Thursday, 31 January 2013

Portfolio Surgeries Feedback

Today I had my portfolio surgery with Ben Haworth from The Beautiful Meme. As well as showing my portfolio I asked Ben his opinions on my branding.

Questions:

I had prepared these questions which I wanted feedback on.


- How many images per page? 
      Good amount

- How many projects?
      5 - 8

- How many pages should each project have?
      Doesn't matter, as long as you are not repeating yourself

- Do I need more text explaining the project?
      You don't need text for an interview as you will be explaining everything, and having large amounts of text is distracting as you start reading them. You could include a small amount of information such as client, target audience and what you have created, but in lists so it is easier to read.
      You will need a bit more text when you are leaving the portfolio such as at the EOYS. 

- Should I put my name / logo on each page?
      Not needed, could do a title page

- Is it clear who I am as a designer through these pages?
      It is clear through the work, coming across as a craft based designer with an interest in illustration, hand drawn type and materials. Should include more examples of these. 

- Which order should the projects be in? Which is the strongest project?
      Illustration / image based projects are strongest.

Notes:

CV Page

- This isn't needed for in the portfolio as you would already have sent a CV. 

Peacocks

- What was the Peacocks branding before? Make it obvious what changes you have made.
- Explain why Peacocks went in to administration. Explain the problems and solutions.
- What was it before? Why have you changed it?
- Make it obvious what you have done.
- Explain why there are three examples of the website. Could re-arrange this so the website has a full page, and other examples such as blog and newsletter on another page.

Stationery

- Make it clear what you have done. Set the scene, explain why you set this brief.
- Need to show the audience, client, and what the problem was.

UK Greetings

- Include an example of all of the designs as this is what the brief asked, and at the moment you can't see all of them.
- Explain why this would sell to the target audience, such as through a social media campaign or from bringing this in to schools.
- If it hasn't been done before consider why - would it actually work?
- Make it clear all the imagery is yours.

M&S 

- Make it clear all the images and type are yours
- Need to show your packaging could be realistic, such as by showing the ingredients section etc, as it looks too perfect as it is
- Take greater care with packaging presentation

MCD

- Include more photographs from this project
- Bring it with you, people like to touch and feel things such as the cotton invite
- You can't see the white border on the poster because of the white background so need to sort this out
- On the poster, the text could do with more leading, and being less close to the edge

Branding 

- Make it represent you and your interests, such as could you print on to cotton for business cards
- Your branding needs to reflect your work, where at the moment it seems to type based
- Need to reflect the crafty style
- Keep logo the same way on all branding (sometimes its horizontal and sometimes vertical at the moment)
- Watch out on business card, text is too close to the edge

General 

- Get others to look at portfolio for their opinions
- Practice what you are going to say
- Don't sell yourself short, explain what you have done so people know
- Take printed stuff with you
- Could include a few more corporate branding projects to prove that you can do other things, and some examples of photography.
- Need to perfect and be the best at: illustration, hand drawn typography, use of materials.
- Put the images in a logical order, that will work in the order you explain things.

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