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From the Coroflot portfolio of : Matteo Gentile
(Roma, Italy)
Featured Project : Aprilia Creatura Concept
photo: vanessa kennedy
So by now perhaps you've read through last week's advice column on how to keep from making the most common mistakes when creating your online portfolio (and perhaps you've written in to say how horrified you are that coroflot would suggest using a template, rather than building the whole thing from scratch -- that's fair, there are some good arguments on both sides). Assuming you've decided to make the leap and start publishing your work, whether through a template, a custom-designed site, a hacked blog, or something else of your own (hopefully low-Flash) design, there are a few additional suggestions that have cropped up since then from an array of sources.
Besides last week's expert adviser (Miles Begin of Pollen Design), I was lucky enough to attend a talk at Portland-area stationery store and designer's mecca Office on the subject of...portfolios. Representatives from a number of local creative employers were there, including Nike, Nemo, and UNKL, and although the discussion was more broadly focused on both physical and digital portfolios, some excellent tips came out; some confirming last week's caveats, and others building on them.
1. Make sure you are in there somewhere.
One point that all of last week's presenters agreed upon, and Begin reinforced, is that the world is full of good portfolios, physical and otherwise. The ideal candidate, from the point of view of many creative employers, is someone who combines talent and obvious passion, and communicates both simultaneously. So in addition to showing projects from school, freelance gigs, and assorted other "official" projects, it can be surprisingly effective to post work that you got excited about.
Continue reading "Building Your Portfolio Website: Six Things to Always Do" »
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Studio Hideki
(London, United Kingdom)
Featured Project : La Luna: desk fan
photo: pandoro
So, you've got a corefolio posted; you've put together a nice PDF sampler; you've printed out a gorgeous little book to take to interviews. You're working your networks, both real and virtual, and so far...not much. Potential employers are looking over your work, and maybe they like what they see, but somehow this isn't translating into more gigs, or that one crucial interview.
One possible answer to these woes is a personal portfolio website. They've been around for a while now, and emails from colleagues in the creative professions are increasingly signed with a short list of URLs in addition to a Yours Truly--with good reason.
Group sites like Coroflot, AIGA and others offer instant visibility and searchability, and for that reason they are indispensable. Many recruiters and working designers will tell you, however, that such postings by themselves aren't quite enough to make a hiring call, and given the option, they'll move on to someone with additional sources of information. A portfolio website can be the perfect next source, and given the relative ease of creating one these days, they're rapidly becoming an expected part of any designer's self-marketing plan.
The problem is, they're so easy to get wrong. After listening to years of complaints about some of the visual garbage recruiters and seniors have had to sort through, I decided to seek some specific answers about what separates a job-winning portfolio site from a confusing mess.
Miles Begin is a staff designer at Pollen Design, a small product consultancy in New York City (full disclosure: I freelanced for Pollen a few years back, before Miles hired on), and as the designated portfolio reviewer, he looks through around 15 PDF portfolios a week from hopeful applicants and aspiring interns.
Speaking over the phone last week, Miles was able to immediately confirm a few suspicions: that the fraction of applicants with web portfolios is large and growing (about 40% of applicants have them now, by his estimation); that he, and many in his situation, prefer websites to PDFs alone, because of the clearer picture they paint of a designer's personality and process; and that many of these sites are horrific, but in easily avoidable ways.
As with so many things in design, and real life, getting a portfolio website right seems to be less a matter of what you do than what you don't. Compiling Miles' observations together with other comments I've heard over the years, a few clear prohibitions seem like a good place to start. Here are six of them.
1. Don't think you're a web designer unless you actually are.
This is the Achilles heel of many creative professionals: the belief that being competent in one creative capacity qualifies you for another. Most of us recognize that a great cinematographer probably won't be such a great architect, but a huge number of industrial, graphic, interior, and other designers seem to forget this rule, and try to build a great website from scratch.
