I lived in LA for 12 years...listen to mdler, its absolute shiat...especially for architecturally minded people. East coast = , like a thousand times, better, fo sho.

Europe ... For sure

Someone appliying to RISD? I hear from another applicant they accept a CD with the Portfolio instead the printed version...
That's make sense?

I concur, Europe would probably be ideal... I'm thinking Denmark or Norway.

I applied to RISD last year and decided against applying to them this year. They do accept CD's. It's on their website somewhere.

is 5.5x8.5 portfolio too small?

tumbleweed,

do ENVD students qualify fof MArch2, you think?


this would be a slam dunk for me...I mean IF...i were to somehow get in..

I want to see if you guys have any suggestions for my portfolio. I was wondering if the style was A. A distraction from the actual work B. a little hard to understand but intriguing or C. an atractive compliment to the work presented.

http://hmack85.googlepages.com/home

hmack..i think you need to fix your link.

Ok heres a new link. tell me what you think

http://hmack85.googlepages.com/howardmack2

Ok heres a new link. tell me what you think

http://hmack85.googlepages.com/howardmack2

that one doesnt work either. Ok, this is like when I was a kid and my parents wouldnt let me see Jurassic Park, so now its the only portfolio I want to see.

if your portfolio can keep up this dance of the forbidden with the admissions folks, you're in like dr. quinn.

looks like a bandwidth problem - maybe try uploading a downsized pdf instead? or you could drop it on http://www.box.net/ or http://www.esnips.com/

and my parents let me see jurassic park, but only on the condition that my dad go see it first and then recap the entire movie to me, blow-by-blow, so i wouldn't be surprised by any of the scary parts.

it was still pretty sweet though.

Ok I thinks the link is correct now

I want to see if you guys have any suggestions for my portfolio. I was wondering if the style was A. A distraction from the actual work B. a little hard to understand but intriguing or C. an atractive compliment to the work presented.

http://hmack1116.googlepages.com/home

Hm, it was no Jurassic Park...but. I actually thought "A', a distraction from the work. My first impression is it's far too cluttered and somewhat chaotic. I would either cut alot of stuff out and make each project read a little more succinctly, or make more pages and space out the narrative. Also, your section title pages ("academic work" and "professional work"), 1) are waaaaay too big and overwhelming and 2) IMO, bank century gothic (or whatever that font is) is a terrible font. Hope this is helpful!

in general i would say the layout is working for you, particularly the consistent use of your key images on the left page which make navigating the work very clear and intuitive. however a lot of your pages could benefit from some editing - rather than showing six or seven images on a page, your work might come across better through two or three larger images with some more open space around them. i'd also recommend that you try to avoid layering too many images on top of one another, and especially to try and avoid layering text over images. it's fairly legible on-screen, but once it's printed that can be very difficult to read or distinguish, and admissions folks might skip your text if it seems hard to read. i guess you might just cast a critical eye at the pages that have a lot of layering and determine which images are really important - if it's important to convey your work, it should probably be given its own space without other images/text that might make it read less clearly.

overall i think the layout and organization are very strong though, there's a clear progression throughout the work and the book is very easy to navigate. i'd just try to make some of the pages less dense so the best images can really stand out - you want to make sure that with every page, your eye just jumps to the most "wow!" part of the project.

not really going to get into the layout of each individual page...just one thing i would do which should be rather quick is flip the second page of the table of contents so that the blue title bar/black page numbers are along the outer edge, not the binding.

dierxap - would you mind reposting your portfolio? It doesn't seem to work anymore

hmack - your statement at the beginning doesn't seem to match up with the rest of your portfolio - after reading it I was expecting a clear visual representation of "idea" at the beginning of each project, but instead I was bombarded with images. I think there is a lot of potential in your projects (your models are quite nice - and the concepts are interesting), but the overall content and layout of the portfolio needs to support your opening statement.

Fellas...
For sci-arc it is needed to send out a couple of portfolios?

hmack,
layouts seem good and show process in a creative way...and you have plenty to show.

I sort of agree with the previous comments about the opening statement. It does address the philoposhy of "content vs context vs concept", but I am thinking this axiom of yours doesn;t deserve such prime real estate as the opening of your portfolio. they will look at this for only few minutes afterall.

To agree with asbuckeye,..as I know it must be hard to hear comments about your choice of font...but it is the one thing I would change ..how do i say this, without being rude..


but Bank Gothic, is very 1999.


your work however is good, as you know. Maybe " punching" the 'parti' a little more might be helpful.


(My portfolio link is few pages back...and is not necessarily any better than yours or anything, but it is there, if you want to compare)

Good luck with your apps., i bet you get in!

my opening statement talked about how the creativity of the presentation has a big effect on the communication of the idea. that is why i attempted to represent my work in a creative format.

oh yeah...

