I’m a 3rd year Student at De Montfort University, UK studying MDes Design Products. I’m trying to look for an internship between the 3rd and 4th years of my degree but so far I’ve not had much luck, so I would love for you guys to have a look at my portfolio to help me identify weakness or areas to build on. The work in there currently is 1st and 2nd year work and I am planning on adding newer work soon when I get time!
Your portfolio shows your skills well, and shows you’re well rounded. I think you could improve it further by cutting out some projects - it’s bit overwhelming at 69 pages. Here are the projects I liked (with feedback and reasoning)-
Aquaflex - Awesome sketches, form, and final result. Interesting problem to tackle too. It wouldn’t hurt to talk about the user - who’s wearing this? Maybe get some quotes and feedback from long distance swimmers.
Folding Chair - Nice model making and final solution. Some thoughts - define the problem a little more. What challenges does an urban home face? How would you define a modern interesting aesthetic? Show more inspiration and examples.
Earphones - Good display of CAD ability. I think this project could benefit from more explanation on form and inspiration. How would you define the design styles of Chicago blues era? When was the Chicago blues era? The ornate pattern reminds me a little of Art Deco, but more of a Rococo style.
USB Drive - Some sweet renderings in here, and I know some firms will appreciate the orthographic and engineering drawings. Another good project for showing your CAD ability.
Finally some layout feedback-
Good: great project introductions, clearly defining the goals and problems.
What to work on: Simplify the layout where you can, add white space, and let your work breath. The work speaks for itself, the less distractions the better. As an example the index page is a bit overwhelming. I like to keep things to one font when I can, with maybe 2-3 hierarchies. The sideways text is kind of hard to read.
Overall nice skill set! I’d try and keep it to 3-4 strong projects, if you have newer work get it in there and bump some of the older projects out. Keep it up!
Thanks for the feedback! I agree the 69 or so pages is a lot, but I was just told to put in pretty much everything, but I think I might take out a few weaker first year projects. I think you’re right about the text on some of the pages, they are a little over the top, I tend to do cleaner presentation boards so it would make a lot of sense to reign it back.
Thanks for the nice comments as well, always good to hear !
I also had a quick look at your portfolio. I agree with noahwangerin and his feedback. Maybe have a look at this book: http://portfoliohandbook.com (free pdf version available online), there are also some tips about layout and typography.
I would also try to narrow down the amount of pages per project. You have 8 pages for the Adidas USB, which probably can be narrowed down to 4-5 pages, because there a lot of images that are kind of the same but from a different angle (not much added value).
You can also keep the projects you are not showing in your portfolio as an extra when you get invited for an interview, so you have the option to show more of your work during the interview.
Yeah I will definitely be taking both yours and noahwangerins advice on the typography and layout of the projects, I’ll sort that out when I next have a chance! The portfolio in the link would be a full interview one, I have a short one with a few projects taken out but I think I’ll just have a full re-shuffle and cut out the unnecessary stuff as well. I’ve got a couple of new projects to add now as well so hopefully it’ll come together better soon!!
Thanks for the input guys, any other comments on the work everything is welcome too
I’ve just finished updating my folio, little bit cleaner and simpler, hopefully shows of the work a little better. Some newer projects in there as well and older ones removed.
It is a little odd to have a slideshare embedded in a behance to me for some reason.
The roller-skate does not seem to be at the same level as the rest of the projects
For the macro camera, I think this is a good core idea, but could it be an accessory to a phone?
Thanks for taking a look, I did try to upload the pages as jpegs on behance but it wouldn’t have it for some reason, I’ll try again though.
To be completely honest I wasn’t entirely happy with the skate project, I guess it shows, I might take it out and rework it for now. The Macro camera was a project to get people away from using phones for photos, though in a wider context outside the project, yes, I think it would be better as an add-on.
Do you think there is anything obvious or important missing from the portfolio? Or anywhere you think is a bit weak and maybe needs better representation?
RE the skate shoe, I think you could probably rework in in a couple of days.
One thing that feels missing in general is who are these products for? That will help them move from school projects to real portfolio pieces. The skate shoe is a great example. Are they for retro hipsters who want that style of skate? are they for competitive roller derby?
On the Adidas thumb drive, why would that brand make a thumb drive? Is it for their marketing materials? Does it come free with an expensive signature BBall shoe or Football boot?
Try to go beyond the pure school exercise and bring something to it. Sometimes it just takes a couple of hours to add these things to a project.
A few weeks after I graduated college I was on an interview at Adidas and one of the interviewees asked me why I had made a headlight a certain shape, and I didn’t have a real answer other than I liked it. I was informed that was pretty much the only wrong answer… I never forgot that. Always have a reason.
That makes a lot of sense, most of the time we just get given a brief and have to work out the technical detail and everything else before we even get a chance to think who its really for, of course we do some research, but nothing of any real depth so it tends to get overlooked on the presentations.
Definitely something I’ll be adding to the folio, once the workload has died down for summer though! Thanks Yo!
!