website folio.

Terminology

• Content Management System (CMS): a flexible, easy way to design, layout, update, and manage your website; if you subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud, you can use Adobe Portfolio and its features as part of your existing subscription; WordPress and Squarespace are widely reputable and reliable CMSs, that offer templates where you can customize your site's layout; Squarespace has a lot of add ons, including web fonts, built-in blogging tools, and also e-commerce; The Grid is a relatively new platform, and if you want to try it out, consider signing up for an advance trial; with WordPress, you can create a free yoursite.wordpress.com address here, and you can get a custom domain name there for a small yearly fee; some Domain Name registrars and web hosts will also package WordPress into their services; if you want to host your site yourself, on your own servers WordPress.org would be the way to go; to see the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org read here
• Domain Name: students are encouraged to acquire their own custom, vanity domain, such as georgedesigns.com, with georgedesigns.com being your custom domain name; prices for domains range from Free to $10/year to $50/year and even $100/year, and students should research Domain Name Registrars to compare prices; in addition to .com and .org and .net, new top-level domains have been made available, such as .design and .pictures, but new top-level domains such as those may be expensive during their initial release, and hard to come by
• Domain Name Registrar: an organization or company that manages, sells, and reserves domain names, some Content Management Systems (CMS), such as Squarespace, will sell you their CMS, and you can also buy a domain name with them as well; Google has also begun providing domain name registration as well; other places you can get your domain name include Bluehost and 1&1, who will also host your site, although Bluehost and 1&1 may only have WordPress CMS tools available
• Email: students have customarily gotten their own custom domain name, and custom email, all of which get put on their business cards; mail@yourdomain.com is considered to be more professional compared to yourname@gmail.com; it's a small investment to get your own domain name
• Email Forwarding: if you want your own mail@yourdomain.com email, but you don't want to check another email inbox in addition to the others you have, you can forward the email, so mail@yourdomain.com will all get sent to yourname@gmail.com, and you can still receive and reply to the mail@yourdomain.com email
• Social Media (optional): students have included outbound links from their personal website to their social media, directing visitors to Instagram or Dribbble, which is advantageous since it shows visitors the breadth of creativity that you enjoy; you can also include outbound links to your LinkedIn profile
• Web Hosting: third-party companies will host your website files on a server, for you to publish them on the web, accessible through your domain name, examples of Bluehost and 1&1 and HostGator, WordPress.com is even considered a hosting company, since it stores your files online; full-feature Web Hosting will include your website and also custom emails, such that georgedesigns.com would be where your website lives, and you can also get email through them such as mail@georgedesigns.com

Required Reading:

• Get your folio online quickly + easily
• What Creative Directors Are Looking for in an Online Portfolio
• Using a blog, a CMS, for a folio

For Illustration & VCOM majors, the Student's Personal Website is worth 80 points total*:

• 37.5% Craftsmanship, Technical Execution: the imagery shown is of good quality, the website functions across browsers including a desktop, tablet, and mobile browser; the site functions without any errors, and with all links functioning; appropriate web languages used for the site's rendering (Flash sites are not permitted)
• 50% Composition: the layout is unified, using a grid; has readable typography; well organized with a sense of hierarchy; allows for images to be featured, or viewed largely enough for inspection; student has applied their identity (ID, logo, colors, fonts) and doing so unifies their entire system together (printed portfolio, resume, business card) into one complete "total design"
• 12.5% Presentation/Professionalism: the website is suitable for the student to promote themselves with upon graduation, and to use as an online portfolio to showcase their work; meeting all deadlines
• Built the site yourself using a CMS, even with its own template. Or build the site on your own, coding the HTML and CMS yourself.
• You cannot hire a developer, student developer, or other person to build your site for you. 
• *DiFD students will have a different rubric to adhere to, and must hand code their site from scratch, meaning no CMS if you're in DiFD.

Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Squarespace, WordPress, Tumblr, Cargo Collective, Indexr, Squarespace, or Indexhibit, are an acceptable way to design/layout your portfolio. Students may also create their site on their own through "straight-up HTML and CSS" that you create without a CMS.

Students may choose to use any of the aforementioned CMS tools above. Any other methods must be approved by the instructor on or before Feb. 15.

Wed. Mar. 1 is a targeted deadline for each student's personal website.

See the class calendar for more deadlines.

Portfolio Reviews Round 1

Students are required to show 24 works, in class, printed out in color, and hung on the wall. Digital works, such as websites and videos, may be shown on the iMac computers in the lab.
Worth 25 points total, towards your round Portfolio - Round 1 reviews of 50 total points.

• 24 points: 1 point per qualifying work shown
• 1 point: following directions, showing proper media, being on time

See the Welcome Message from Your Portfolio (below) for more information about acceptable portfolio content. Consult the class calendar for review days.

This is the first round of initial portfolio content reviews, with other content reviews happening at the beginning of this term.

Students will receive their assigned portfolio content review days during class.

A Welcome Message from Your Portfolio

Dear Class of 2017:

You may not know me yet, so allow me to introduce myself: I am your portfolio. Nice to meet you.

Winter Break is the perfect time to start thinking about me, nay, to start working on me. In fact, when you get back from break, and for the first month of VCOM 578, you're required to show examples of what you'll include in me. So get started now and find your work, better yet only find your best work, and have it available.

All students must present at least 24 works in January during our preliminary portfolio content review. These 24 works will be reviewed, critiqued, and either accepted into your portfolio, discarded as "not worthy," or edited during the semester in order to (maybe) make it into your portfolio. By the end of the semester, you will narrow those 24 works down to 16 works for use in your portfolio.

What exactly is a work? As in one work that counts towards the 24, towards the final 16? If you have a comic book, which consists of many pages and panels and many characters, as well as a cover and other designed/illustrated components, then any pages or multiple pages, as well as the cover and other elements would count as 1 work. If you have a branding project, with a logo, brochure, poster, website, and other media, all of that is also 1 work. 

Most importantly: your 24 best works should be items that are your Best Visual Communication Design or Illustration, and notice this does not say your Favorite Visual Communication Design or Illustration. If it's your favorite work, but it is not well done, then it's not worthy for your portfolio, and it should not go in. 

For the 24-count preliminary portfolio content review in January: 

1. we need to see 24 works
2. showing less than 24 will require you to revisit your past work, and work to be made this term, so you can build up more work for inclusion in your portfolio
3. the work you show in January should ideally be printed out and ready to hang on the wall for a review
4. Illustrators: you can bring in painted works, or print outs of those painted works
5. Everyone: you can bring in the physical designs you have, whether it's a package design or a book or a magazine
6. work that is "in progress" or sketch-y or not yet completed might be okay, and shall be considered on a case by case basis
7. life drawings or other pencil or charcoal renderings done for an observational study are okay to include, but for Illustration majors, they should not make up a majority of your work
8. you can show your thesis work in progress if you'd like to include it in your portfolio; your thesis is not mandatory for your portfolio, but you should consider including it, since it's a unique project, that you've defined and designed all on your own
9. for VCOM majors, presentation of digital files or PDFs on the projector is acceptable, but you should have a majority of them printed out in color for review in class
10. if you are at all doubtful about what will count towards your 24, make sure that you have more than 30 works to show come your presentation day

During this January review, it helps to see all of your work at once, and having print outs is the best way to do so. 

Be sure to read this handout that has more information.


I look forward to working with you soon.

Sincerely,  
Your Portfolio