Trying to get my portfolio ready... its the first one I've had to make since school, so I've got a couple years of professional work behind me. I was wondering if there were any existing threads here that any of you may remember that could help me out (there's a LOT of portfolio threads but they tend to be for people right out of school).
Anyway, my question: One of the things I've always struggled with is taking a CAD drawing and scaling what used to be a drawing for a 24X36 piece of paper, and putting it onto an 8.5x11. The lines just get so thin, and you can't even tell what's going on. When you put that into photoshop it gets even harder to read. Is there a good strategy to mitigate this?
I do a lot of design at work, and for a lot of recent projects my boss has kind of given me the design reigns (nothing complex or huge, but not a bad situation for someone a couple years out of school either). Should my portfolio concentrate on mostly design? Like trace sketches and renderings? I intend to bring drawing sets to interviews, so should a portfolio be a place where I explain projects and design, while the drawing sets show off my technical skills? I've done entire sets on my own.
Also, am I past the point where school projects should be in it? I can do much better work now, but the work I do now is generally limited by cheap clients and gravity.
Don't put CAD drawings in your portfolio, do take a mini set or two of working drawings that you did to the interview. Don't put in any school projects unless you have a very, very good reason to--like you won awards for it or the firm you are applying to would love to see your project for personal reasons. As for if your portfolio should focus on design, I'd say yes because that is what it is for, design is what gets them interested in you, then other skills are shown on your resume and in the interview. good luck!
Thanks Becky. I figured portfolio is for design, but I see so many of my friends putting CAD drawings in them. Would it hurt to bring my academic portfolio with me to an interview just in case they were interested?
I've always brought the PDFs into photoshop and made two or three copies of the layer and set the top layer to multiply--easy way to darken and flatten lines, line weights. For multiple sheets I use an action script, takes two click and done.
Feb 22, 15 1:48 pm ·
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CAD drawings in professional portfolios
Hey guys,
Trying to get my portfolio ready... its the first one I've had to make since school, so I've got a couple years of professional work behind me. I was wondering if there were any existing threads here that any of you may remember that could help me out (there's a LOT of portfolio threads but they tend to be for people right out of school).
Anyway, my question: One of the things I've always struggled with is taking a CAD drawing and scaling what used to be a drawing for a 24X36 piece of paper, and putting it onto an 8.5x11. The lines just get so thin, and you can't even tell what's going on. When you put that into photoshop it gets even harder to read. Is there a good strategy to mitigate this?
I do a lot of design at work, and for a lot of recent projects my boss has kind of given me the design reigns (nothing complex or huge, but not a bad situation for someone a couple years out of school either). Should my portfolio concentrate on mostly design? Like trace sketches and renderings? I intend to bring drawing sets to interviews, so should a portfolio be a place where I explain projects and design, while the drawing sets show off my technical skills? I've done entire sets on my own.
Also, am I past the point where school projects should be in it? I can do much better work now, but the work I do now is generally limited by cheap clients and gravity.
Anyway, a little input would be helpful. Thanks!
Don't put CAD drawings in your portfolio, do take a mini set or two of working drawings that you did to the interview. Don't put in any school projects unless you have a very, very good reason to--like you won awards for it or the firm you are applying to would love to see your project for personal reasons. As for if your portfolio should focus on design, I'd say yes because that is what it is for, design is what gets them interested in you, then other skills are shown on your resume and in the interview. good luck!
Thanks Becky. I figured portfolio is for design, but I see so many of my friends putting CAD drawings in them. Would it hurt to bring my academic portfolio with me to an interview just in case they were interested?
You could put it in your back pocket if you want.
I agree with Becky, but just for fun...
I've always brought the PDFs into photoshop and made two or three copies of the layer and set the top layer to multiply--easy way to darken and flatten lines, line weights. For multiple sheets I use an action script, takes two click and done.
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