Portfolio Critique (New ID GRAD)

Hello everyone,

I’ve been working on getting my portfolio ready to send out to a few firms and need your input. I just graduated from Virginia Tech’s ID program and I’m interning at a large power tool design center for the summer. Below is a link to my portfolio on ISSUU (its supposed to be single-page format but I couldn’t figure out how to turn off spreads on ISSUU).

I have a strong interest in consumer electronics and technology and I’m looking at a number of firms in the Bay Area. I will be going for a 3-6 month internship since I only have one internship under my belt at the moment. Hopefully this review will give me a better idea of where I stand against the other portfolios being sent to these firms so I can have some realistic expectations going in.

These firms below would be some of my top choices. Most are in the Bay Area, a few are elsewhere.

LUNAR Design
Whipsaw
Ammunition
MINIMAL
Frog
Artefact
fuseproject
NONOBJECT
Bould Design
Carbon Design Group


Let me know what you guys think and thanks ahead of time for your feedback!

First off, I think it is really pretty good.
What I will say is that I find ISSUU a terrible way to present your work. The scaling is strange and at least for me it loads really slow.
Personally I find that your portfolio reads a lot better through Behance.

Since you want to get into CE, maybe you can add a quick project exploring electronics as your portfolio, at least to me feels a little heavy and serious. A lighter, less complex life style project might give you a bit of pop in your portfolio.

Otherwise, I’d say it is a strong contender for internships in the Bay Area. You clearly got the skill set and all you need is some experience.

Good luck!

This would be my first time using ISSUU and it’s been giving me a few headaches not displaying certain slides. I think I’ve gotten it figured out but just in case I’ve also updated my behance page.

I was thinking about taking out one of the middle projects (maybe the flashlight or backpack) and I’m planning on updating the bike lock this weekend as well. As of now it doesn’t quite feel finished and I wanted to add a few features and communicate them better. This might be a good opportunity to add a lighter and more personalized feel to the aesthetics like you mentioned, since this is something that people will surely want to match the look/style of whatever bike they are riding.

Hopefully this will be enough to change the feel of my portfolio in the short term. I liked what you did with your project ‘Domino’ and I’ve been thinking about doing a similar concept with the customization options but gearing it more towards photography.

Thanks for taking a look!

I made some more changes to my portfolio and spent the last couple of weeks updating the bike lock project. Here’s the link to the new version.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/PORTFOLIO/14508119

I’d really appreciate some more feedback everyone!

First off, yay Hokies!!! I can definitely see the Virginia Tech in your portfolio. It’s a great program with a great reputation within the industry, and never underestimate the ingrained principle of designing something for a reason that’s so often stressed. If you latch onto it, and it looks like you have, this will make all the difference in the world of designing meaningful products.

Anywho, your portfolio overall looks great and is very polished. The attention to detail and tightness around the presentation is something that’s lacking in a lot of these that I’ve seen. What really stands out to me as I look through is that you really know graphics, CAD, rendering, research, and polished sketching. I’m able to connect the dots fairly easily around how you progressed to your solutions, but where it does break down a bit for me is in the absence of more thinking and thumbnail sketches. I want to see how you use sketching (or other tools for that matter) to explore many different solutions to the opportunity you’ve identified. My favorite executions of this also feature a dialog that the designer has with their ideas. You can literally see and feel the wheels turning, and to me, it helps justify the end result and shows exploration. That’s key.

Portfolio looks great, nothing really blaring thats bad. Shows off a good base of technical skill. Your ahead of plenty of other grads.

Some quick comments to help push it to the next level. Just shotgunning here.

Story telling seems a bit weak. Especially around form development. Why does the form look the way it does. Ryobi light for example. Outside of the color, does it truly speak to the design language? How did you come up with that form? Showing that process is something that will help you stand out from the other students graduating.

Camp stove, light, bike lock all have a similar design aesthetic. If you were tasked with something radically different, how would you do?

Costing all seems to be completely ignored (not a bad thing at junior level). Camp stove would be way more expensive than alternatives, and probably more fragile. This is a camping stove, wouldn’t rugged is ideal. Bambo veneer? What if it starts raining over night? Mud? who is the target consumer, is this what they’re actually asking for?

Projects are all presented the same way. Shows good attention to detail, but switch it up. Very standard grad portfolio. Problem statement, problem overview, research, first round sketches, better sketches, final product. few feature shots, end. No need to show the exact same process for each project. Present how the project should be presented to showcase it. Not the process you did to get to the solution.

Renderings, spice em up a bit. Make them move lifestyle shots. More aspirational.

What makes you stand out, If I flipped through 10 portfolios. What about your portfolio would I remember? Not sure what I would pick personally.

Solidworks. Lots of companies use solid works exclusively . I see a rhino screen cap. But can you build a CAD file thats ready for send out for prototyping? I only see renderings for final shots? Juniors are often tasked to build out prototypes (albit rough). Might need to show something a bit more than what is shown on the watch project.

Thanks for the feedback klohr, always great to see another VT ID grad! I’m still trying to figure out how to showcase some of these thinking and thumbnail sketches in my portfolio. For the watch project, I tried doing this on the ‘Refinement’ page where I took a photograph of some of the thinking sketches and models. I’ve seen a couple different examples in other portfolios where they pinned up all of their sketches and development and just took a photograph of that.

Hey Sain, awesome feedback here and a lot of stuff to think about. I have a few questions tho.

-I’m having trouble trying to figure out how to explain my sketch process in my portfolio. Is there a specific technique you use or some examples you could share?
-What about the aesthetic of the stove, light, and bike lock do you think makes them look similar? What could I do at this point to differentiate each?
-You mention that I should present the project to showcase it instead of showing the process I did to get the solution. Why is this? Back in school, we were taught that the process you took to the solution is just as important as the final solution.

-I’m having trouble trying to figure out how to explain my sketch process in my portfolio. Is there a specific technique you use or some examples you could share?

What Im trying to say is most of your sketches seem to be of the final product. Almost like overlays over CAD screenshots.
Watch, Bike light all seem like the same form sketches, with minor differences in graphics and in a different perspective.

With the Stove, there are a few different form factors explored, but those sketches are tiny and small. Your sketches page should show Exploration in form, and exploration in features. Not that you can do a high level CMF renders.

If it’s a simple form. Show me up close you exploring details.

-What about the aesthetic of the stove, light, and bike lock do you think makes them look similar? What could I do at this point to differentiate each?

Simple base form. Rectangular cross section with a domed surface. One major graphical pattern break. Usually accompanied by a texture. Could describe Stove, watch and light, even the bag. At this point there not much you can do.

But can you design something Bubbly? Fun? Flowly? Sharp? Rugged? Aggressive? What if the consultancy your applying to does a lot of work for Alienware or Razer.

-You mention that I should present the project to showcase it instead of showing the process I did to get the solution. Why is this? Back in school, we were taught that the process you took to the solution is just as important as the final solution.

Because the process you took to get to the solution sometimes doesn’t showcase the solution the best way. Again mix it up. Can you present a project like Apple would. If I asked you sex up our concept presentation for our client meeting could you do it?

Does showing the exact same style of process for every project gain you anything? Or would it be better served to show more research in one. And then show more sketching in another. And in the last project just skip all that and focus on feature improvements.