Hey Cameron, the below may seem a bit over-critical, so take it with a grain of salt.
Your process is good, although you should give me more of a reason to care about your designs. You’re not selling it right now. It’s like “I made baby keys just because I have a baby now”. What was the insight you had from your observations as a designer that makes this project worth while? What’s especially frustrating is that some projects only have two slides, and it’s an annoying usability issue (more on that later).
You also don’t answer your initial problem statement in the Logitech project. You’re talking about a nomadic, portable lifestyle, but the form I see at the end is anything but portable. Still cables, an awkward shaped taper in the back that looks nice, but wouldn’t fit in my backpack comfortably.
The IKEA folded stool is also a difficult project for me. It seems you are designing for lowest cost, etc, which is all what IKEA is about, but then you come up with a design that wastes so much space in the packaging box (you even render a view where we can see how much space is wasted with the long handle). Also, the sketch you have right before showing your concept shows a handle that folds into the stool, which I thought was your final design, but is not.
The Clamshell trash project was the most interesting for me. I would’ve liked to see some user testing with a final concept model. Also at the beginning you say it’s an ethnography project, yet I don’t see any ethnographic work. Yes, it looks like you did a survey, but ethnography is more than that: it’s about talking directly with users to understand issues, and really feeling some empathy.
I might consider scrapping the Whimsy project unless you’re planning on working for Umbra. It’s really not that strong and doesn’t go with the other projects. (I would also say the same about the baby keys, unless you got around to reworking that project so it’s more than 2 slides).
===
Now, to some interaction/critique about the actual portfolio:
-
Your navigation links at the top don’t really go with the flow of the site. You start off on the portfolio page, but why is that link awkwardly near the middle? It would make more sense to be on the left so the user feels more like there is an order to viewing these things.
-
Download page should not exist. Each of those links belong with their respective categories. e.g. link to download folio in portfolio section.
-
Why Design? page is really long, and maybe it’s just me but I don’t want to read it. It probably has something to do with the way you typeset it with a tiny header on each section (I feel these reasons should be bigger), and the line length of the body text is too long to comfortably read: Readability: The Optimal Line Length – Articles – Baymard Institute
-
Ok, I JUST noticed that there’s text under each project slide. It’s an issue with its position that is RIGHT under the fold (In web design, the term “fold” means the line beyond which a user must scroll to see more contents of a page (if it exists) after the page displays within their browser.) so I don’t know it exists. Adjusting the height of the slides to show more of the bottom text would fix this issue.
-
Your slides are difficult to use. I don’t want to click those tiny thumbnails in the bottom left. I want to be able to click the big slide itself.
-
Project index link on project slides is weird. It’s basically a “back” button of sorts, which users are accustomed to being near the top left (see web browsers, iOS). This is not a gigantic deal, just nitpicky.
===
I hope this critique is helpful. I don’t mean to be harsh or insult you as a designer. It may just be your communication about your designs is not clear which is causing misunderstandings. You already have an internship, which is great! So keep at it 