Hello all, I am an avid reader of the site and forum during my time at Uni now it has come time for me to put my portfolio to the test as a recent graduate. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. I have varied work examples which I have hoped to display wide and varied skills and interests in design, yet I am unsure as to whether this may be a hindrance rather than a help. Many thanks guys, Jay.
You certainly do have varied work examples!
I don’t have enough time right now to read it thoroughly, but since first impressions count for something here they are:
Your photos and sketches look really good to me. It shows that you are very hands-on - meaning you are willing to make prototypes to check your ideas, which help to evolve them. It gets my mind churning to look at them, I want to participate. Great. As a potential employer, this is the kind of activity I’d want from my ID people.
The text is okay, but I really want to look at the work. I think you could leave it out and I would not notice it’s absence. I’m sure you have a lot to say about the work, but it also speaks for itself. Perhaps trim it down to just the title of the project and perhaps the school or company you worked for at the time.
The single biggest problem for me is the PDF format. I hate it. The sizing and scrolling issues, the jumping, ugh. I don’t understand the worth.
You seem to have more of an engineering ID style than a graphic design style. This format is not helping you. I would take that content and find an already established format to put it into. Why not use Coroflot? By being here on the Core77 forums, you’re almost there anyway.
Thanks Robin and here you are Portfolio by Jay Langdon at Coroflot.com hope this makes it easier for those with the same opinion of PDF’s. I am not sure whether I would remove the words but thanks for the tips I have taken them on board, best regards.
I like the variety of work you have Jay, from the toungue-in-cheek LED task lamp, to the yacht to the automotive re-skin and faucets. It looks like you have a wide array of interests and I get that from a quick click-through of your coroflot.
So, that was the good news. I feel that you really need to push the layouts to grab the viewer more, variety in the scale of the images (1 key images per page with the others supporting)… and most of your sketches are just not reading at all. The yacht sketches are the best, and if you are comfortable in that style, I would re-do the other projects with that type of sketch. They need much more punch to jump off the screen and engage the viewer.
Hello Michael, thanks a lot for taking the time to review my portfolio, its really great to get some feedback from well regarded people in the design industry. I was not sure if the yacht sketches were too tight, but I guess if it works well it works well no matter what the style. I have been working on my design sketching since graduating as I see it as my weakest skill area and so far I can see that there is no substitute for practice practice practice. Cheers and best regards and I guess on behalf of all students, graduates etc here that you give feedback and encouragement to thanks for putting back in, it is rare and very much appreciated by everyone I am sure.
Thanks for the kind word Jay. I’m happy to share my opinions, and what I’ve learned, and I hope that you all appreciate the fact that they are opinions., based on what I have seen work for me, and you can take from that, mix it with other thoughts, and hopefully it will be of use!
I’ve found a lot of students wondering if their sketches are too tight to the point where they head talk themselves out of doing their best sketches! I’m not sure if this comes from professors. It is great when a sketch has a loose engaging quality, but it has to be good. My work used to be much tighter, and I think you get looser looking sketches by coming out through the other side… that might not have made much sense?
Also, look at the pencil sketches of someone like Yves Behar or Frank Lloyd Wright (Yves is loving that he is in the same sentence with FLW, but deserved!)… pretty tight sketches. The important thing is that they communicate the idea with visual clarity and punch. In my book I put together a check list of the elements of a good sketch, line quality, contrast, perspective, and so on. How you do it, or the style that it is in, is less important than making sure those elements are there, so keep doing it your own way!