6. Prepare to Build Your Portfolio
Eleven things to know before creating your book of work.
A well-defined personal brand may get you noticed, but a professional portfolio is the key to getting hired. Building your book of work is challenging and can seem like an insurmountable task, so being prepared before you begin is critical to your success. Abraham Pendon, a former student who served in the U.S. Army before taking my portfolio course, made this comparison. “Prepping a portfolio is like packing your rucksack to go into the field. And, building a book sometimes feels like a grueling march with no end in sight,” he said. “But in either case, having the right tools in your sack—or pieces in your portfolio—and knowing where they are and how to use them can have a tremendous and positive effect on your outcome. It’s more than worth the slog.”
Just as the first two chapters of this book primed you for building your personal brand identity, Chapter 6 provides 11 important pointers for making your portfolio-building journey more effective and efficient and making the process of marketing your work more enjoyable. Many of these items have entire upcoming chapters dedicated to them, so if you are looking for your first design job, think of this chapter as a checklist of practical tips that you can use to ready yourself for the intensive work you’ll be doing in Section Two. If you’re looking for your next job, this chapter is a punch list of important points to review and consider.
1. Organize yourself—right now.
Organizing means gaining control over what happens next and allows you to become more goal-focused and productive. The challenge is getting started, so you should begin immediately.
Find a space. When I was in design school (before computers, the Internet, and Pinterest), I had a dedicated drawing table, a two-drawer filing cabinet where I stored clip files, and plenty of wall space to hang my design ideas. If you live in a dorm or small apartment, your space may be limited, but setting up a designated work area that you can walk away from without tidying up and come back to later will increase your productivity. It’s also a good idea to switch up on occasion and find other work spaces that inspire you. To write this book, I sometimes work in my local libraries (one is kind of noisy, but they let me bring in my decaf Americano) or several cafes where I can order food and write at the same time.
Organize your files. Some creatives scoff at the concept of getting organized—until they need something and have no idea where to find it. Organizing both electronic data and paper records is not difficult; you just need a system that makes sense to you and that you can maintain consistently. More than simply giving your items a name, organizing your records so that you, your mentor, or a colleague can quickly find, for example, the most recent version of a logo, will save everyone time and angst. Establish and follow a simple and consistent naming convention. Be descriptive and concise, but provide enough information so you know what the file is before you open it.
Back up your work. Every semester, I inevitably have at least one student who tells me in panic, “My hard drive crashed and I’ve lost everything!” There’s no justification for spending months, or even years, creating a body of work only to risk losing it to a virus or hardware failure. Several (free!) online tools, including Dropbox and your school’s Google Drive account, make backing up your work easy. Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers get free cloud storage. Or, if you can’t trust yourself to back up your own files, buy an external hard drive and let Apple’s Time Machine do it for you. CDs and memory sticks work in a pinch but should not be considered a long-term solution. Remove or delete any files that take up too much space and memory. Trust me, you don’t want to waste precious time cleaning up your hard drive when you are in the throes of finishing your portfolio. I recommend storing your files in three separate places; at least one should be off-site, in case something happens.
2. Save up some money.
Like it or not, building your brand presence and finding a job requires some investment, so it’s not too soon to start thinking about your budget. It costs money to build a website and hire a programmer (if you can’t do it yourself); to secure your domain name and related hosting fees; to print business cards and portfolio pages (online sources can be more economical, and even if you have a decent color printer, you still need to purchase paper); to create your project images (hire a photographer, buy mock-ups); to purchase a portfolio book (a physical binder, a digital device such as an iPad, or both); to buy clothes for your interviews (you’ll need at least two outfits, in case you get called back); and so on. You may have to lay out anywhere from a few hundred to over a thousand dollars before you go on your first interview. Start saving money now: do without some lattes, call in an early holiday gift, or “change” your birthday so it falls during portfolio preparation season.
3. Assess your work’s strengths—and weaknesses.
The old adage, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” works for portfolio-building, too. To land a design job, you need to demonstrate that you have a strong, consecutive body of work. This can be accomplished through:
Consistency. Does the website you created include a master grid on every page? Are typeface styles consistent throughout your branding project? Does your ad campaign have diverse pieces that all feel like part of the same family? An art director will quickly assess your ability to make connections both aesthetically and conceptually. Clear, logical connections speak volumes about your design sensibility and sensitivity to details. (See Chapter 8: Create New Projects.)
