you work is really good! I'm surprised you haven't gotten more responses. Do you have any internships or experience producing CDs? I'd think if you had a couple sample pages of CDs you'd definitely get something. Think it's just tough out there.

Janet,

Your renderings are fantastic! Remember, it took years for CAD software to catch up with the imagination of Zaha Hadid. Your work is buildable! Also, you got to remember that the market, especially in architecture, is still a little shaky. If I may suggest, take one of your great renderings and show the process of how you came about your great design. Hopefully that helps.

Nice try.  However, some of the work is just too much content being squeezed into an absurd amount of space.  In this case, less is more.  A commitment to clarity and a concise narrative of how you got from point A to point B would be helpful.   

nice work! i really like the "pearl river tower" render. which program do you use to produce this watercolor/airbrush effect in your renderings?

i agree with chris moody though, showing the process will definitely add more depth to your work

Let me be blunt I have 4 years experience with Revit and I would not want to be competing for job against you - I would lose - many employers including the one I work for need people with your rendering skills - don't sell yourself short.

Your buildings are lovely, but sometimes the graphics get in the way and honestly seem a bit pretentious. I'm thinking especially of the escchar}chitec ture thing; no clue what that word is supposed to be, how it's supposed to be pronounced, why there are odd characters and spaces in it, or why you want it to be so fussy instead of just focusing on the building, which is what you're actually meant to be designing. Your resume is actually a bit difficult to read as well, which is a problem just because people may not have the patience for it, but also worrisome because the younger people in firms usually end up doing a lot of presentation boards, and you can't seem to make things that people can read. 

Agreed with the general sentiment of the comments above. 

You need to be forcefully targeting international and design offices who have competition's teams.  Based on these few pages its very clear you are more than competent graphically, and offices with competitions teams are ALWAYS looking for people who understand buildings and can create nice images of them.  

I agree with some of the comments about the way your portfolio looks, it might be a bit cluttered, but thats really just semantics.  The goods are here, you just have to target the offices who need people like you... International design offices would be a really good place to start.

The reason they want to send you to China is not your last name. It's the type of work you're showing them: big towers and large, swoopy complexes. That kind of thing is huge in China right now. There's not much of a market for it anywhere else.

And the fact that you have right at the headline of your portfolio, "Architectural Designer — Calgary / Vancouver / Hong Kong, AB." That makes it seem like you're willing to work in any of those locations.

My school was pretty "avant-garde", making many of my projects seem too surreal for most hiring architectural firms to take interest in; yet at the same time I feel what I did the past two years really set my character in therefore I feel the need to put them in.

to be quite honest, I saw nothing that really stood out at me - the projects seem almost exactly like a lot of the student work coming out of many programs right now.  Your design ability is just ok (unless there's something interesting happening in your analysis - which would make me interested in you in other ways).   the swarms and the lumpy rhino thing are the two weakest projects, IMO.

do you have any physical models?  renderings are above average.

Declaring something you're involved with is avant-garde is along the same lines as calling yourself cool. Flashy pictures will only get you so far.

if you want to work, you shouldnt limit yourself...

an architect saying they want a job, but no one is hiring, and i wont go to China,

is like a thirsty person saying.. im so thirsty no one will give me a drink, and i refuse to go to that spring..

the truth is that no matter how good your work is, if companies arnt hiring.. than thats it..

your skills and talent will not magically produce money for them to hire you...

i felt the same way you did.. i wanted to go anywhere but china (or africa - not a race thing.. im black).. but the truthfully.. compared to American living standard these places are..kinda not that easy to live in....

but Alas... ive been in Shanghai for one week now.. have had several firm interviews.. and i will be starting work on Monday.. at a really nice design studio...

so.. i will make the best ... and get my experience... and hopefully be able to go back to America more marketable than i left...

all im saying is dont rule it out

The file attached to this topic is only for a portfolio preview - you know, the selected pages you attach to general email application within 2MB?

My real portfolio is over 200 pages long, with simplfied pages and easier to read diagrams (http://www.issuu.com/janettam) . But I will still definitely  take the *clustered issue* into consideration, because I was a little worried about that too for a long while.

