Hello there.
I am still a student but am about to graduate. I have been working on my portfolio and was hoping if you could give some feedback or suggestions.
Thanks in advance.
Hey Niels,
Took a look through your ID section. My suggestion: loose all the flash/video and simplify the site to a gallery image viewer that features a balanced mix between sketches, renders and product info. Your descriptions were a bit too wordy for my taste. I’d work on chopping your descriptions into one or two sentences chunks that you ca add onto a relevant slide.
I really liked you Co Builder project, especially your inclusion of ideation sketches, let’s us know that you’ve thought this thing through and didn’t just jump to the final render.
Cheers,
Choto
For me personally i got quite consufed by your text. What i mean is that your writting style was informing me rather like a teacher would instead of explaining what and why you had done something. In particular your sketching page i was confused as to why you were telling me:
Although computer programs offer good 3D modelling the first ideas are still being drawn by hand. Quick sketches communicate the ideas and enable designers to translate their ideas to other designers and disciplines
Definately loose the flash, flash is for flashy stuff and by flashy really really flashy
I also found it very bitty i.e for some aspects of your case studies you were using a picture viewr and others flash emedded pictures which were zooming in or out.
Agree with Choto your Co builder project is by far strongest project on there, as allready suggested, loose the text and standardise the way your showing your images.
The best websites imo are the ones that dont require you to think of what to do, what to click. Look at Yo’s or even under the section here of portolfios you’ll find most of them are heavily graphics based and very simple.
Hello Sketchy and choto, thanks for your nice comments, it surely will help me further in developing my portfolio.
Especially the remark about writing style made me think again, I am definitely going to change that as well as the amount of text.
It is difficult to show the end result as well as the process; in most cases it clarifies many choices in the design.
Thanks again and if you have more suggestions, feel free! O by the way, honestly, what do you think of the quality?
Hey Neils,
Well, in terms of quality, I think it was a bit of a hit-miss scenario for me.
You have strength in you sketching, model making and rendering abilities; however both your presentation and overall solutions, I think were leaning a little too far towards overly complicated. I think that especially, with the toilet project, your initial goal of making a toilet that is universal to both able bodied men and women as well as to the disabled is admirable, however the solution you offer with the pivoting bowl is very complex. Maybe you mention it somewhere else, but I couldn’t find any mention of the mechanics, or possible engineering behind such a complicated toilet arm. Would it use motors, hydrolics, giant springs? It takes quite a bit of force to gently move a 350 pound person even a couple of inches. Also is it worth it economically, or labor wise to devise such an intense solution for something as simple as a toilet? I guess what I’m asking is there really a compelling need for such a solution (maybe there is, but I don’t get that sense from your presentation)
Also, I am no expert on disabled persons’ use of toilets, but I would think that someone in a wheelchair would probably have better luck getting onto a conventional toilet with bars mounted on the wall than they would with your solution. Where would they hold on to to hoist themselves up onto the seat in your design? What prevents them from sliding off the seat while it is tilting? One of your sketches suggests a bar surrounding the unit, but this is lost in the final render? Also the overall shape of the bowl looks a little awkward, and uncomfortable.
This is in no way to take away from what you’ve accomplished in this project or insult your thinking ability as it is clear from your writing that you are intelligent; but this project I think lost sight of keeping the design simple and feasible, instead of overly complicated and contrived. I think this project has a lot of unresolved questions and problems that need to be addressed.
Often the best solutions are the simplest, but if a complicated solution is needed make sure to properly justify why.
Cheers