Believability. Creating brands or campaigns that are smart and have heart can be challenging, but you know you’ve created something believable when an art director has to ask if she is looking at an actual product or business. The brands and stories you invent should seem real, meet the needs of a plausible audience, and connect emotionally to your viewer. Think in terms of practicing for the real world because when your imagined projects are believable, an art director will perceive you as a viable prospective employee. (See Chapter 7: Select Killer Work for Your Book and Chapter 8: Create New Projects.)
Process and prototypes. In a world of digital assets and social media, it’s refreshing to see and touch something real. Include your preliminary sketches or word maps, especially if your process for developing an idea is rich or your packaging or book design is interesting or well constructed. For web or mobile designs, transform static screens into clickable, interactive experiences using free online tools such as Invision (invisionapp.com) or Marvel (marvelapp.com). A physical or interactive examination of your work can help an art director gauge your ability to create prototypes and your attention to detail. The more realistic the project you create, the more marketable you will seem to an employer. When you are attentive to the details of your own work, employers will conclude that you are likely to do the same for client projects. (See Chapter 9: Develop Your Presentation Layout.)
4. Include five integrated campaigns. Eliminate two.
Art directors are busy and need to quickly assess your body of work by identifying what you want to do, what you can do, and how it can benefit them. They don’t have time to waste, so filter the projects you include in your portfolio to display only the strongest and most cohesive work. Telling a single story via multiple platforms is a good strategy for connecting your ideas across print and screen channels, as long as you select the appropriate touchpoints for your integrated brand campaigns. (Note: if you are building a specialized portfolio such as illustration or photography, you may want to show an individual project or groups of projects. More on that in Chapter 7.) Remember, it’s not necessary (or desirable) to include every design project you’ve ever completed. Save a few things to display only on your website that complement your portfolio pieces, such as illustrations, a series of book covers, personal projects, or smaller brands that don’t need to tell a big story. Whichever projects you select, choose wisely. Your portfolio should represent the best of you. (See Chapter 7: Select Killer Work for Your Book and Chapter 8: Create New Projects.)
5. Showcase some personal projects.
Many good designers graduate every semester, so how can you stand out from the pack? Include projects that fire your passion along with samples of the work you were assigned. If you’re an illustrator, challenge yourself to do a daily illustration and create a blog/social media page about it. If you’re a graphic designer, come up with a potential business idea and create a brand identity and promotional campaign. If you have an interest outside of design, turn it into a design project, such as a book about your recent trip to Machu Picchu. Personal (or passion) projects not only communicate your ability to design but also reveal something intimate about who you are and how you think. This kind of personal disclosure can connect a reviewer to you, inspire them to refer you to someone who is hiring when they’re not, or serve as a conversation starter in an interview. (See Chapter 7: Select Killer Work for Your Book and Chapter 8: Create New Projects.)
6. Let your work speak for itself.
Gone are the days when the only way to get a job was to drag a large print portfolio through a revolving door and into a crowded elevator for a meeting with a creative director. (As design trends go, I appreciate this one because, early in my career, my sizable portfolio and I got stuck in a revolving door on the way to a client pitch.) Much of what you do will be viewed on websites when you’re not around, so it’s essential that the work speaks for itself. Big, beautiful images look great, but they don’t tell an art director how you can effectively solve a problem. If your visuals alone do not easily convey the story, consider supporting each campaign with a line of text communicating the overarching concept. Add details and provide a context for why you selected specific touchpoints, if the visuals alone are not clear enough to support the story. Use a variety of digital presentation formats, such as videos or online prototyping tools, to explain a concept or engage the viewer in a more sensory experience. (See Chapter 9: Develop Your Presentation Layout.)
