Completely Uneducated Portfolio

Hey everyone. To say I’m entirely new here would be a complete understatement. I may as well be lost.

I was referred to this site via Jalopnik.com, as I posted some of my design work there.

A little bit about me:

I’m 23 years old, with a bachelor in Modern Literature, and my minor in Life Sciences. I live in Toronto Ontario Canada, and I was born here, and raised North of here my entire life, well below the poverty line. In High School, my teachers pushed me to go into design, but alas, in art class, I always drew cars, so I failed literally every single art class I took in High School, besides Grade 9 art.

Since I never pursued art in post secondary education and struggled to pay for it, I never was formally trained in any artistic way. I have no formal training in line, sketching, design, photoshop, illustrator, coreldraw, CAD, or anything of that sort. So therefore, I must re-iterate, that everything I am showing you is self-taught and self-done, without any outside aids, learning, or what have you.

I also don’t own a tablet. So I should also say that all photoshop shading you see, is done with a trackpad (3x2.5cm) on a laptop.

I have been drawing cars since the age of 2, and on my first birthday cake, I had a car since my mother had already seen my passion in them from even before then.

My question to you is this: Should I pursue automotive design? If so, what do you think of my work? What are the steps I should take? Where should I apply? Etc.

I’m sitting here with a degree in Modern Lit, wondering how I’m going to feed myself this week, because finding a job with this degree is hopeless. Maybe I’d have better luck if I went back to school and took design, and built up a Portfolio.

In any case, here are some of my works.

My Portfolio (Of which I am only sharing a few works, as I am wary of people stealing/copying my ideas: Dropbox - File Deleted

Not bad for no formal training.

If automotive design is something you wanted to pursue, you would probably have to attend a school such as Art Center or CCS that specializes in it. They are very expensive and would take a few years (sorry, don’t know the exact details). After that, you would still have no guarantee of finding a transportation design job (it’s a very competitive industry), but of course you would be in a much better position to do so.

Alternatively, you might want to look into a more general design education, such as ID. This might provide you with more options and job prospects.

R

I’ve no knowledge of US or Canadian education structure and design employment, but I am a believer that most creative degrees are a bit of a means to an end, in that I mean they generally serve to develop a good portfolio, rather than give you a certificate employers require to see.

There is of course some “hard” knowledge, manufacturing data, the importance of ergonomics and how to apply them etc etc.

For someone with no formal training, the work you’ve shown is of a decent standard. Might it be worth contacting some local design firms (I’ve just googled and found two), and asking about work experience (I believe you call this “interning” :wink: ), mentoring, general advice, a junior position…?

Some creative degrees lead to certificates if you take the required exams. Architecture and Interior Design for example. In the US anyway.

Thanks. I’ll look into that. Might be good to go that route locally, at least jobwise, to make some money and build a portfolio and some contacts. If anyone knows of anyone in the Toronto area, feel free to let me know!