A.B. from Harvard '04 in philosophy. 3.45 GPA. I've been working as a journalist, writing about energy and sustainability, since then. I'm taking the GRE in a week and I think I'll do fine.
I want to do sustainable/green design and I'm applying to Yale, Texas/Austin, UCLA, Berkeley, and Oregon, and maybe Harvard or Princeton.
Here's the thing. I haven't started on my portfolio but it's going to be a collection of paintings, drawings, and a two sculptures from college. I'm also going to throw in some stills from a freelance motion graphics piece I worked on. Think Terry Gilliam-style animation.
My plan is just to photograph this stuff in the most flattering context possible and lay it out in a clean way with some simple captions.
Looking at some of the other portfolios people have posted for feedback I'm worried that this is going to be weak. But at the same time, the websites for these schools seem to stress that the portfolio need not have architectural stuff.
So, my question: Is that plan going to work? Will 10 presentable pages of good-to-very-good drawings and paintings with a little digital work pass for a competitive portfolio?
you don't necessarily need architectural projects/drawings for an M.Arch1 since the program is made for people entering the profession. You mostly just have to show examples of your creativity.
The portfolio shouldn't be a quick few hour task where you just throw your images/paintings down with captions. The portfolio is your biggest selling point to the school, especially for some of the ivy schools that you are applying to. 10 pages is a little light on content. To me it shows that you don't have alot of work. I think I had about 30-40 pages when I applied.
Show us what you have and we'll critique it...
are those that show some form of "problem solving" or "design-led interrogation”. I was really surprised to see applicants with a portfolio comprising amazing artwork flat out rejected by all competitive courses. By contrast, I’ve seen others succeed with less visually coherent documents, because their work documents their individual response to a specific spatial problem. If you search the words “portfolio”, “non-arch”, and “critique/review” you can see the work of others and hopefully get a better idea of what I mean.
This type of work doesn’t necessarily have to be architectural – in fact it’s probably best if its not. I hear that admissions committees like when an applicants portfolio forms a strong link with his/her previous academic background and personal statement. So perhaps you could put together something that relates to your work in philosophy or journalism?
This is of course just my theory – I applying this winter so I guess we’ll find out if I’m right or not come March. It would be interesting to hear from previous applicants (successful and otherwise) to see if anyone disagrees with my assumptions?
I wouldn’t worry too much about sorting a specific number of pages – I’d concentrate on quality. The rest of your stats look good so if you manage to sort a good enough portfolio I’d say you stand a decent change in the programs you mentioned.
It depends on how retarded the reviewers will be, I mean, there are many professors out there who like reading a huge essays explaining one small picture. So if you can pull out some stunt like that, just explaining one small detail or small drawing or something, but just making a huge essay about it and bragging about that thing, then you might actually be better off then a guy with tons of architectural images.
Oct 17, 10 12:22 am ·
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Portfolio without architecture work. Will it fly?
I've got a question, but first, some context:
I'm applying to MArch programs.
A.B. from Harvard '04 in philosophy. 3.45 GPA. I've been working as a journalist, writing about energy and sustainability, since then. I'm taking the GRE in a week and I think I'll do fine.
I want to do sustainable/green design and I'm applying to Yale, Texas/Austin, UCLA, Berkeley, and Oregon, and maybe Harvard or Princeton.
Here's the thing. I haven't started on my portfolio but it's going to be a collection of paintings, drawings, and a two sculptures from college. I'm also going to throw in some stills from a freelance motion graphics piece I worked on. Think Terry Gilliam-style animation.
My plan is just to photograph this stuff in the most flattering context possible and lay it out in a clean way with some simple captions.
Looking at some of the other portfolios people have posted for feedback I'm worried that this is going to be weak. But at the same time, the websites for these schools seem to stress that the portfolio need not have architectural stuff.
So, my question: Is that plan going to work? Will 10 presentable pages of good-to-very-good drawings and paintings with a little digital work pass for a competitive portfolio?
Thanks very much!
you don't necessarily need architectural projects/drawings for an M.Arch1 since the program is made for people entering the profession. You mostly just have to show examples of your creativity.
The portfolio shouldn't be a quick few hour task where you just throw your images/paintings down with captions. The portfolio is your biggest selling point to the school, especially for some of the ivy schools that you are applying to. 10 pages is a little light on content. To me it shows that you don't have alot of work. I think I had about 30-40 pages when I applied.
Show us what you have and we'll critique it...
Hey, thanks for the reply. The truth is, I don't have a lot of work :(
I think I may end up with 20 pages in the end, and I'm going to try to do a few things in the coming weeks.
And yes, I'll certainly throw it up here when I can.
are those that show some form of "problem solving" or "design-led interrogation”. I was really surprised to see applicants with a portfolio comprising amazing artwork flat out rejected by all competitive courses. By contrast, I’ve seen others succeed with less visually coherent documents, because their work documents their individual response to a specific spatial problem. If you search the words “portfolio”, “non-arch”, and “critique/review” you can see the work of others and hopefully get a better idea of what I mean.
This type of work doesn’t necessarily have to be architectural – in fact it’s probably best if its not. I hear that admissions committees like when an applicants portfolio forms a strong link with his/her previous academic background and personal statement. So perhaps you could put together something that relates to your work in philosophy or journalism?
This is of course just my theory – I applying this winter so I guess we’ll find out if I’m right or not come March. It would be interesting to hear from previous applicants (successful and otherwise) to see if anyone disagrees with my assumptions?
I wouldn’t worry too much about sorting a specific number of pages – I’d concentrate on quality. The rest of your stats look good so if you manage to sort a good enough portfolio I’d say you stand a decent change in the programs you mentioned.
Just realised the top of my comment has been deleted.
It should read:
The most successful portfolios are those that.....
It depends on how retarded the reviewers will be, I mean, there are many professors out there who like reading a huge essays explaining one small picture. So if you can pull out some stunt like that, just explaining one small detail or small drawing or something, but just making a huge essay about it and bragging about that thing, then you might actually be better off then a guy with tons of architectural images.
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