ID from Australia (Issuu)

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Hey guys,

I haven’t been posting much here of late, but I have been spending a bit of time re-doing the old portfolio. I posted the old one on here a while back and got some really good critique from Design61 and Sain.

Industrial Design Portfolio by Edward Carroll - Issuu

It’s really a print document I’ve got on there, and I understand that I could change a few things to make it better for web use. I’m going to try to take on board all advice, take it offline for a while then re-up once I’m done.

I really appreciate any feedback, good or bad. Also, if any Core readers are hiring…drop me a line!

Cheers,

Ed

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Hey Ed,

As requested, my feedback on your portfolio. Like you I’m not a hiring guy, but here goes nothing.

I’ll start off with I hate having to thumb through online portfolio views. I normally don’t even bother. I would much rather just download a PDF. Web hosting is cheap these days, get a domain name and a static splash page and have people download the PDF from there.

The first two projects do a great job of showing the whole process. I’m wondering if you built physical mock ups or prototypes for these projects? A model is 100x more valuable than a render in my opinion. I note the dates on your projects. Are they the most recent examples of your work? Below are more specific comments.

Arm Grinder
Does both side of the product have the sunk holes for the fasteners? If not, I would change the side of the rendering to not show them. They’re great that you’ve thought of manufacturing, but can make the product look cheap, IMO.

Your completive product analysis is not that clear, I would better title and not devote a full page to it. Ditto for the collage. Its nice to show that you thought of the product attributes, but a collage of pictures form the web doesn’t quite do it for me.

I like the more detailed manufacturing sketches, as well as the ghosted internal views. Cut away rendering is nice, but increase the roughness of the aluminum material to better diffuse the light and break up the reflections. Compositing of the render into the scene is good, but the DOF is way off and takes away from the image. If you rendered with the scene in, remove the product via the alpha channel then throw in the background again in photoshop.

CardioTech
The Cardiotech project just looks flat to me. Maybe it’s the render, but nothing really wows me. Maybe pick a more dynamic angle for what is essentially a styled slab?

Ride on Customs
The buggy intro shot is great, having the child is great context. The plastic would most likely be rotomolded, and it looks almost like anodized aluminum. Play around with your bump maps to get a realistic plastic look.

Once again inspiration off pictures from the internet really isn’t required, it doesn’t show what YOU did.

Don’t show me pictures where the zebra stripes failed. It just screams to me “I don’t know how to use software and my design is now limited because of this”. The transition is relatively easy and can be accomplished with the boundary surface with curvature end constraints.

The assembly drawing is pretty neat, I just hate the Times New Roman.

The Rest
Nothing really wows me with the electric scooter. It just seems to blend into lots of similar projects I’ve seen before
I think the graphic design projects take away from the rest of your work.


Sorry if I came across as harsh, I really like the first two projects, but with a little more oomph, I think these projects could be the start of a really great portfolio.

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Thanks Andrew! It’s great to get some feedback! Echoing what you said in your topic, it’s easy to get tunnel vision isn’t it?

You’re right on the ‘get a webpage and host the PDF’ front… I need to learn a little more about webdev, then get onto that very soon. I found it really hard to think of the best ways to show my work - you’ve got a nice, clean website, whereas I’ve gone for the print book route…Yours is probably a better idea…

I haven’t made some things as clear as I wanted to, so thanks for pointing it out.
Arm Grinder - yeah, we went with sunk holes on both sides to make it look a little more ‘Raw’. I will have another go at the competitor analysis page, you’re right in that I could probably lay it out a little better. I also only noticed the off DOF in the final render when I was showing it in a job interview…whoops!

Cardiotech - that was a weird, very simple job…the brief was basically that…style a slab! I’ll try to jazz it up a little…funny that I am expanding on work that I didn’t go into that level of detail for the client haha.

Ride-on: I know what you mean about the inspiration collages, and if the consensus is to change em, then I’m happy to listen to those in the know. I realise I completely forgot to show my final CAD model…it’s got proper curvature! teh model you see in the renderings is the final one…I just showed my process adn sort of change of direction.

I didn’t realise there was time new roman in the assembly drawing, and I’m pretty happy with that page. (thanks for the compliment!)I think it’s Garamond there, as I made sure to follow a pretty strict text hierarchy throughout the folio.

Regarding the graphics work, that’s just some odds and ends that I’ve done over time and clients have been really happy with them…is there a better way to present them? I suppose it’s not ID, but here in Aus you are expected to sometimes be a jack-of-all trades.

I really appreciate honesty - the same as you. It always stings when someone doesn’t like your babies, but we have to have thick skin don’t we.

Thanks for taking the time to review my work. It’s weird seeing the view count go up on the thread and yet not getting feedback, so I was stoked to see your review.

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Thanks for all the views so far, people. (And thanks again Lowe9)

It’s nice to know that some people are looking at my work. I’d love some more feedback, particularly from hiring types! Anything at all helps.

Thanks in advance,
Ed