Portfolio review

Hi all,

I graduated a year ago and I’ve been traveling since then. Now, back at home, I just finished my portfolio and would appreciate some feedback:

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nA-cVYJdkd2pDdzbu3s6U85ehbMYi__z/view[url](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nA-cVYJdkd2pDdzbu3s6U85ehbMYi__z/view[url)][/url]

I will be applying to either internships or junior positions.

Lucas,

Welcome to the boards. I think your portfolio shows some solid core skills. Nice presentation, exploration sketching, CAD development, and physical mockups.

In an interview I would ask a few target questions to test how you respond, for example, on the faucet, the feature of dialing in a specific amount of water is very nice (American Standard recently released a kitchen tap with this functionality for cooking). I like the water saving angle, letting people know how much exactly they are using. It looks like you honed in on the fold away faucet quickly and it seems like unnecessary complication. It doesn’t look like water comes out of it. I think people are leery of associating electronics and water together and it having a CE visual might not be the right approach. Did you look at more traditional kitchen/bath aesthetics before moving to this CE approach?

Is there some kind of gamification? IE rewards for coming under a certain amount daily? Penalties for going over? How would that come through in the aesthetic?

Those are the kind of questions I would be asking to see how you answered them, so maybe be prepared for questions like that. But again, I think you have strong work. If I had an open entry level position and you applied, I’d nominate to bring you in for an interview.

Hi Lucas,

You obviously went for a very concepty portfolio and worked on various areas of design.
You show great skills in design and visualization and have some good ideas, for that reason alone I would be interested in hiring you.

What I am missing is a bit more sense of realism in your concepting and more thorough research, for example:

  • Who needs 30L for tooth brushing? State your sources whenever you show research data.
  • I would like to see more thorough materials research for making your products, especially the faucet and aquatic sampler structure, more rugged.
  • How does the technology part of the drones work, does each minidrone have a dedicated image processing chip or is it centralized? It is good to have an overview of technological challenges to implement the best strategy for realization. Also show how the flight dynamics work with a single ducted design.
  • Do some aesthetic research to know your target market’s preferences
  • You as a designer need to show proof of concept through working prototypes in many cases, and a value proposition - for example, how likely is it that farmers will invest, or the geographers will invest in such a dedicated solution?
  • The Oled desk needs to have storage on the sides not intervening with leg space, and I would sit at the other side for proper lighting!

In the end I completely believe most of your concepts though, great work!