I know I did: my first go around a few years back, I holed up in my room for about a month, teaching myself Dreamweaver, calling up friends to ask them what exactly a Style Sheet was, and learning a lot in the process. It was fun, and engaging, and taught me plenty of useful skills, but the resulting website was utter crap.
"There's a difference between showing you're a good designer and making a bold statement that you don't really have the tools to make," says Begin. The problem with building a site from scratch, unless you're already skilled at web design, is the powerful desire to do too much, and do it poorly. Given the endless potential and flexibility of the web, it's easy to muck up an otherwise compelling body of work with animated graphics, complicated interfaces, soundtracks, easter eggs, pop-ups, Flash intros and all other manner of puffery, when all the visitor wants is to see some images with text. Few situations better merit the guideline "Less is more" than building your first portfolio site.
Continue reading "Building Your Portfolio Website: Six Things to Never Do" »
photo: Marie Richie
"Networking," as a verb, occupies a strange location in the creative professional landscape. It's an activity that practically everyone agrees is desperately important, and a clear delineator between the successful and the merely talented but frustrated. On the other hand, it's a maddeningly nebulous term; a kind of Emperor's New Clothes that folks agree on, but are hard pressed to accurately describe. Every now and then, a bold student will ask a teacher or presenter to please define this strange verb, and in my experience, the response is usually akin to "You'll know it when you see it..."
The most likely explanation for this haziness is that networking is a form of relationship building, and like all human relationships, professional networks defy clear definition. There is no definitive handbook on what makes a healthy marriage, for example (though many books have tried), or for that matter a sturdy parent-child bond, and so the best advice tends to focus on specific examples.
With that approach in mind, I've compiled a short list of specifics that aim to shed a little more light on this crucial but undefinable skill, with special attention paid to the ways it resembles the personal relationship-building that traditionally receives more attention. So here you are: a random sampling of eight incomplete answers to the question "What does good networking look like, anyway?"
1. It's not about the first impression, it's about the third.
You know what they say about the Third Date, right? There's a reason the number three has so much meaning attached to it in relationships, and it's true in professional networking as well.
First meetings happen by the thousands. In both professional and personal life, we're understandably wary of first impressions, both because they're so frequent, and so influenced by circumstances. A second meeting implies more common ground; in the professional arena this elevates your relationship from "We met once" to "We're acquainted." Meeting someone a third time is a different story though. It implies that you're inhabiting some of the same circles, and know some of the same people.
Continue reading "Eight Things They Never Taught You About Networking" »
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Laura Andrews
(Boca Raton, FL)
Featured project : Package Design: The Sugar Plum Fairy Baking Company
We are thrilled to announce that Design Observer, one of the most esteemed design communities on the web, has partnered with Coroflot to launch their new Design Observer Job Board. Design Observer provides a global readership with outstanding design discourse, criticism, provocation, and, well...observations on design and the creative industries, and we are proud to welcome them into our network.
If you've got a creative job to post and are looking to attract the best talent, check out Coroflot.com and its partner sites Design Observer, Businessweek, How Magazine, ID Magazine, Print Magazine, and the Art Directors Club.
photo: stack
The CS post from Feb. 15 ("Questioning the Cult of the Sketch") happened to coincide with a lengthy thread on Core77's discussion boards about the necessity of sketching. It's always gratifying when coincidences like that occur, allowing us to entertain the idea that we've tapped into some universal subconscious of the creative professions.
This time, though, I'm simply cribbing what's already out there. A thread started last week asking whether a cover letter was really necessary when applying for a design job. The answer is that of course it is, and responders quickly concurred on this point, offering some excellent advice on why it's important and what to say; readers seeking tips on cover letters would do well to give it a look. What's curious about the exchange is the assumption that prompted it, or rather the lack thereof; it's hard to imagine such a question even being asked in most other professional fields.
Continue reading "The Pen is Mightier than the Pen: Why Writing Matters for Designers" »
