i am applying to m.arch 1 w/ a bachelor in the sciences.
some lines/fonts are not appearing properly due to the file being condensed when uploaded, they should be fine once printed on paper. so please ignore them. :)
Not bad at all for someone that only has a 5 week summer program under their belt.
Couple things:
Spell check. Architecture is about details, they might see the error and think that you don't see things through.
It is too long: You want to catch them with the best of the best. Lean, mean and clean is the way to go. For instance you can put more items on a page, and condense the drawings to only the ones focusing on the space (I like the fish market one).
Layout is good, but I would rather see the cover with a simple white background.
You shouldn't have an issue getting into a program.
Fellow Intro student here, I was in Thomas' studio, and sat in the "alley" across from you. I think your portfolio looks great, especially given the time since we left the program. I would agree with the above statements though in that it seems to be a bit lengthy. Your artwork is fantastic, but your work from the GSAPP gets a little too in depth, and I think choosing the very best images would tell your story in a more concise and powerful way. I really like the index in the beginning but I don't really see that idea of the circular design throughout the rest of the portfolio, and I think consistency is important. That being said, I'm in the same boat you are. Hope all is well, man. Good luck with the process.
thanks joshuamings and astew426 for your feedbacks!
i actually thot my portfolio is a bit short on the content.. lol
i will definitely read over the writings again for spelling/grammar mistakes. i am just so sick of staring at it at this moment. gonna give a few days off then resume working on the changes.
alex, i remember thomas' group.. i dont believe we met, but i m sure that if shown a photo of you then i would be sure that i've seen you in the studio.
as for the ring shape for table of content, layout wise its not related.. but the ring shape is actually brought up upon in places of the gsapp work (ie. map/rings on models).
how's ur portfolio coming along, are you applying this year?
1: Kinda long. I don't know if it's an issue with too much content but rather not enough on the page. I am all for white space, but for example your drawings for the mapping of West Harlem Park project could easily share 2 drawings per page instead of one. The order of hierarchy is a little weird too... for most projects you are leading with a lot of small process work and not giving us the big picture until the very end. This can work but it's tricky. At the very least, whatever you show first for a project needs to be substantial enough to make me interested in reading more.
2: Not sold on the font selection for the body type. Stick with the basics in this case.
3: I would probably lead off with the architecture work and move the drawings, etc to the back. They are amazing, but an admissions committee is going to want to see your interest and aptitude for architecture first, the extras is what is going to set your portfolio apart.
4: Table of contents is interesting but I would think of how you could push that to the next level in terms of information and organization. Same with the other timeline/infographics. They seem like outlines of something that could be pretty cool.
5: The white spread at the end, which I assume is because you didn't work in 4's on your page spreads is really awkward. Something needs to be eliminated so this doesn't happen.
A lot of promise here and I think with some small revisions (and spell checking) you should be in good shape. Make sure to research the schools you are interested in NOW to see what requirements they have for the portfolio BEFORE you start revising. Some schools are very specific about size, length, binding, etc so it's no use to spend time working on something only to find out it doesn't satisfy school requirements.
the illustrations/paintings are pretty good, but i think rather technical than expressive works (sorry i am surrounded by talented artists and graphic designers so my perspective is probably not so fair). not that it matters. technique is great to have.
the archi-stuff is more interesting and feels free-er to me though. so i would put that in front rather than lead with the illustration work.
thats just me though.
on positive side it is nice to see all the work you put into the projects. i agree the money shots might be better put before these, but wouldn't drop the little vignettes either. they are quite interesting...
superb portfolio. I agree with Cherith and suggest you move the freehand stuff to the back. Oddly enough, I find firms value such skills much more than schools do.
thank you Cherith, jump, Urbanist and med for the feedback. I have take note of your comments and will work on the second version soon. thank you very much everyone for taking your time for these valuable feedbacks thus far.
On the cover (and throughout the title pages now that I get further in...), I'd ditch the sketchy style. You could make the type white, but solid, and retain a similar contrast level. Also, I'm not convinced that 'PORTFOLIO' is the most salient thing you have to say there. After all, an admissions committee is going to be sitting there with a giant stack of portfolios. They know that they're portfolios. The most important piece of information on that cover is whose portfolio it is.
