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.