Patrick Healy - Portfolio Questions

Hey guys,

I’ve been a long time reader/occasional poster on these boards. I always have the best intentions of participating in the discussions more, but it never seems to make it into my routine behavior. That tends to be my downfall with all forms of digital communication, but I’m working on it.

Before I dive head first into a tangent, I’d better get to the point. I’ve recently worked on two projects that go far beyond anything I’ve worked on in the past and I’m unsure how to present them. They not only cover product design, but branding, marketing, and a bit of business strategy. One also ventures in to leadership and teamwork, so I attempt to clarify my role. Below are the links to the specific projects on my website. I would really appreciate any feedback you could provide. I have alot of respect for the members of this community and would love to hear what you have to say.

http://patrickhealyid.agoodportfolio.com/modern-industry

http://patrickhealyid.agoodportfolio.com/adidas-vault

In case you wanted a little background on me, I recently received my master’s degree in Industrial Design from the Academy of Art here in San Francisco. I am currently in the process of looking for work, which is obviously a big part of the reason I’m soliciting feedback. Any feedback on the broader site would be much appreciated. I am in the process of updating the other projects as well, but it would be nice to get some feedback before I spend too much time on it.

www. PatrickHealyID.com

One of the concerns I have is that the first two projects are too long(the are about 30 pages each in the current form) and would be difficult to present in an interview scenario. One possible solution would be to have a book for each of those projects and third book for the rest of my work. Any suggestions?

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for posting.

Some quick, high level feedback for now, and I’ll try to swing back to get a little more in depth.

Overall, giving the projects a quick scan as if I had them sent to me via email, my overall impression is very positive. I can tell you have strong and diverse skills and I get a good feeling of the depth (maybe too much - more on that later), and breadth of your projects.

Information seems well organized and well presented, with good storytelling overall. Even just skimming (like less than 1 min per project) I get a general feel of the project from start to finish.

They are both too long. Unless someone was super-interested and had half and hour to read through everything or an hour to have you walk through it all in a presentation I think there is too much content and too much text.

Strategy and research are always hard to show in a portfolio. I always believe it’s better to show than tell, so in that case the first 8 or slides on the bag page could probably go maybe keeping one or two of the ones with more pics in. No need for the title pages that have a bunch of words over a pic.

You’ve got good sketch and render and pro to pages, so better to get to those more quickly, before someone gets bored and closes the presentation.

Same goes for the Adi project. A lot or the brand blueprint, what is parkour and pinnacle pages I think aren’t needed as you show those things in the result.

On both projects however, esp. the shoes, I wish I saw more intermediary process. I see one or two sketches then final renders. More problem solving and iteration would be nice. This is only something I noticed on the second or third look, mind you.

R

I want more background on you… What’s the saddest thing that has ever happened to you during design school? :wink: J/K, good to see you on the boards and congrats on the Masters & the Kickstarter Campaign.

Your content and layout is really nicely done, but I agree that some of it tends to get wordy. Look through your text and ask yourself if there isn’t anything you could cull down to be super succinct. For example when I get to the “dash shoe system” page - the first paragraph really just tells me “footwear is really important”, so a lot of that text can be clipped out without harming your presentation. Assume for the most part we’re all basically illiterate and get what you can through pictures. I think the second image on your “New paridigm” page does the best visual representation of telling a user what Parkour is without any of the additional text. “Crazy people jumping off buildings…lets sell them stuff!”

You can also do 2 presentations based on your audience. Assume one is your grandma presentation where the audience knows nothing, and then expect the second to be more targeted to someone who has an understanding and assumption about your type of work - then just kill it on the process to show why you went with the concept you chose. In an interview you’ll have plenty of time, but the key thing an interviewer wants to understand is why did you make the decisions that you did? Why was concept D better than concept A?

Your content (sketches/models/graphics) are really nicely developed, and I think in an interview situation it’s worth throwing more of that in my face, and as early as possible so I want to keep going.

Mike and Richard,

Thanks for the quick responses. I appreciate the compliments. Mike and I have known each other (in person) for a long time… and the sad thing in design school was really, really sad. Moving on.