A small trick: when you're starting a paragraph with all caps and then switching to sentence case, make the all caps portion 1/2pt to 1pt smaller than the rest so that it doesn't look gigantic.
On the table of contents, the blue and magenta look really out of place. They're such default colors compared to the more natural tones used elsewhere. Also, I'd either give slightly more space between the titles and the page numbers or bold the page numbers, as everything's running together a bit. Actually, I'm not convinced that you need the magenta line to exist at all, in any color.
Your casing is inconsistant. You switch within the same font from all uppercase headings on the cover and on the section titles, to all lowercase project titles (still in the same font). However in your table of contents the same is not true: both section titles and project titles are all lowercase. I'd say pick either upper or lower, but if you insist on switching I'd make the table of contents match.
Your footer text is just too big. It should be secondary, with the content on the page playing the primary role.
Treat text over image the same throughout: in some places you place it on a transparent white box, in others you make the text white and place it directly over the image. If you go with the transparent box, either bold the text or increase the opacity a touch. If you go with the white text, bold the text (always go bolder on a reverse than on a standard black-on-white).
Some of your colored boxes later on aren't working for me either. For example on the 'abstract sectional drawings' page, that blue and pinky-beige are just so office bland. The cover color and the yellow you use in diagrams are the strongest colors you've used.
Also on the 'abstract sectional drawings' spread, you have the image on the left page unbounded and the images on the right page bounded, then on the next spread you have some bounded in black and others bounded in grey. Pick one treatment and use it consistently throughout (unbounded is cleaner).
tagalong, thank you for the response, I will re-think about the cover and font for sure.
copper_top, thank you for your detailed explanations. you're definitely a font expert and pay such a great attention to details! greatly appreciated for taking the time to go thru my portfolio and list out the errors for me. i've read your response a few times and will definitely fix em to make them consistent. thank u very much for your pointers n tips. as for the borders, they are actually all black, its just that when i uploaded to issuu, i guess the compression screwed it up. you're right about how unbounded is cleaner, so i will find ways to fix that up. maybe use a lighter grey box when a border is absolutely necessary.
Beautiful hand drawings, I don't know why you want to pursue architecture instead of fine art, you might regret that decision later. Anyway, your portfolio looks really strong, except for the ending, the final project should be as strong as the first project in your portfolio, but instead it ends very abruptly with some carboard cutout and some collage without any info, I suggest you add some stronger project at the end to leave a good impression on the reviewer.
Also, you are Asian, you should be fine, all Asians get into good schools!
i took the files down since I am re-working my portfolio right now. As well as since I figured the critiques were dying down and not many people do share their portfolio before the application deadline just to be safe... ;)
this is marlin. not sure if we ever met, but i too attended the gsapp summer program. i was in joaquim and fatou's group...also non background. i sat at the first desk to the right of the doorway.
currently im in the process of creating my portfolio, but not as close to completion as it sounds like you may be. would you mind re-posting the link to your current portfolio? id love to take a look and see how youve laid out your studio work.
aside from making final adjustments to your portfolio, what else are you up to? have you gotten your letter of recs together, gre, etc? im back in la interning at a small arch firm and taking physics night classes (oye).
I think that I remember you. You made that tower structure right?
I am preparing my GREs, taking it at end of the month. Have not start on the LOR's yet.. currently intern at a small interior design/architecture firm.
what schools are you applying to?
Columbia? :)
I've emailed you my latest version of my portfolio, please take a look when you have time!
great to hear youre keeping up the momentum and chugging along with everything. im taking the gre in less than two weeks. fun times.
id say my top three schools are Columbia, Pratt and SCI-Arc. dream scenario would be to land myself back at Columbia. i miss those late nights...or should i say early mornings?
youre portfolio looks awesome. very impressive. great story.
portfolio critique please! (m.arch application, non background)
hi all,
please critique my portfolio: http://issuu.com/mitboi/docs/portfolio
i am applying to m.arch 1 w/ a bachelor in the sciences.
some lines/fonts are not appearing properly due to the file being condensed when uploaded, they should be fine once printed on paper. so please ignore them. :)
thanks in advance!
Not bad at all for someone that only has a 5 week summer program under their belt.
Couple things:
Spell check. Architecture is about details, they might see the error and think that you don't see things through.
