Rotis is sweet. Thanks, jason.

I like that it includes each of the following: [i]Serif, Semi Serif, Semi Sans and Sans Serif.[/]

You know the serif/sans serif convesation is sort of played out. How about picking a well-designe font. I'll adit, I lean toward sans serif, but you'd have to kill me beore adding Bank Gothic to my portflio.

Please end the serif discussion, and get with the well-designed fonts! Or refer your serif questions to rational. She knows best.

Ha I sound fascist. Opinions? Blah.

Ok, an overwhelming and interesting set of responses and was only away for a day! Haha, anyways...

To set a premise: while I have barely any professional or academic experience in the design world (specially typography) I, like everyone else on here, think that I have a better-than-average natural aptitude for "design" and the arts. However, I'm ignorant to the Graphic Design world and its technical details, but I am surprised with some the technical details that's been brought up (not a bad thing as I always like to learn). Should they ALL really be considered in the process of creating a portfolio?

I do look at the portfolio as a graphic design project. That being said I do understand that every piece of graphic should be clean and legible. At the same time, I feel that when a lot of people here say that they use Helvetica or the derivative of Arial that it's being too conversative. If the portfolio should be a piece of art in itself, why limit yourself to such strict rules? No, I don't mean lets use 10 different fonts including wing-dings or comic sans, but I am one of those people that went all over the internet looking for fonts I can download for free and I found some really, really nice, clean fonts (serifs, san serifs and the like).

Here's a question, personal artwork aside, do the portfolio committees really pay close attention look at the details such as kerning and tracking or even the number of fonts being used? Or do they consider the overall composition, cleanliness, legibility and appeal?

Once a get a chance, I'll post a couple sample pages of my portfolio and I'll let you all rip it apart and tear it a new hole.

Here you go! Have fun. :-)

Cover: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a356/TRafati/portfolio_Cover_UCLA_V2.jpg

Scetchwork. These are opposing pages: http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a356/TRafati/portfolio_4tones_oppV3.jpg

These were all created in PS since that's the only app I currently am familiar with. Will learn InDesign soon.

"do the portfolio committees really pay close attention look at the details such as kerning and tracking or even the number of fonts being used? Or do they consider the overall composition, cleanliness, legibility and appeal?"


Those are largely the same things. By paying attention to font use, kerning, leading, consistency of font use, etc...it supports a clean, legible production. And as far as being a 'conservative' font...I would argue you don't want the font to stand out beyond the work, so, being a bit conservative with the font of a portfolio I believe is wise, you are not applying to be David Carson.

afrdzak- If you want to use a free download off the internet, then you should pay more attention to things like kerning. I love to look at those fonts, too, and occasionally even use them for the titles of something, and their big weakness is all things spacing. So you can worry about the spacing a lot less if you pick a font that was very professionally produced vs some random knockoff. All fonts will have little things where two letters form a particularly bad combination, but the free downloads seem to have more than average.

As for how much to worry about it, I'd only kern big titles where you see glaring gaps or tightness. Tracking is a matter of taste, but I would mostly just use it to get one more word to fit on a line or to bump another down (but usually only if you're full justifying your text) as appropriate. Basically, since yes you're applying to architecture school and not graphic design school, apply these techniques selectively where they will have the most impact to clean things up a bit. Don't get tooooo into it, but knowing what it's about and cleaning up a few things can give your piece a much cleaner look.

Rationalist is schooling you all very well.

Justified type. Yuck.

jasoncross & rationalist: Good points and thanks for the info. :-)

e- will remember when I send you portfolio samples, nothing justified...

During the ucla fall(pre application) open house, a few friends of mine consulted neil denari about how he evaluates portfolios. He stressed that he looks for a very "clean" portfolio. He mentioned that likes super small font as well. That was one bit of sentiment I kept that in mind when i put my portfolio together. super clean, neutral typeface. small, controlled font.

also, i would highly recommend learning indesign as soon as you can. i jumped into it blind and in a few weeks was proficient enough to put my entire portfolio together without a moment of anxiety.

maybe ill see you at ucla next year?

also, not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but steal, steal, steal!!!

seriously, look @ some good magazines, or monographs, and just bite!

Sconie: I hope so, it's one of my top choices. You attending UCLA now?

