Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
Pratt Institute
University of Southern California (USC)
Tulane University
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Temple University
University of Oregon
Cranbrook Academy of Art
New York Institute of Technology (NYIT)
Kansas State University
Portfolio critique
Hi all,
I would like to hear critique/constructive feedback/opinion of my portfolio draft (found in the link below). I will be using it for my university admissions later this year, so I am planning on improving it by then. Looking forward to your comments.
http://issuu.com/arvindroy/docs/portfolio_arvindroy21/1
72 fucking pages?
Dude, condense it to 20 pages.
I do like the yellow background sections. Reminds me of when I would use canary-yellow trace paper for studio pin-ups. I also like the infinitely-thin slabs.
Every single page of this portfolio is hard on the eyes. So much unnecessary formatting.
And the inclusion of a self portrait at the beginning makes me embarrassed for you.
Hi all,
Thanks for the feed back.
I will work towards 1) muting the textures/colors and letting the drawings stand out more 2) Cutting down the number of pages by reconsidering the projects to be included and tighter editing within certain projects.
@placebeyondthesplines
Could you expand on the "unnecessary formatting" - does it relate to the template, the organising grids, or the color/texture mentioned earlier? Is it not a good idea to include a portrait, because a lot of portfolios I viewed/referenced had the authors portraits in them? Or probably move it from the first page to the page at the end where the CV is?
Sounds like University of Oregon but normally they require a lot less number of pages for a B.Arch.
Aside from that, why the grainy background pattern on EVERY page. Don't do that. Fine for the cover, I suppose. The parts containing the buildings and all should be crisp. What are you trying to hide? If you have something embarassing, leave it out. Choose wisely. The grainy background bleached into the stuff that is suppose to be clear and crisp like your 3d renders
On your table of Contents pages (pg. 4 & 5), you should have cleaner alignment of page division. 1 & 2 should be entirely on pg 4 and 3,4,5,6,& 7 should be entirely on pg. 5 and none of 2 should be lapping onto pg.5.
In addition, I probably would the image graphic and the grainy pattern muddies the font text making it harder to read.
I probably would have settled for a solid pastel colors bars with the text. I wouldn't care about the grainy image to the left with you being pictured. Seriously, do you need the portrait of yourself there?
(I'm using the page numbers of ISSUU just below not the printed page numbers which are barely seen).
On page 6 & 7, with the picture of 1 Food Centre Jurong West, the picture is grainy. Either a clean tinting a slight or no grainy image. I had a little issue with the small font text in the yellow bar. A little hard to read. I suspect in print, it might actually look better, possibly.
Page 8 & 9, same issues persists.
Page 10 & 11, same problems and the images are grainy and low quality. This can't be original photo images from the camera or digital camera. You seem to f---ed around with contrast and f---ed up the image. Why? Are you trying to hide something? Why mess up the images? Why not simple greyscale using say GIMP. You lost image fidelity.
Page 12 & 13.... what's with the grainy background. Messes up a perfectly fine rendering and makes the text on the left side of the 3d model rendering muddied and less readable.
pg 14 & 15, would look fine with a solid clean white or slightly off-white tone. Grainy background messes with the color used in your landscape/building rendering. Why?
Text is hard to read and barely legible.
pg 16-17 Again... if you wanted a yellow tint, then you should have that underlay the areas that were white without messing up the colors. Again grainy.... :-(
Next section Territorial frameworks: Pgs 18-25: Too many problems. Too many images far too small.
Pgs.. 26-27... biggest issue is text readability.
Next section: pg.28-29... image okay for this purpose. Text readability of the smaller font text is problematic.
The main images on the next two pages.... grainy texture works against the image. The color might or might not be an issue but I probably would have went back to a slight off-white at this stage. You have some lettering legibility and contrast issues. The label text for the main images are partly hard to read when the dark blotches of graininess are at.
You have text legibility issues on the bottom section below your main images.
Pg 32-33: The images would have been fine if you didn't apply a grainy texture. A simple sepia 'grayscale' would have been fine.