I didnt know that bank gothic was so hated. I thought it would be good for just the titles but i guess I was wrong

Its not hated...I just, personally, think it's corny. And, like ff33 said, it's sort of dated. I like verdana, no caps, no bold, no italics, and slightly more space between each letter than normal; try that (or not, just a suggestion).

helvetica's nice too

esp the neue. nice, large font family

euphemia ucas is a nice sans serif, adobe garamond pro or caslon pro are good for serif.

I used Myriad Pro family throughout my entire portfolio.

hmack- I took your opening statement to read more like "visual clarity of concept" i.e. a simple diagram or image that expresses the main idea of your project.

my opinion on statements/quotes/poems/etc....the less you say, the more you show, the better. If you say something, instantly your project has to do just that.

toasteroven, I see what you mean and iguess that a broad statement like that can have many interpretations

I used comic sans - I thought it added a little something extra.

You know what really pisses me off? Two weeks after you submit your application, specifically the statement of purpose, you go over it again before you submit for the 2nd round of application you find ways to make it much stronger.

I know my application to UCLA sucked (dec15th) compared to my Columbia one ( Jan 15th)

Here its my portfolio.

http://fran.deluxe.googlepages.com/portfolio

I just read a news story of a taiwanese girl getting into harvard gsd with a 220 verbal gre. i'm not sure if I should be proud or pissed. apparently she wrote her personal statement in the form of a poem.

link (traditional chinese): http://mag.udn.com/mag/campus/storypage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=14&f_SUB_ID=262&f_ART_ID=104259

YbTH, beautiful portfolio. The computer renderings could use improvement though. Where're you applying?

anvi, sorry, need to brush up on my chinese. that just proves my theory that GREs dont equal shit in the eyes of admission boards.

asbuckeye thank you a lot.

I am applying to M. Arch I of Columbia, Parsons, Pratt, RISD, SCI-arc, Cornell and considering 5-year program of AA...

does it say her score was on the other part

800 math...

i think...or maybe they are saying 220 out of 800...anyone speak chinese?

She got a verbal score of 220 out of 800...Knowing taiwanese students, most probably get near perfect on the math section.

The school did make her go to english summer school, though...

And she was applying for the MaUD program...

I'll ask if she's willing to post her portfolio online, but I doubt it, she probably wants to stay a bit low-key.

Some schools probably have a cut-off point for GRE scores, but as far as I know the GSD's selection process is very portfolio-based, GRE probably factors in only when there's a tie or some such.

Can't...go...on...

Seven apps down, three to go. I feel like my life blood has been drained out of me...

I just do'nt get it all .......

hmack: they never said what math score she received but the average Taiwanese student in grade 8 could probably get 800 on the GRE math :P

Balagan: how are you going to ask her? I tried looking for her on wretch and such but couldn't find anything.

anvi:

Because I know her in person, she's my classmate at the GSD...(Not literally, she's in the MaUD program while I'm MArch II...) But she's back in Taiwan for vacation at the moment, so...

She DOES have to work very hard at english currently though, seeing as the MaUD curriculum is full of mandatory courses on planning policy, laws, statistics and the such. The school not only made her go to english summer school, they made her forego one of the required first-semester courses to take English classes instead, which means she'll have one less elective she can take in her second year.

The MaUD program is not as design-oriented as you would think. They have a pretty strict set of required courses they need to take, whereas MArch IIs have the freedom to pick whatever courses that interest us (which may be good or bad, depending on your POV).
MArch IIs have only one required course, Proseminar, which is basically: for the fisrt half get to know your classmates through portfolio presentations/discussions, and for the second half get to know the faculty through faculty work presenations/discussions. The course instructor is Jorge Silvetti, so the discussions are usually pretty good, especially when Jeff Kipnis or Scott Cohen are sitting in. The rest of your courses you're pretty much free to pick whatever you like.

And you're right about the GRE math section, I got 780 and was laughed at...just made some dumb mistakes! However I had 610 verbal, so there...=P

well that's interesting. I guess the news doesn't really differentiate between MaUD　ａｎｄ M.Arch, just whatever looks better on newspaper.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but MaUD refers to master's of urban planning & design?

Actually, the paper does mention she is in the UD program, but it's stuck in the middle of the text so it's easily lost...But I agree, it just says Harvard Architecture school in the title...

MaUD means, strangely: Master of Architecture in Urban Design

ybth,
thats a pretty tight portfolio ...one of teh longer ones I have seen. I was told to shrink mine when I got up there in the 40s. You have sort of coovered a few bases like graphics, ID , photography, ext. From what i know about this gschool stuff, you should have little problem with taht portfolio. You probably could have afforded to leave that castle project out altogether. I knwo it is tempting to put a piece of architecture in a portfolio that is for Arch school...but you dont even need it. as you know, they take like 50% to 75% non -arch backgroud kids for MArch at many schools anyway.

YBTH, your portfolio is really beautiful.