Before putting together my portfolio for design school I tried to look at as many samples of other portfolios as I could get my hands on (coroflot, this message board, etc) and in many cases (certainly not all!) I found that the presentation of the portfolios were more impressive than the actual content being presented. Granted, I don’t know how to add all the ‘glitz’ that those that have experience with photoshop can, so maybe these presentations are thrown together in minutes and are just very impressive to me (my portfolio consists of pictures of drawings and models on white backgrounds…plain and simple)
In short, what I’d like to know is this: When design schools are looking at applicants portfolios are they looking at content alone or do they also expect a killer presentation?
Presentation vs content?
Why not make both just as good?
You cannot polish a turd.
TBH i hate graphicly designed portfolios. Keep the presentation simple, clean and professional and dont let it distract the viewer from the work. Good example of a killer portoflio presentation and content is Rchuniskys here on core77.
I think it’s better to have mediocre layout/presentation if your ideas and concepts are great, but you really need the combination to sell people on your stuff.
An school entry portfolio is very different that a job portfolio. In a school portfolio they are looking for a base line of skills and passion. Typically a few fine arts pieces, some sketches, and drawings are fine, just images, no layouts.
The portfolios you are bench marking are to get jobs, in which case your overall presentation level should be higher.