Transitions, October 2002

Issue 2      October 2002

Contents

Articles:

Building a portfolio
How to present your work to get yourself noticed.

Book tips from the top
Board members John Bielenberg, Gong Szeto and Ann Willoughby describe their favorite and most influential volumes.

Executive director’s letter
This second issue of AIGA Transitions, a newsletter created for AIGA student members, seeks to help you in an important element of your education: developing a portfolio that demonstrates the way you think and the quality of your technical work. Whether you are a beginning student or about to graduate, it is important, assignment by assignment, to think of how your work will complement other examples in your portfolio. It is never too early nor too late to consider this subject.

The editors for AIGA Transitions are AIGA national board members Petrula Vrontikis (principal of Vrontikis Design Office in Los Angeles and an educator at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California) and Terry Irwin (a founder of MetaDesign in San Francisco and an educator at California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco). 

We hope this will turn out to be a valuable resource in your personal transition to an absolutely extraordinary profession.

Richard Grefé, executive director, AIGA

BUILDING A PORTFOLIO
Ideally, your portfolio is both a professional presentation of your work and a reflection of your approach to design. Whether you’re dropping it off for review, presenting it in an interview or mailing your work to someone new, your portfolio is often your first introduction to potential employers. The contents and the container that holds them, as well as any personal identity materials or promotional collateral, should be created as a thoughtful, holistic system that complements the style and creative direction of your work.

The craftsmanship with which you present your work will reflect your design skills, intelligence, and level of care and thoughtfulness. Evaluate the most durable and professional way to present your body of work. Some things to consider when assembling everything:

• Have the contents been proofread and edited? Ideally, you would do this as you’re creating the work, but have someone double-check all the finished pieces in your portfolio. Equally important, proof cover letters, e-mails and any other communications you send. Oversights might suggest you’re sloppy with details, and can color how you’re perceived.
• Photograph your work to hide the tiny imperfections that you, and other designers, are likely to notice.
• Choose a universal method for presenting all of your work—be it on boards, as transparencies or as printouts.
• If your work is interactive, you may choose to produce an online or CD portfolio.
• Only include your strongest work in your portfolio. If there are elements of your portfolio that you feel are particularly strong, it might be worth the effort to extend them. For example, if you designed a logo in school, then make a stationery or identity system to go along with it. If you designed a single poster in class, create a series of them.

Having the ability to explain your work—and the problem you were trying to solve—is equally important to the impact and quality of your presentation. When you’re drafting your introductory letter and resumé, and in preparation for interviews, think through the entire process of the project so that you’re clear and concise about what you’ve accomplished and why it matters. A presentation should be concise and concentrated—you don’t want to lose your audience. Also consider the pacing of your work, the order and rhythm in which you present your pieces. Start and finish with powerful pieces. Try to keep the flow of different types of work varied throughout the portfolio.

You may want to think about creating an additional self-promotion collateral piece to mail to perspective employers or to leave behind after an interview. This is a great opportunity to highlight a variety of your best pieces. It should be polished and work as a cohesive system with the rest of your portfolio, but can take many different physical formats: a folder with cards, a small book, a folded poster. It’s a great way to open a dialogue with a company or leave a lasting memory.

Remember, your portfolio is often your first and last impression—it will represent you. Create a holistic system with care, thought and meticulous attention to detail.

Avery Mazor is a production designer at Stone Yamashita Partners, a strategy and communications firm based in San Francisco.

BOOK TIPS FROM THE TOP: BOARD MEMBERS JOHN BIELENBERG, GONG SZETO AND ANN WILLOUGHBY

More books from AIGA national board members.

John Bielenberg:

De Bono’s Thinking Course
By Edward De Bono

This proves that human beings are lazy thinkers, unless you read this book.

Looking Closer 4: Critical Writings on Graphic Design
Edited by Michael Bierut, William Drenttel, Steven Heller

Deep thinking about a shallow (?) business.

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies
By Naomi Klein

Read this book on consumer capitalism if you plan on working for corporations.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
By Malcolm Gladwell

“A book for anyone who cares about how society works and how we can make it better.” (–George Stephanopoulos)

Gong Szeto: formandcontent

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America
By Warren E. Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham

Given our current environment of corporate mistrust, Buffett’s essays are a refreshing reminder that thoughtful, old-fashioned ethics can yield positive (and lucrative) results in the business world. The fast and cool need not apply; you need to be smart, ethical, honest, hard-working and patient. Great insights into the world’s second-richest man and world’s most celebrated investor. Though not explicitly about design, it’s good to get to know how the great levers of power think and work today.

The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production
By James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, Daniel Roos

A great crash course on the methods and benefits of lean production, a manufacturing philosophy pioneered by Toyota and making great strides into all facets of industrial production. Large-scale manufacturing that integrates design and environmental responsibility upfront rather than last—or worse, never. An essential primer for the design student about the travails of producing things responsibly in the real world.

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
By Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins

A seminal book on how developing environmentally conscious products and processes makes good business sense. For any young designer, social and environmental responsibility are tough issues to practice much less teach, and this book gives a great background into the issues today and for the future for industrial America.

What Were They Thinking?
By Robert M. McMath

A highly entertaining book about consumer products that are either stupidly conceived or based on suspicious drivers. McMath’s claim to fame is that he owns the world’s largest collection of consumer durables. A humorous look into the randomness and silliness of new products driven by voodoo marketing rather than thoughtful research and design.

Ann Willoughby: Willoughby Design Group

Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future
By Gregory Stock

Currently reading this provocative book about human engineering. He talks about how market preferences determine the crops we plant, the animals we raise, and challenges us to think about how we will design our future through human genetic enhancement.

Linked: The New Science of Networks
By Albert-László Barabási

Very interesting read about complex networks and how they behave. Barabási compares the internet to the AIDS epidemic, the human genome and the stock market, and explains new theory in an understandable and well-written manner.

The Grace of Great Things: Creativity and Innovation
By Robert Grudin

An old favorite of mine that I reread from time to time that deals with the all the thing we grapple with in our profession and daily life. He sheds light on our place in time and history.

The Future of Life
By Edward Osborne Wilson

A clear and compelling description of our biosphere and a hopeful plan to protect all the species including humans. Wilson shows how economic growth and new methods of conservation can work hand in hand.

 
Publisher

AIGA Transitions is published once a month, every September through May, nine times a year by AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts), 164 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, www.aiga.org. The executive editors are AIGA national board members Terry Irwin and Petrula Vrontikis. AIGA Transitions is a benefit of student membership and is not available to nonmembers. AIGA seeks articles for this publication from knowledgeable, respected and experienced authors whose opinions are deemed relevant to the student and educator community. The opinions expressed by the authors are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or judgment of AIGA; further, they represent only one point of view and are not intended to be an exhaustive treatment. For further discussion of the issues with your colleagues and peers, please visit the AIGA Design Forum at www.aiga.org.