It is too long: You want to catch them with the best of the best. Lean, mean and clean is the way to go. For instance you can put more items on a page, and condense the drawings to only the ones focusing on the space (I like the fish market one).
Layout is good, but I would rather see the cover with a simple white background.
You shouldn't have an issue getting into a program.
Hey Jasper,
Fellow Intro student here, I was in Thomas' studio, and sat in the "alley" across from you. I think your portfolio looks great, especially given the time since we left the program. I would agree with the above statements though in that it seems to be a bit lengthy. Your artwork is fantastic, but your work from the GSAPP gets a little too in depth, and I think choosing the very best images would tell your story in a more concise and powerful way. I really like the index in the beginning but I don't really see that idea of the circular design throughout the rest of the portfolio, and I think consistency is important. That being said, I'm in the same boat you are. Hope all is well, man. Good luck with the process.
Alex
thanks joshuamings and astew426 for your feedbacks!
i actually thot my portfolio is a bit short on the content.. lol
i will definitely read over the writings again for spelling/grammar mistakes. i am just so sick of staring at it at this moment. gonna give a few days off then resume working on the changes.
alex, i remember thomas' group.. i dont believe we met, but i m sure that if shown a photo of you then i would be sure that i've seen you in the studio.
as for the ring shape for table of content, layout wise its not related.. but the ring shape is actually brought up upon in places of the gsapp work (ie. map/rings on models).
how's ur portfolio coming along, are you applying this year?
thanks guys!
Jasper
actually, i remember you now, Alex!
_
1: Kinda long. I don't know if it's an issue with too much content but rather not enough on the page. I am all for white space, but for example your drawings for the mapping of West Harlem Park project could easily share 2 drawings per page instead of one. The order of hierarchy is a little weird too... for most projects you are leading with a lot of small process work and not giving us the big picture until the very end. This can work but it's tricky. At the very least, whatever you show first for a project needs to be substantial enough to make me interested in reading more.
2: Not sold on the font selection for the body type. Stick with the basics in this case.
3: I would probably lead off with the architecture work and move the drawings, etc to the back. They are amazing, but an admissions committee is going to want to see your interest and aptitude for architecture first, the extras is what is going to set your portfolio apart.
4: Table of contents is interesting but I would think of how you could push that to the next level in terms of information and organization. Same with the other timeline/infographics. They seem like outlines of something that could be pretty cool.
5: The white spread at the end, which I assume is because you didn't work in 4's on your page spreads is really awkward. Something needs to be eliminated so this doesn't happen.
A lot of promise here and I think with some small revisions (and spell checking) you should be in good shape. Make sure to research the schools you are interested in NOW to see what requirements they have for the portfolio BEFORE you start revising. Some schools are very specific about size, length, binding, etc so it's no use to spend time working on something only to find out it doesn't satisfy school requirements.
agree with cherith.
the illustrations/paintings are pretty good, but i think rather technical than expressive works (sorry i am surrounded by talented artists and graphic designers so my perspective is probably not so fair). not that it matters. technique is great to have.
the archi-stuff is more interesting and feels free-er to me though. so i would put that in front rather than lead with the illustration work.
thats just me though.
on positive side it is nice to see all the work you put into the projects. i agree the money shots might be better put before these, but wouldn't drop the little vignettes either. they are quite interesting...
superb portfolio. I agree with Cherith and suggest you move the freehand stuff to the back. Oddly enough, I find firms value such skills much more than schools do.
I love it. very unique - informative, simple, telling of your abilities and talents, and expressive of a good sense of graphics!
Good Job! You should get into some good schools!
thank you Cherith, jump, Urbanist and med for the feedback. I have take note of your comments and will work on the second version soon. thank you very much everyone for taking your time for these valuable feedbacks thus far.
overall quite good, not a big fan of your font choice or the cover...
On the cover (and throughout the title pages now that I get further in...), I'd ditch the sketchy style. You could make the type white, but solid, and retain a similar contrast level. Also, I'm not convinced that 'PORTFOLIO' is the most salient thing you have to say there. After all, an admissions committee is going to be sitting there with a giant stack of portfolios. They know that they're portfolios. The most important piece of information on that cover is whose portfolio it is.
A small trick: when you're starting a paragraph with all caps and then switching to sentence case, make the all caps portion 1/2pt to 1pt smaller than the rest so that it doesn't look gigantic.
