Hi Ryan!
I totally understand that yearning. What you need to do is take small steps and incorporating design research/strategy into manageable design processes. That way, your work will become more holistic. Making realistic design proposals is not your no.1 priority during your education, you need to look into the future and establish yourself as a designer with a clear goal and vision.
- Do you have suggestions on how I can maintain a condensed portfolio while emphasizing research/process?
Yes, present your work more in terms of process. What we want to hear is a story of your design objective and the way you tackled it.
Currently you are presenting lots of loose bits and when you go into depth, sometimes it is about things that are not very essential to the story (i.e. how to sew…) You do have good design skills and I am confident you will find work. If you want to emphasize research even more, present your projects like a research initiative, starting with a question and working towards answering those through design.
Also you are showing a lot of visualizations, this is all about communication so if we look at the toy truck, you first present it like a full scale concept truck and it doesn’t do good to the design. Then at the end we see some CAD work and it grows towards something, when we see it on true scale it is actually quite wonderful as a toy. You can iterate, research and evolve but if you don’t make a great first impression, in this world you don’t often get a second one.
- The forum is full of information for students, however, is there anything specific you can recommend regarding my portfolio and career interest?
Take a specific stance on what you want to achieve with your design work.