I would love to get some constructive feedback on my Portfolio, since the small practice where I am currently working, is running out of projects.
Although I first joined as an inexperienced intern by pure serendipity, I managed to develop myself and run projects on my own. The practice is specialising in restaurant and private homes, but I do not wish to keep working solely on such a narrow segment (as interior restaurant fitouts) for the time being.
Which projects should I remove to keep the size down (although it's 4.7 MB in pdf) and would you rearrange them to showcase my skills or make me more employable in a more varied mix of firms and project typologies?
The layout graphics on this are clear and concise. This is a well put together piece. However it’s almost all restaurants. If you want to do something else show other projects. I’d put in 1-2 max from your current firm, the best/most complex, 1 restaurant and 1 residential, include some details, just to show you can put a drawing set together from all angles. The one thing I don’t like is the colored text and symbols in red and blue. It looks like the computer spat this out and honestly it’s rather confusing. Normally no color is used on technical / construction drawings. Maybe this is a UK thing but I’ve never seen that.
For the rest show academic or personal projects that convey your design interests and if possible the type of work you’re interested in doing. It’s totally normal to show academic work during your early years, especially if your office work is less exciting. What you do have included in this category is laid out in a way that seems to try and match what the firm work has set up in terms of content and format. It’s ok to break the format with the personal/academic vs office work. Show your creativity in those personal projects, show something different and that will make the viewer believe you have potentially more to offer than drafting & rendering skills. Diagrams, sketches, conceptual collages, something that shakes up the rigid format. The urban drawing is nice for example. Again the graphic format of the overall booklet is very solid, something that seems to give many young designers much trouble, but really play with the content and the frame fitting when it comes to your non office work. Also, you do not need to include in any caption which softwares you used to generate the images. I’m not sure why young designers always feel they need to do this. You don’t. You have already stated your software skills on the CV page.
The CV looks way too full given your experience. Seems you’re really stretching to have it fill out a full page. I’m US based so I can’t speak to the protocol in UK or Greece but the entire training section seems rather irrelevant as does the additional work that follows. You only have a few years experience. That’s fine. Don’t try and play it up like you’ve done more than you have in effort to fill out the page. That will happen over time as you keep working. I’d nix those last two sections entirely and move the skills section over to their place as the skills is the one outlier in the overall format of this sheet. Further if you have a breakdown of the other jobs available, format those the same way or as similarly as possible as you are doing for your current job eg project by project.
State in your cover letter your quick rise to more responsibility and your desire to work on larger projects.
The 5mb rule is usually in reference to a work sample which is a short teaser with 3-5 projects. The exhaustive portfolio is longer and you bring it with you to the interview. Know the difference, search through forums here which have described the difference time and again. You will be preparing two documents. The portfolio can be as long as you want because you’re going to carry it around. It’s actually quite nice to include somewhat of an anthology in the portfolio so that you can flip to different things that are applicable to different firm interviews. Don’t expect any employer to look at every page. Be prepared on which projects you want to discuss based on the job and firm type.
Lastly, is there no cover? You don’t need a cover for the work sample but for the printed portfolio you should have some sort of cover image. Again search around the forums and other portfolios. It’s usually some image or graphic, but it needs to something you personally created.
No cover was off putting. Also, I have no idea what your personal character is like after scanning through your work. People hire people, not drawings, in my experience.
It is weird that there is no cover, the one page you could make a statement about you and your work and how you want to be seen simply isn't there, quite telling actually. No clue what the ideas are behind those projects or how they reflect your skills or point of view as an architect. It is all a bit too dry and formal for my taste.
Jun 4, 18 5:01 am ·
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Portfolio critique - 1.5 year experience
I would love to get some constructive feedback on my Portfolio, since the small practice where I am currently working, is running out of projects.
Although I first joined as an inexperienced intern by pure serendipity, I managed to develop myself and run projects on my own. The practice is specialising in restaurant and private homes, but I do not wish to keep working solely on such a narrow segment (as interior restaurant fitouts) for the time being.
Which projects should I remove to keep the size down (although it's 4.7 MB in pdf) and would you rearrange them to showcase my skills or make me more employable in a more varied mix of firms and project typologies?
Love forward to hearing your comments! Thanks!
For the rest show academic or personal projects that convey your design interests and if possible the type of work you’re interested in doing. It’s totally normal to show academic work during your early years, especially if your office work is less exciting. What you do have included in this category is laid out in a way that seems to try and match what the firm work has set up in terms of content and format. It’s ok to break the format with the personal/academic vs office work. Show your creativity in those personal projects, show something different and that will make the viewer believe you have potentially more to offer than drafting & rendering skills. Diagrams, sketches, conceptual collages, something that shakes up the rigid format. The urban drawing is nice for example. Again the graphic format of the overall booklet is very solid, something that seems to give many young designers much trouble, but really play with the content and the frame fitting when it comes to your non office work. Also, you do not need to include in any caption which softwares you used to generate the images. I’m not sure why young designers always feel they need to do this. You don’t. You have already stated your software skills on the CV page.
The CV looks way too full given your experience. Seems you’re really stretching to have it fill out a full page. I’m US based so I can’t speak to the protocol in UK or Greece but the entire training section seems rather irrelevant as does the additional work that follows. You only have a few years experience. That’s fine. Don’t try and play it up like you’ve done more than you have in effort to fill out the page. That will happen over time as you keep working. I’d nix those last two sections entirely and move the skills section over to their place as the skills is the one outlier in the overall format of this sheet. Further if you have a breakdown of the other jobs available, format those the same way or as similarly as possible as you are doing for your current job eg project by project.
State in your cover letter your quick rise to more responsibility and your desire to work on larger projects.
The 5mb rule is usually in reference to a work sample which is a short teaser with 3-5 projects. The exhaustive portfolio is longer and you bring it with you to the interview. Know the difference, search through forums here which have described the difference time and again. You will be preparing two documents. The portfolio can be as long as you want because you’re going to carry it around. It’s actually quite nice to include somewhat of an anthology in the portfolio so that you can flip to different things that are applicable to different firm interviews. Don’t expect any employer to look at every page. Be prepared on which projects you want to discuss based on the job and firm type.
Lastly, is there no cover? You don’t need a cover for the work sample but for the printed portfolio you should have some sort of cover image. Again search around the forums and other portfolios. It’s usually some image or graphic, but it needs to something you personally created.
Good luck
It is weird that there is no cover, the one page you could make a statement about you and your work and how you want to be seen simply isn't there, quite telling actually. No clue what the ideas are behind those projects or how they reflect your skills or point of view as an architect. It is all a bit too dry and formal for my taste.
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