Portfolio Evaluation: The Aftermath Part II

The Eisner Museum

After that amazing lecture the guy gave us, we went on two studio tours that were right down the street from the Eisner Museum. The first was Hanson Dodge, a small studio with about 50 employees. This reminded me of the creative studio that I had my internship with but it was a lot more laid back. I love these small studios because its more like going to see a family rather than just a company. Everyone is so tightly knit because everyone works together so much. Something I learned there was that its really hard to sue somebody for copying work in the graphic design world. The owner showed us many layouts his designers had created and then he showed us some designs an Italian company made and a Chinese company made within a year and they were the exact same designs except for a few things. You could tell how frustrated the owner was with this but he said it was almost impossible to go after them for it. After visiting Hanson Dodge, we went to another studio for a small tour and then headed to lunch.

After lunch, we had our portfolio evaluations. We were told we could either approach the evaluations as interviews or we could lay our work out and describe each piece a little bit and have the professionals tell you what they think. This was probably the scariest thing and I was shaking during the first and second evaluation but then I realized this was only going to help me with the advice they were giving so I was just myself and was honest about my work and it was a lot easier.

Overall, my work was accepted by most of the professionals, there were just some tweaks I need to do but it made me feel a lot better about going out into the real world and applying for jobs.

Portfolio Evaluation: The Aftermath Part I

This weekend was the portfolio evaluation and I surprisingly felt pretty calm as I left my house that morning. I felt pretty good about my work and apparently it is normal not to feel completely proud of your portfolio. We're reading a book that Stefan Sagmeister wrote and in it he explains how most designers hate the pieces that are inside their portfolio so that made me feel a little better! So, when I got to the Eisner Museum in Milwaukee, I realized I was in the group where we had a lecture and a couple of studio tours in the morning first and then had portfolio evaluations in the afternoon.

So we're all sitting in the auditorium and this guy starts telling us how he used to be one of the professionals critiquing everyones' portfolios but they asked him to step down and give a lecture instead because he made too many people cry in the past years... Awesome. So he starts to give his presentation and none of us are impressed. Every image he had pulled up on the screen was pixelated and he kind of gave the lecture as if he didn't care at all. He kept on saying how when he got his job, he was only lucky and that probably won't happen for us. It wasn't much of an enthusiastic lecture at all, more than anything it put us back in the dumps about going out in the world and finding jobs. The only thing that I found amusing was one clip that he showed about finding jobs and here it is...

How TO Get a Job - The top video clips of the week are here

Portfolio Evaluation... Dun dun dunnnn

So, this weekend is the big portfolio evaluation in Milwaukee and I'm freaking out to say the least. About a month ago, we had an interview convention at this same place and it was very intense but now they're actually looking at our work. These people don't know us personally, they don't care who we are or what kind of people we are, they're looking at our work and that is it. Our teacher told us to be worried because they are going to be brutally honest. I guess this is something that is going to be very helpful because we've only had our peers and our teachers look at our work and they never want to hurt anyone's feelings so it'll be good to get an outsider's opinion but its also going to hit home a little bit when they're tearing apart our work.

Lets just say, I can't WAIT for this weekend to be over!!

Putting Together a Portfolio

Every graphic designer has to put together a portfolio and this is where most majors differ from graphic design. Most majors at Carthage have to write a thesis and of course every senior dreads that time that they actually have to take the thesis class and sit down and write their 15-30 page paper. Most people, at least people I have talked to, believe that being a graphic design major is a lot easier than say a business major because we don't have to write a thesis. Well, that's not exactly true.

Those in the graphic design major have to put together a complete portfolio and present them to professionals in the business world at the end of the year. Each student has to have 12 complete pieces (each single piece can consist of 5-10 pieces so total there may be up to 80 pieces of work). Each piece needs to be mocked up on a piece of black or white cardboard (each piece takes about 15 minutes to make presentable) and there needs to be a written out description of each piece and what your thoughts are behind them. This whole process should be a process done over four years and not done in a semester but that is the way Carthage has put together the schedule. I think the rest of the seniors in my senior seminar graphic design class would agree with me that we should have been taught these things along the way starting freshman year.

To check out some of my work in my portfolio, click here.

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Typography

The font that I am working on is based off of a neon sign I saw in downtown Kenosha. The assignment was to go around your environment and look for inspiration for creating your own font. I realized while looking at the neon sign that the pieces of the letters did not connect and I thought that would be an interesting way to create a font. Kind of give it a stencil look but while also keeping the thought of neon signs in mind. Here is some work I have so far.

I'm a little torn on which way to do the B's and D's because I like both of them but I feel like the first option for both of them, may fit in with the rest of the letters better. What do you all think?

Typical Project

Right now I am working on a typical project of a graphic designer. Our assignment in my Typography class (which every graphic designer should have taken or intensely studied) is to create our own font. Now, every graphic designer does not NEED to have their own font, but it is very important to know what font to use for different projects. For example, you wouldn't want to use Comic Sans MS or Marker Felt if you were creating an invitation to an elegant ball, and you also wouldn't want to use Curlz MT to present a project. Every font has a different use and there are many things that go into making a font. Some of the things you have to consider are if you want the font to be serif or sans serif. Serif's are the little edges on the tips of letters like in Time New Roman compared to Arial font which has all smooth edges and nothing hanging off. Then you have to think of how high you want your ascender and how low you want your descenders to go. Ascenders are the highest point of all of our letters, so for example the top of the L would be your ascender and the bottom of your Y, Q, or P would be your descender. Then there is the baseline, which every letter sits upon. The point size is the total area used for your font so the highest point to the lowest point of any letter is the point size. You also have to worry about leading. Leading is the amount of space between the horizontal lines. You never want your letters to look too close together. Take a look at this picture to learn more about what I'm talking about.

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