As I have been moving up in my career at least 50% of my projects have either been directing other designers, or directing outside firms and vendors. All of this ranges from structural design direction to graphic and art direction. So my question is how do you show this in a portfolio? Do I create a section called “Design and Art Direction” and put pictures of the products I managed? Although the I did not do the physical work, I did direct a team to the solution. How do you design managers out there approach this?
… it is a bit of a problem.
When I was a Junior I felt hurt to see projects that I considered “my” project in the portfolio
of my senior collegue (who gave some guidence on cad). Even today that makes me angry.
Nowadays I am in more of a guiding role myself, but didn’t have the necessity to present a
portfolio, praise the lord. What I do think is important is to make clear what your personal involvement
was in each case. You could add annotations to the pretty pictures, like you wrote an
archeolocigal correct art analysis. (Hope you get that one right…)
But I want to end this post with a qoute of one of my personal heroes:
In the end the success of the Mustang had so many fathers, I’d prefer not to be seen with the mother.
(Lee Iacocca)
All the best.
yours mo-i
god.
In the end the success of the Mustang had so many fathers, I’d prefer not to be seen with the mother.
(Lee Iacocca)
that’s fantastic, never heard that before
Like Mo-i stated, I would note what you did in particular with that piece. I have a few items like that in my portfolio and I have an innovation management folder as well.
On your site make a Portfolio tab, list all your projects pictures and descriptions that you handled like your structural design and graphic & art design. Right now I’m creating my portfolio for Industrial Design Seattle, I link it after I finish it (hope mod will allow).
this is an interesting question even for non design directors. I find that most of my professional work is collaborative. Many of the students here are also working in group projects. Ive had my hand, to some extent, in most that comes out of the design firm but i only drew a fraction of it. Equally the other designers at the firm have their hand in what I draw. what can exactly can be claimed in a portfolio?
Ps: Not my intention to hijack: I thought your question applies to most of us here
Just show an image of the finished product and comment that you directed the design at certain phases. If you show sketches or renderings it creates confusion about your participation level.
Thanks guys for the help. This is what I had planned to do. My process focused mind was struggling with this, but it makes the most sense.
I tend to show a lot of the upfront stuff, consumer research, mood boards, competitive analysis, then show the final collection of product along with how that influenced the go to market brand campaign… so it is not really about a single product, but the philosophy that lead to a range of outputs.