Portfolio Day went pretty great this year. I was also a student participant last year, so I felt like I was better prepared this year. Also, it being senior year, I also knew more of the feedback that I needed from the professionals looking at my work. It actually was this nice tie in to our Professional Practice, as we just have been working on our personal logos and starting on our portfolios and professional presence. Specifically, I met with Caitlin Workman (DMH), Rachel Kampen (Garmin) and Jon Kowing (SHS). There were three break out sessions/presentations: Recent Grad Experiences, Leveraging LinkedIn and Job Search Etiquette. All had their positive moments or bits of information.
I was able to start working with some layouts for my written pieces, before the portfolio day review, but they were all in very rough shape, which I explained while presenting. I’ve been struggling with this idea of how to present myself as a hybrid: writer + designer. In my mind, the two have become distant worlds that are colliding, not combining. This resulted in a bit of an embarrassing portfolio for me, so I made sure to emphasize the fact that both my logo + portfolio were works in process. To continue with that, there were positive marks stated about my work, so it was a nice pat of encouragement to knock the last bit of the semester out of the park—and kick myself into gear to create a stellar identity, degree project and portfolio.
I also chatted a bit with some of my DMH coworkers and a few of the KCAI alumni to play catch up. I pushed myself hard to be more social than I tend to run normally, which resulted in a satisfying day in many forms. The push to network/connect more has been a steadily growing focus for me since I was in my final year at community college and thus resurfacing once again. This really is the beginning of a whole new part of my life that I’ve been waiting so long for. It has been also stressing me out, but I am glad to see that my choices have brought me to where I am today and I truly couldn’t be much happier with that. I may sometimes comment down about my work, but it is often because I can mentally envision better text, better concept, better everything. I aim to achieve and I aim to do better, to keep myself in a constant state of pushing hard and getting the most that I can and I think that it is pushing me to where I need to be, whether or not I want to be there.
The main feedback that I received was that I should really focus on two separate portfolios, but have as many overlapping projects as I can provide. I was told differing opinions on text and layout within book portfolios, but we also discussed that it really is up to me to decide how I wish it be portrayed. We talked about whether or not captions should be in the book, how only one sentence should be used to describe the projects, book orientations, project order, presentation skills, concept, how the projects that I choose really are there to describe me, type style, business card and logo.
Although I know that I still have a lot more work to do, I at least am reassured knowing that I am headed in the right direction and that the end of the tunnel is in sight. Below, are a few of my favorite comments or statements during Portfolio Day AIGA KC 2014.
"Each of your projects has a place to talk about you."
"Never stop looking. Always have a transitional portfolio."
"If you're not happy, now is the time to do something about it."
"Get thick skin."
“A Creative Director or client wants to be confident in you and your work, so stay confident so we can feed off of you. We hired you for a reason, remind us why.”
“That’s a killer line.”
“Select the parts that work well and design them.”
“Take up more spaces with images and lose the text.”
“Show target audience. Show process. Show context shots.”
“I’m just sitting here thinking, how would this be applied to other applications?”
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2014 Portfolio Day. KCAI Seniors.
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