7. Focus on the work, not on how it’s presented.
Beautiful imagery and aesthetically pleasing graphics are one thing, but an art director will see right through a slick Photoshop effect you’re using to mask a feeble effort—no amount of “seasoning” will spice up a bad concept or design. Your portfolio is all about your ideas and how you execute them through your projects. If your design does not meet the objectives of the project, solve a real-life problem, or create a positive user experience, it is purely decorative. An art director should remember you for the quality of your content, not the dazzle of your fancy graphics. To help you determine if you’re likely to engage an art director’s attention, use the following criteria. Your work should be: (1) meaningful, (2) appropriate, (3) cohesive, and (4) memorable. Be honest with yourself. If it’s not your best effort, embellishing won’t help. (See Chapter 7: Select Killer Work for Your Book and Chapter 8: Create New Projects.)
8. Focus on how your work is presented.
I know I just said don’t focus on how your work is presented, but only because you need to create a solid book of work before you go out to market yourself. The types of projects you choose are important, but it’s just as important to convey a deeper level of your style and design sensibilities by showcasing a group of individual brands and campaigns and tying in your personal brand. A beautiful type treatment, unusual color palette, or well art-directed photo will be noticed, but a paying job will remain elusive if your staging skills are weak.
Are the comps in your photos clean and neatly constructed, or are the edges dog-eared? Are the drop shadows beyond your projects offset in the same direction (i.e., bottom right), with a consistent color and blur effect? Is your label design displayed around a mock-up bottle skewed in the correct perspective? Showcasing a cohesive body of work is key to marketing yourself and will be carefully scrutinized by art directors because they want to know how you are likely to handle the task with their clients. Your arrangement speaks volumes about your brand, organizational ability, and design style, especially when you’re combining a few different brands into your brand presentation. (See Chapter 9: Develop Your Presentation Layout and Chapter 11: Produce Your Pieces.)
9. Ask for advice. Take the advice.
Before you design yourself into a corner or get too invested in an idea, solicit feedback from your professors, mentors, colleagues, and other design professionals. Generally speaking, they will be eager to give you advice on how to improve or display a project and to share a few of their own experiences. Let a fellow student teach you a new software trick, or ask your mentor to walk you through a process that will solve a problem more effectively. Offer to take your internship art director out for a latte to review your portfolio project. Don’t be afraid to ask; most people will be flattered that you did. Check your ego at the door and don’t be defensive—listen and consider what they tell you. Use every resource at your disposal, because you will probably need all the guidance you can get. You may find that their recommendations have a common thread. Until you really know what you’re doing, give their suggestions a try. It doesn’t take much time to flush left some text or try a new typeface in a logo. At the end of the day, you’re the one who will make the final decision. (See Chapter 8: Create New Projects.)
10. Let a professional photograph your work.
Photographing your work is more difficult than you might think. Most students know little about proper lighting or how to art direct the presentation of their own samples. An art director who is accustomed to professional photography won’t be able to appreciate the work if the quality of the images is poor. He will be distracted, and his thoughts will stray to visually correcting whatever problem is evident. Yes, some students are exceptions to this rule, but even a good photographer can benefit from an objective viewpoint. In most cases, hiring a professional or bartering with a friend studying photography is the way to go. (See Chapter 10: Make Images That Show Off Your Work.)
11. Design every touchpoint.
Design is not just a profession; it’s a way of life. As a seasoned designer, I intuitively design everything—how I hang the toilet paper (under), what stamps I use on an envelope (thought-provoking images), and what color rooms I live in (a green kitchen makes me happy and want to cook more). As a student, you need to design each point of contact between you and a potential job, for two reasons:
To brand yourself. Every single touchpoint you create is part of the story about YOU, whether it’s a handshake, a quiet conversation, or how you arrange your spoon and cup at the coffee shop. Each is a window to your unique qualities and design sensibility. The way you handle the world around you may not be unique, but it sheds light on your style and, coupled with your design aesthetics, may mean you’ll be the candidate who stands out.
To pass the test. An art director who receives an email link to your website, your business card, or your resume by mail cannot help but grade, even subconsciously, your proficiency in layout design, typography, and color. If you’re deemed a good designer, and “pass the test,” your name will likely make the list of designers under consideration.
Are you ready? It’s time to build a killer portfolio that shows potential employers what you can do for them.
