How To Design The Best Portfolio ?
10:05:00 PMCreating your portfolio either for a job or university applications is extremly stressing. I am sure you have already checked tens of websites to learn the best ways to design your portfolio.
To tell you the truth a year ago when I decided to apply for Contemporary Project Master in UPC Barcelona I was exactly at your place.I made lots of search online but the suggestions helped me the most was the ones came from my teachers who were the expert on this field. Since my portfolio worked perfectly fine and I got accepted to The Master Degree I decided to share my own experience with you.
Step 1 Make A Selection
Do not forget that your portfolio is as strong as the material inside.
However it sounds like a cliche keep in mind that -less is more- Don't try to put all designs you made in your portfolio. More pages doesn't mean a better portfolio. There is 3 factors you need to keep in mind during your selection;
B. Quality
C. Improvement
A. Variety
Variety of your work is a really important criteria for both a company or a university. So go ahead suprise them by showing how wide is your perspective in your field!
[P.S: However my aim was to apply a contemporary architecture master I presented urban planning, restoration, renovation, lighting projects as well as my contemporary designs]
B. Quality
Keep a certain quality level on your selection. Because -Most people tend to evaluate a portfolio by the worst work in it not the best.- It may sound cruel but it was one of the best advice I took during the process. To decide in this matter I showed my projects to my friends, family and my teachers and asked them to choose their -bests- and used the most voted projects in my portfolio so their objective opinions help me through this criteria.
C. Improvement
Non of us was born as the master of our field. We improved our skills in time by education, personal challanges and experience. Your portfolio is the best place to show your improvement because how much you improved also shows how much you can improve in the future. You don't have to present your projects in a chronological order, just by implying the date of the project you can obtain this goal.
If your selection has a certain quality, variety and presents your improvement now its time to move on to the next step!
Step 2. Create A Theme
As you can see the title is not buy or find a theme. If you need a portfolio it means you are interested in a design or art related field. In this perspective there is nothing more normal than you are expected to -design- your portfolio. When I found out I had only 3 weeks to deliver my portfolio I found myself searching for ready templates and -make your portfolio online- websites for days. So if you are wondering why not? First of all it is impossible to find a theme you can present all your projects at its best level, if you try to modify the theme it is taking much longer than making it your own and still the result is not satisfying and the last but most important thing is even the worst design you make will give a better impression than the ones you took online.
So how can you decide your theme?
In this point you have no limit. You can start by checking other people's portfolios and take a screenshot of the pages you like.[ https://issuu.com/ is the best website I have found to search for portfolios in any field]
After you have seen enough to get the inspiration you need, start taking little notes and making some sketches of your own design. This process will led you to create the best portfolio that represents you. To make your own template it is enough to design 3 main pages;
a.Cover
b.Index
c.Project Presentation
Why do we need a theme?
It is a fair question to ask but the answer is simple to present all different kind of project as a part of the whole you must have a unity/harmony between your pages.
The theme I choose for my portfolio was -Color Splash- which also can be defined as selective coloring. [I am sure you are all familiar with this black and white photos with a red car in it. So yes it is color splash!] It was a great way for me to present my projects in a simple way and take the attention to the point I want.
I have been told that the cover has an essential importance. So since the portfolio is a book of my ideas I decided to create a street from my unfinished designs and invite the person looking at my portfolio to be the person walking on that street.
This is for different pages of the same project from my portfolio. As you can see the pages are not copy-past versions of each other. What I aimed was to create pages that speaks the same language but doesn't say the same thing: harmony.
3. Let Your Work Speak For Itself
We all know that a good design is a product of ideas behind it. So in this case make sure your presentation lets people see the idea behind your projects. In my portfolio I used 4 different technic to provide this need.
a. Texts to describe the project
b.Quotes that represents my perspective
c.Graphic expressions
d. Share the designing process not only the final product
4. Believe In Yourself/ Be Open To Critisizm
These two qualifications are a key to succes in life therefore in portfolio design. Be open to critisizm, consider every idea but don't change your path in every critic you have. After you hear and consider the critics remember you are the one to make the final decision and believe in yourself.
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