Building a Graphics Design portfolio?

CliffyBiro

CliffyBiro

CliffyBiro

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Joined
1 Mar 2008
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Spurred on by the recent competition and a few words with a couple of other members, I'm going to set about building up a portfolio of my work to try and get a foot on the ladder....so to speak.

One problem.... I'm not too sure how to go about this. :(

1. I'm guessing I just need a display of my work, ideas and concepts?
2. What media should it be presented in? On paper? CD/DVD? A combination?


I'm also after help on the best route to setup a personal website to display my work. Preferably as cheap as possible.

ANY help at all is SO much appreciated as I'm so bored being out of work I need to be doing something.

Thank you.
 
rz30 said:
I will build you a site for cheap.
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Thanks very much for the offer but I quite like the idea of building it myself. :)


That way, I have more to add to my portfolio. :p

KizZ said:
It's always good to have a physical portfolio that you can present. Get an A1 portfolio, buy some A1 paper and start mounting your work on it. It's good to have sheets with brainstorms and ideas, drawings and photography are a plus too :). I did a bit of googling for some useful tips:

http://www.graphicdesignblog.co.uk/what-do-you-put-in-your-portfolio/
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/06/30/12-steps-to-a-super-graphic-design-portfolio/
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Thanks man. :)

Will head to Easons tomorrow to pick up a few things rather than all my ideas being sketched onto scraps of paper with a Bic pen. :p
 
tsinc80697 said:
I'm sure you would, but I'm going to assume he wants something good.

Good + cheap don't normally come together 99% of the time though :)
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This may just be your lucky 1%.

I can throw in custom made CMS as well.

Cheap = £350 : expensive = £2500-£5000.

Do you have an idea for a design skippy, maybe i can help out....
 
rz30 said:
This may just be your lucky 1%.

I can throw in custom made CMS as well.

Cheap = £350 : expensive = £2500-£5000.

Do you have an idea for a design skippy, maybe i can help out....
Click to expand...

Not as yet but I'll be making a start on possible designs tomorrow.

I'll be keeping this thread updated with everything I do in relation to this topic. :)

ATM though, I can't afford £35 never mind £350. :p
 
Making your own site isn't as complicated as you'd think. Trawl the internet for ideas and concepts that you like and make a proper plan of it before you start knocking it together. A graphic design portfolio could have lots of formats, but there are lots of comparisons with photography portfolios ... of which I've compiled a large list in the photography sticky, if you want to spend some time browsing them.

I've slowly adapted mine over 3 years or so now - a first one that was basically a gallery automatically made by photoshop, a second that actually validated (the coding of photoshop sites is nauseatingly bad), a third that integrated a javascript image display script and a now a fourth that's all php and generates the pages dynamically from a few data files. It's linked in my sig as it is at the moment, though I'm again working on a major overhaul to add back-end functionality.
 
I'm 16, however, I have quite a lot of connections in the industry.
I've worked for one of the Top 10 UK Agencies outside of London during summers before as a Junior Web Designer. Most of the design team I worked with all had a Graphics Design Degree, one didn't.
The one that didn't, was the lowest paid, and the hardest worked. He went about how he did things differently. He had worked his way up the ladder. Due to the fact of his lowish pay, he was actually moving to London to do freelance work, because he would earn more there, even though he could probably never move above a "Middleweight" designer, as he wouldn't be recognised without that bit of paper.

The most valuable thing they taught me about making a portfolio/trying to get into the business etc etc, is ideas. They said the company wants to see your thought process, the idea's behind the design, how the user feels etc etc. Because this then shows the thought in your Design and it also helps you develop the end product.

Design as much as possible, do sketches, scribble little notes, scan it aswell as sticking it onto Paper so you have a hard Portfolio aswell as a Website.
If you're really clever, you can use your little sketches and scribbles as part of your site design ;)

Hope this helped.
 
1. Get a clean, simple website up that lets your work do the talking.

2. Choose a few of your best sample projects, preferably live briefs or fictional ones if that isn't possible and create a .PDF with these and your CV on, this is the most common way of applying for GD jobs. If you want, I can send you mine so you know what you're aiming for. Most vacancies posted will ask for this or a link to your website, I would prefer to do both.

3. Get a well printed portfolio to take with you to interviews, including anything that you have had commercially published that you are proud of.

With all the above, well considered typography and design is obviously paramount.
 
skippi90 said:
One problem.... I'm not too sure how to go about this. :(
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I don't have a huge amount of usefulness to add but I'm in the same position with my folio for product design. I'm 'relaunching' myself as crazy inventor scientist type man because that's what I'm good at and so far that's all I've done in industry. I'm starting with these 'inventing' threads but the photos and videos are actually for my online portfolio because I'm going to have a website dedicated to it, hopefully to showcase everything.

Probably going to be a lot harder for you to be competitive because graphic design and creative roles are well over subscribed at the moment so my advice is make sure it's exceptional. I know it looks expensive but Design Week and Creative Review should be an important part of your monthly spend. The £15 they will cost you per month are an invaluable resource of ideas and jobs.
 
We usually print out the best pdf's that get emailed to us and look through those. Try and keep it no larger than 20 pages and make sure it actually prints out properly!

Having a web site's great but if you've not impressed with the initial email/pdf then people won't look at it, they don't have the time, it's also less important if you're planning on working in print.
 
Skip have you done any commercial work? I have to say I don't think a portfolio of self initiated work is going to help that much. It might be worth while doing jobs for friends or people you know pro-bono or for cheap, just so you can get something like that under your belt. Especially for working with print. If you can wrangle yourself a couple of print jobs, that way you can quizz the printer as much as possible and learn something about the process, also not just having yourself as a client.
 
Samione said:
Skip have you done any commercial work? I have to say I don't think a portfolio of self initiated work is going to help that much. It might be worth while doing jobs for friends or people you know pro-bono or for cheap, just so you can get something like that under your belt. Especially for working with print. If you can wrangle yourself a couple of print jobs, that way you can quizz the printer as much as possible and learn something about the process, also not just having yourself as a client.
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My portfolio was full of self initiated and university work and it bagged me my first job on the first interview. I was told that my work was better than most of the senior designers they had in and I was a fresh graduate. Not many people going for their first job will have much, if any, commercial work.

I do agree however that you should get as much commercial experience as you can and like Samione says, do some real work etc. for free so you can put real jobs in, its not essential, but its better.
 
Guys, thanks so so much for all of this. Really helping.

One point that was brought up was to do bit's and bob's for friends. I'd like to do this but first, I want to have a website of my own up and running. Nothing major. I've just got Dreamweaver and Flash so will be fiddling about on that for the next while coming up with a design with the help of a friend of mine who is also a small scale freelance designer.

Once, I get a design I'm happy with, where do I go from there?




One thing I am going to try over the next few weeks though is to look at sites I use reguarly and try to redesign them. Would that be a good path to go down for starters?


I'm also going to work on a CD cover for a friend's band.


These aren't major things but I think it should help get the ball rolling.
 
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