Persistent text legibility issues on the bottom section as before.
pgs. 34-37... same issues persist but less problematic on the graininess but still.
pgs. 38-39... the grainy aspect is fine. Biggest issue is text legibility.
pg.40-41... main images are fine. Could use a little more contrast but probably just fine.
pg 42-43... issues of text readability on the lower part. It seems it would probably be week even in print. I hope it is significantly better in full resolution print on high quality paper on high quality printer.
pg. 44-45... looking better. text legibility problem on the right hand side.
pg 46-47... the text in upper left hand on page 46, needs a little more pronounced contrast for it to 'pop' out. Maybe a slight outline text or something. Just needs something to improve that.
pg 48-49.... some text legibility issues.
Possible other issues someone else may chime about.
pgs. 50-51... seems fine to me.
pg. 52-53... legibility issues seems to reoccur a little and "Treehouse" text seems a little flat and needs a little work for it to 'pop' out a little more.
pgs 54-55... fine.. ok.
pg. 56-57... "Ampitheater" text has same issue as "Treehouse on page. 52.
pg. 58-59... a little contrast issue. grainy pattern.. text doesn't contrast as well as it could.
60-61... grainy pattern a small issue. Text contrast a little weak.
62-63... I'd say, if the grainy pattern was less. I'm assuming this is a matter of layers in photoshop or GIMP so add more opacity to the layer with the images and/or more transparency to the grainy layer. Text contrast a little week.
pg. 64-65... there is a grainy texture underlay or overlay not part of the actual image. Turn that off. There is a speckle of dots part of the landscape plan itself. That's fine. I think it would look better.
pg. 66-67... turn off the grainy texture or reduce it some more.
pg. 68-69... turn off the grainy texture. Improve font contrast for legibility of text.
The rest is fine as far as I am concern.
These are my opinion.
Others seems to have some good points. It is pretty lengthy.
As Kozumelle, the color filters and texture layer causing the graininess is disturbing aside from a few spots where it works fine.
NS has a good point to condense it.
Some programs as part of their admissions requires a self-portrait exercise. If not required, don't include it. You probably don't want them to know what you look like. Hint !!! Hint !!!
@Richard
Thanks for taking the time to do a page by page review - helps a lot when I do the next iteration. As mentioned earlier, I will definitely tone down the colors/textures and use it more strategically. As for the text illegibility issues apart from the ones caused by the texture, i think its because I didn't use pure black, but rather a shade of dark grey ( weakens the contrast). But as far as font size/spacing is considered, its a little more complicated because there isn't an objective/quantitative way to determine legibility - The current smallest font size used in the portfolio is 11 on an A4 sheet (though that is still relative to the font used). Another consideration was also that the text shouldn't dominate other content on the page (which unfortunately in the current iteration is dominated by the textures/color overlay)
I have updated a page from the portfolio taking into consideration the comments above - let me know how it compares.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz3u7NlImqAibms5RjN6cVRZZHM/view?usp=sharing
1) 72 pages for graduate school application is way too much. Think about cutting that in half. You do not need 5-6 spreads per project. Choose the most important aspects of the project to communicate it and leave out the rest.
2) Like others have said, the grainy texture and overly filtered images make things too muddy and very hard to read. The updated page is much better than the original because I can actually read the drawing without having to look through the texture/filter mess
3) TAKE THE SELF PORTRAIT OUT!
arv619,
Better. I will assume some of the text issue looks better in actual print than in the small size on ISSUU so if it does look better in that since when printed on sheets that are 11 x 17.
who does an 11x17 portfolio though?
The comments above seem about right, if you are using this for schools you really should look at the requirements of some of the schools you are hoping to apply to. Many of them are very specific, and may require a particular page size, orientation, submission method, and most importantly a page count.
...most will require a page count under 30.
Cutting a ton of work out will make your portfolio much better anyway, there is a lot of weaker fluff in there. The work on 39-58 do nothing for me. The effects and color make it really hard to gauge the quality of some of the other content, I actually like spread 35-36 the best because it's legible haha.
i love the giant size of your portfolio.
Having a thick book is just more impressive. It's just psychology. Does anyone know of an architect who releases a monologue (this is basically what a portfolio is) that's 10 pages?
Few years ago when I was applying for jobs my portfolio was like 90 pages. It was a small format book and you get that thickness aspect to it. Everyone was kinda impressed by it cause size matters.
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