On the table of contents, the blue and magenta look really out of place. They're such default colors compared to the more natural tones used elsewhere. Also, I'd either give slightly more space between the titles and the page numbers or bold the page numbers, as everything's running together a bit. Actually, I'm not convinced that you need the magenta line to exist at all, in any color.
Your casing is inconsistant. You switch within the same font from all uppercase headings on the cover and on the section titles, to all lowercase project titles (still in the same font). However in your table of contents the same is not true: both section titles and project titles are all lowercase. I'd say pick either upper or lower, but if you insist on switching I'd make the table of contents match.
Your footer text is just too big. It should be secondary, with the content on the page playing the primary role.
Treat text over image the same throughout: in some places you place it on a transparent white box, in others you make the text white and place it directly over the image. If you go with the transparent box, either bold the text or increase the opacity a touch. If you go with the white text, bold the text (always go bolder on a reverse than on a standard black-on-white).
Some of your colored boxes later on aren't working for me either. For example on the 'abstract sectional drawings' page, that blue and pinky-beige are just so office bland. The cover color and the yellow you use in diagrams are the strongest colors you've used.
Also on the 'abstract sectional drawings' spread, you have the image on the left page unbounded and the images on the right page bounded, then on the next spread you have some bounded in black and others bounded in grey. Pick one treatment and use it consistently throughout (unbounded is cleaner).
tagalong, thank you for the response, I will re-think about the cover and font for sure.
copper_top, thank you for your detailed explanations. you're definitely a font expert and pay such a great attention to details! greatly appreciated for taking the time to go thru my portfolio and list out the errors for me. i've read your response a few times and will definitely fix em to make them consistent. thank u very much for your pointers n tips. as for the borders, they are actually all black, its just that when i uploaded to issuu, i guess the compression screwed it up. you're right about how unbounded is cleaner, so i will find ways to fix that up. maybe use a lighter grey box when a border is absolutely necessary.
thanks again.
i've uploaded a higher resolution if this helps:
http://issuu.com/mitboi/docs/portfolio_high
Beautiful hand drawings, I don't know why you want to pursue architecture instead of fine art, you might regret that decision later. Anyway, your portfolio looks really strong, except for the ending, the final project should be as strong as the first project in your portfolio, but instead it ends very abruptly with some carboard cutout and some collage without any info, I suggest you add some stronger project at the end to leave a good impression on the reviewer.
Also, you are Asian, you should be fine, all Asians get into good schools!
the link is now broken - I'm sad, I was really impressed with the work
thanks zen maker and architechnophilia.
i took the files down since I am re-working my portfolio right now. As well as since I figured the critiques were dying down and not many people do share their portfolio before the application deadline just to be safe... ;)
hey mitboi.
this is marlin. not sure if we ever met, but i too attended the gsapp summer program. i was in joaquim and fatou's group...also non background. i sat at the first desk to the right of the doorway.
currently im in the process of creating my portfolio, but not as close to completion as it sounds like you may be. would you mind re-posting the link to your current portfolio? id love to take a look and see how youve laid out your studio work.
aside from making final adjustments to your portfolio, what else are you up to? have you gotten your letter of recs together, gre, etc? im back in la interning at a small arch firm and taking physics night classes (oye).
chat soon.
-marlin
hey Marlin,
I think that I remember you. You made that tower structure right?
I am preparing my GREs, taking it at end of the month. Have not start on the LOR's yet.. currently intern at a small interior design/architecture firm.
what schools are you applying to?
Columbia? :)
I've emailed you my latest version of my portfolio, please take a look when you have time!
Cheers,
Jasper
hey jasper,
yah, the tower was indeed my bizarre structure.
great to hear youre keeping up the momentum and chugging along with everything. im taking the gre in less than two weeks. fun times.
id say my top three schools are Columbia, Pratt and SCI-Arc. dream scenario would be to land myself back at Columbia. i miss those late nights...or should i say early mornings?
youre portfolio looks awesome. very impressive. great story.
keep me updated with your journey!
best,
marlin
hi everyone,
i've re-worked my portfolio and hoping it is close to the final version to print. can you please take a look if you have the time? thanks!
http://issuu.com/mitboi/docs/101018h2
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