Cris: I wish I still lived in San Fran as they have a lot of good SF-based magazines to look through. Got any good recommendations in mind?

Ill start this year in the fall. I also did jumpstart at ucla, summer 06' which i recommend(One of the studio professors that taught at js reviews grad apps for sci-arc).

grafik(UK) and blackbook served as some of my inspiration for using century gothic(blackbook's typeface is a serif derivative of the century gothic). I would say, put some time aside to visit your local borders and just start digging.

I also like small type, but you should keep your older reviewers in mind. They will not be able to read super small type and rightly be annoyed with you in using it.

noted rationalist. i personally hate justified type as it changes the spacing between characters from line to line.

well, i wasn't thinking of any magazines in particular, but probably you should look @:

el croquis
detail
even arch record

or forget the architecture magazines and pick up some graphic design/typography magazines.

and just look through monographs of your favorite architects and see how their images and text were composed.

like i said, you're not trying to reinvent the wheel.

also, i agree with most everything that's been said. simplicity and clarity are important.

oooh, something just came to mind. look @ the p/a awards spread in the january 2007 issue of architect (i know, i know, that magazine sucks). it's a really simple and clear spread. i fully advocate biting from it, because that's what i'm referencing for my 'folio!

j, could you elaborate a bit by what you mean?

you know, it's not about being a font snob (even though i referred to myself as that earlier!).

it has nothing to do with elitism and everything to do with good design.

My impression, from looking at a lot of architecture portfolios and having done some hiring, is that the worst ones try to make the graphic design itself "architectural." Lots of zooming words and overlapping images and photoshop filters and such.

This strategy completely obscures your designs. My rule of thumb is to keep the graphic design as clean, clear, and transparent as possible. Big images, clear drawings, and one or two fonts. A great sans serif is Avenir (DIN is nice too, but overused lately.) Most interviewers won't judge your graphic design UNLESS it's overdone and messy. So try to keep it simple.

Come up with a sample page with some graphic rules and try to generally adhere to those rules throughout (breaking them is fine, as long as you're conscious of it, and doing it for a reason.)

I also think that a good serif can humanize an otherwise cold portfolio. Architects tend to be wary of serifs, but they can be great when paired with a sans serif. Berling is nice.

e, I love the process of making justified type work. It satisfies the technical nit-picky side of my brain with the process while satisfying the design side with the result.

afrdzak, make sure to look at some books too, not just magazines. Magazines are often limited by time and budget in a way that you won't be as much since you're only making a few of these books as a one-off, not committing yourself to a repeated process every month. Just devour the art/architecture section of your local bookstore. I figure you can't go wrong with this, because even if you see something that's crap, it's a worthwhile process to figure out what is making it crap so that you know what to avoid.

this is why i love archinect! so many smart people!

P.S. I'd try to find a font that has at least some character and defines you.

Times New Roman is kind of bland and overused. If you use it, you should be doing so for a specific reason (you want to make the graphic design mute, for instance.)

Font choice has a surprising ability to transform a design. People are kind of subconsciously aware of it—even if they're not graphically attuned.

farwest1: Yes, thank you that's the type of comment I'm looking for!With your experience, would you personally consider the samples I posted above as "architectural"?

Here's the thing, I look at the portfolio as a piece of work itself since this has been engrained into my mind since I started this process about one year ago through means of research. I've looked through all the archives of this forum and looked at everyone's portfolio. Albiet this is not representative of all aspiring arch students I see the following common theme: lots of white (literally white) space, small "square-ish" font and justified (no offense, rationalist ;-) ). At one angle, I like it, it's clean, simple and definately does not take away from the actual artwork. From another angle... too common and, for lack of better word, mundane? The committees look at tens if not hundreds of portfolios so I personally feel that one needs to be created that deviates from this and thus stands-out (tastefully and positively of course! Like Cris mentioned, we're not trying to re-invent the wheel, YET :-)

Keep in mind that I am not putting in any architectural related work since I don't have any and I've noticed that those who have that extensive experience, their layout and juxtapositioning of materials is much more robust and complicated. I mean, I've seen some crazy portfolios in the acceptance bin @Berkeley.

