Portfolio Critique Please

I asked for feedback on my portfolio back in April and have since fleshed out and refined my portfolio in response to this. I’d love to get some feedback and see where I can improve! Be as critical as you like so long a it is constructive please.

Thanks! :smiley:

My concern would be the lack of information that relates to your exploration and refinement. The two pieces i looked at only had 1 page of sketches each.

As a hiring manager i am less concerned bout the final product image, and judge your design skills around the process. if you dont show it you run the risk of being hired and tasked with doing final imagery for the work of others…
Gonna go against a long time belief (core77 helped to change it) add to the concept sketching exploration if you dont have them do more, take some time to refine the quality of the sketches, even is it is to simply hit them with a straight edge and vary the line weight.

That’s a fair point and thank you for commenting. If I may ask how many pages of sketches would you consider appropriate? Do you also look for writing and description of research and concept development or are sketches the more important factor?

It’s not about how many pages you do, it’s about showing that you genuinely explored and exhausted many ideas to find a great solution.

Hi Peter,
Here are some comments.

Sushi Monsters:

  • “Meal time can be scary for a child”–show me a nicely shot, emotional picture of a little kid not cooperating with his parents at lunch time.
    -Instead of listing your “concepts explored,” put a label next to each sketch. Hand-write the labels so it looks like the labels were on the sketch page.
    -“Prototypes were made…” --show me picture(s) of someone using chopsticks and trying to take out a piece of sushi. You say several types of slots were tested. You could take a picture of testing each slot, then whichever one you chose to move forward with, you make that picture bigger.
    -The fact that you made these mockups is good
  • Bring your pictures into Photoshop, tweak the curves/levels/contrast. They look dull right now.
    -I just noticed your page aspect ratio is 4:3. You should be using 16:9 (widescreen). Everyone is going to be viewing this on a modern computer.
    -“Slanted top was decided on”–highlight this in your testing pictures (mentioned above). All you need is a callout saying “angled toward user”
    -“Monsters were decided on”–Create a simple inspiration board with 3-4 images of popular monster characters. On the next page show the characters you designed. If you have hand sketches of your characters, those might be a nice addition.
    -The characters themselves are cute and fun! Nice work there.
  • Your final renderings don’t really help tell the story. One could show a hand with chopsticks pulling out food/dipping into sauce. Another rendering could simply show the device placed on a kitchen table–something more emotional than the default Keyshot background.

Ripple

  • What inspired this piece? Right now it just looks like you played around in CAD until you came up with something you liked. Show me why you designed it this way.
  • I would get rid of the text altogether on this one. Based on the images alone, I can see your process.
  • Again, pictures could use some Photoshop tweaking.
  • The last image, with the fruit, really helps tell the story here. It’s the type of image I’d want to see for Sushi Monsters. It gives context to the product.

Daily Cookware
-This could be a good VBL exercise, but again, there’s hardly any process shown here. Needs user research, inspiration, sketches, etc.

Hug Phone Case
-All you need to say is “power banks can be damaged by dropping from as little as chest height.” Your picture with the burn hole in the pants gets the point across.

Holly Funko, Android, and Urban Table: group these into one “CAD practice” project.

Good luck with everything!

Thank you so much for the thorough and well thought out critique Brian. Looks like I have a lot of work to do so thank you for all of the valuable insight.

No problem, post again once you’ve updated it!