I definitely agree that everything is too wordy. I tend to work in a way that starts with alot of words that eventually get culled down. Over the next few days I’ll start working on that process. Ironically, for an in person presentation, I don’t need many words on the page to give a good presentation. I have had a tendency to ramble in the past(Mike may remember), but I’ve gotten much better at it over the years. This is more of a pre-interview tool. I need it to illustrate the key points without being there to answer questions.

Mike, I’ll definitely see what I can do to illustrate why the selected concepts were chosen, as opposed to just saying that they were. I tried to do that with some of the copy, but I’ll work to streamline it.

Richard, do you think separating the development of each individual product would help clarify the process? The path from initial concept to final project was much less linear than I’m used to. Product design was just one element of the project and in many cases decisions about the products were informed by the other parts of the project. For example, the decision around funding basically caused us to scrap(at least temporarily) four products, develop one further, and create two new concepts.

I definitely have alot of intermediate work from the bag project. I’ll see what I have from the adi project, but it may also be a matter of better sketch presentation. I was working on both of these projects simultaneously(The bag was my 3 semester master’s thesis and the adidas project was a one semester project), and because of the scope of the adi project, I’m not sure I have as much developmental work as I would like.

While I will cut down on the copy, do you think the team page is necessary in the bag project? If not, do you have any suggestions regarding how to show the scope of my work? I did a large portion of the product design work, but also provided strategic leadership in all areas of the project. If I remove the “title pages” between the sections of the project, how would you suggest making the transitions? Should I just go right from a product to a trade show booth, for example?

Again, I appreciate the feedback. Over the next few days I will work towards implementing the changes. In many cases, it was the same thing I was thinking. This was the first draft of these projects. I had an interview this morning and I needed something to show.

As always, I would love any additional feedback both from the two of you and from others. Hopefully I will post an updated version by the beginning of next week,I have to spend some time this weekend on the next steps for the bag project now that we are going to production.

Thanks again.
Patrick

Hey Guys,

I got the chance to begin implementing the suggestions you made. I started with the adidas project and wanted to get your impressions before I moved on to the Modern Industry presentation.

I have not yet addressed Richards concern regarding the lack of intermediate process, but I wanted to get feedback on what I’ve completed so far.

So, is the story still understandable? Is is still too long? Too short to be clear? Thanks for your feedback in advance.

I’ve posted the images here, or you can check it out on my website:
http://patrickhealyid.agoodportfolio.com/adidas-vault

Strategic Targets

Brand Ecosystem

Product Ideation

Pinnacle Products

Trade Show Invitation

Trade Show Booth

Sales Catalog

Promotions Strategy

Advertising Samples

Hang Tags

Looks good. Pretty tight.

R

Very complete presentation. Nice job bringing a world to life. I would have liked to have seen a little deeper dive on the footwear itself in terms of fit. The cage part might have to be broken in several parts and I’m not sure all that molded material over the toe would be desirable. But, those are small points.

Yo,

Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it. I totally agree and would have liked to dive deeper into both products to really nail down the design. I think some model building and sampling would have really helped here.

At the end of the day, I feel I did the best I could given the time constraints and broad scope of the project. The scope was a major requirement of the class for which I am grateful. While I was working on this project, I was also wrapping up my thesis (Modern Industry) and preparing for a Kickstarter launch. This is not to say that this work couldn’t be better or to make an excuse. It is merely a statement of fact.

Since graduating in December and completing these portfolio pieces, I’ve been dedicating most of my time towards getting Modern Industry’s first product line produced and designing the second. At the same time, I actually earned an unsolicited interview with a major personal electronics company (that led to a second and, in a near future, a third).

The hiring manager specifically noted the two projects I presented here. I know that the feedback I received dramatically improved my presentation. As a result, I wanted to thank those of you who contributed here. I really appreciate you taking the time to help. I also wanted to thank the larger Core77 community. I’ve been following this site for about a decade and has contributed immensely to my continued education and awareness.

Patrick

Good stuff.

Good luck with the job hunt Pat.