I admit I had a mental struggle to decide whether I should show more on a page, or just really short previews and hope for an interview. It's good to know how some of you felt about it though, thanks!

Thanks a bunch for all the other comments too! I was originally planning to show my professional work experience - Revit / cad drawings / construction package / etc at the interview instead. I'll add a page of that to my email application package now!

____

Yikes, the last few comments made it sound like I'm a very pretentious, cocky and picky person. So for the sake of my public profile in this very internet-based world, I feel like there's a slight need to clarify a little bit. 
If you don't care, please feel free to skip my awkwardness trying to defend myself...  =P

1. I'm sorry if I offended anyone for using the word "avant-garde". I definitely wasn't trying to say my school was ahead or cool in anyway, but rather trying to say my school was into experimental ideas only - which obviously has been a debatable issue on archinect for years already.

With that said, most of my projects were research projects, including the first one, which really looks like just spiny blobs, but in fact we were looking into ways of using the new processing scripts written by MIT (in addition to the availability of sap2000 -a program even the Bird's Nest used for structural analysis) in architecture - which obviously came to a conclusion that the technologies present were NOT advanced enough to further the research in the architectural aspect. You will find the real analysis work done @ www.issuu.com/janettam

So.. with that in mind, and the obvious facts that my projects were all NOT buildable but rather just research and "proposals", I started this topic. In other words, I just want to clarify that the terminology I decided to use was rather to say: "I feel LIMITED by my fictionist "avant-garde" projects, please please help me decide if I should / should not show them!"

2. My grad school is UNKNOWN in this architectural world at the moment. I doubt any of you even know where Calgary is. I would really need to have serious attitude problem to be comparing it to the real "cool" programs out there - if I actually thought I was nurtured in a cool one, I probably didn't need to begin this topic at all!
I'm just a shy scared lamb from a small town hoping I could get some advice from the community here... 

3. I'm not trying to be picky for the sake of being picky.

I'm only limiting myself from China only because I have a home in HK that I can always go back to. If I have to pick between China and HK, it will obviously be HK, as the pay and living standard is much higher while working for the same types of projects. I have quite some connections growing up there. Therefore, if I want to return so working in HK would never be a struggle for me.

However, I just have a preference at the moment as a new grad to further my experience abroad for a bit before returning, and that is all. Either way, I just moved back a few days ago, looks like life will continue here! 

Again, sorry if anyone I offended anyone with the word "avant-garde"
Bad, very bad, choice of word ! Definitely didn't mean that.

and DEFINITELY learnt not to use it ever in my application or interview!!! =)

stop apologising. Get over the shy scared lamb bit. offend people. good luck.

i had more to say, but got distracted and forgot it all.

whats up with the spines through priutt igoe? has anyone else seen the documentary with the interviews of people who lived there? its on netflicks . . . They Loved it. More of a render's portfolio than an architect's seems to me. but good software chops go far. dont be so timid.

of course Xefirotarch makes some straight up ugly shit. hope you have some work that doesnt look like hernan held your hand the whole semester.

I loved the documentary you are talking about. It gives such a perspective on what was actually going on in the complex. There are in fact so much social and economic issues going that a remediative solution would rather be on an urban scale of developing the empty pockets of spaces around it rather than just a pure swarm parasitic situation. 

Thanks for the comment, and I totally know what you mean. Will work on it.

Ah, I think I see an issue with the China bit: I'm betting that Canadian and American firms aren't making the same distinction between Hong Kong and China as you are. To be honest, and I'm a little embarrassed really after looking up the history and reading more about Hong Kong's situation, they are probably considering Hong Kong as a city in China, therefor saying you're willing to work in HK = willing to work in China (for someone whole doesn't know about the who special administrative area thing). I'm not quite sure how to navigate this, but it might be helpful to keep in mind as you have those conversations that you may have to spell out that bit a little more clearly than you expect to need to.

 Xefirotarch is architecture?  bahahahaha no wonder!  Is that why Hernan seems to stick to educating than building real architecture?  Get working on some practical stuff.  Forget about renderings and graphics.  Draw construction details.  Include stuff that should you have an understanding of building science, that you actually know how things are going to be constructed.  That is reality and will get you hired faster in the real world.