no offense at all. I like justified. Well, not full justified, I like to let the last line do whatever it needs to do (no sense trying to justify two words into a whole line...). It's e that doesn't like justified, but he's higher up the food chain than I am by a good bit.

afrdzak, architects, in my experience, do like justified type. prolly because it produces type body without rag. note though, that most architects do not know much about type nor do they handle it well so i would look to others for inspiration.

the most important thing you need to do is to communicate the work in the portfolio. everything else [type, graphic embellishments, etc] should compliment the work and not distract from it. for this reason, my professional portfolio has very simple use of type and very little graphic embellishment.

best of luck to you and others in finding something that works for you.

rationalist, we are all equals here my friend.

afrdzak,

Graphic choices are largely a matter of personal taste. That said, I can make a few comments about the pages you posted:

The focus seems to be more on the fonts and colors than on your work. Not a bad choice necessarily, but I want to see more of your work. And bigger. (I also think using a watercolor paper font for the word "sketch" is a little cute.)

I'm a proponent of simplicity in graphic design. You should make your own choices, but where possible, I'd err on the side of making the images bigger and minimizing a bunch of color fields and strange fonts.

These are some graphic design firms that I think deal nicely with fontography:

www.iwantdesign.co.uk/

www.thonik.nl/ (note that practically the only font they use is Avenir.)

www.pericycle.com/

http://www.lars-mueller-publishers.com/ (Almost all the text is in Helvetica.)

mmm, yes, there is something about the purity of that clean rectangle of text that is ever so attractive. But that said, I've even used right justified when the layout called for it (paying close attention that my rag didn't get extra-scraggly). It's all about the application to me.

As to the specific stuff posted above, I agree heartily with farwest. The text is too big, the images too small. Remember the heirarchy of the book, the images are the whole point of the book, don't let them be dwarfed by anything else. Type should play a supporting role, don't let it be one of those characters that's always trying to upstage the star of the show.

i like MR Hand 2

PS. White space is a graphic designer's best friend. Look at the website you're currently reading. it's 95% white, with black text and occasional red to highlight something. Completely legible, completely clean.

Don't think that using a bunch of colors somehow expresses your personality better. Unless your design is ABOUT color, it just gets in the way. And unless used with care, it can come off as amateurish.

on all professional drawings i use Gill Sans Light. it's quite beautiful IMHO.

also, in my portfolio i used exclusively the serif type Hightower.

i like seeing a good use of a single typeface played out in multiple weights as opposed to a multiplicity of fonts.

my $.02

good point! also, its exactly why i advocate for helvetica(besides it being swiss). it has a very robust typeface family, stock in cs. then there are all the variations for purchase- something like 34.

afrdzak, farwest1 has made many of the points which i pulled together from many sources. im jealous.

mightylittle, that is a nice font!!! i like!

ok, since this is a font thread, does anybody know if a miralles font exists?

i know someone was asking for it via the school blogs a while back, but i don't think anyone ever found it.

Great sites, specially Thonik. I've bookmarked them.

But doesn't website design generally have differing rules?

Umm, website design may have different TECHNICAL rules. But good design is good design in any medium. I was kind of referring to the print materials shown on the websites, however.

If you're just applying to architecture school, what you'll probably learn there more than anything is a methodology for expressing clear ideas. You should look forward to that process -- it's frustrating and invigorating.

Yeah, I would love to be able to attend the summer program @UCLA even SciArc, but I reside in San Diego. I'm trying to see if I can attend the program here at New School, but I work full time and getting in touch with the admissions rep has been frustratingly difficult so...

you will/wont be including architecture(al) projects in your portfolio? if not, a summer arch program would be a good way to get some arch related projects in your portfolio. for me , jumpstart was a sort of 'last ditch effort' to get something substantial into my portfolio-very worth it. then the gre took over.

No, I currently do not have any architecture related work. But that's ok, they don't expect you to.

The reason I want to attend one is for the practical experience.

let us know what typeface you ultimately choose.

if i may suggest helvetica?



another little taste maybe?

does anyone like the ny metro? is that helvetica?



Massimo Vignelli is soo cool.

What's helvetica???

(don't answer that)

Speaking of, anyone catch the film?

helvetica is nice. i like it a lot.

haven't seen the film yet, but it does appeal to the typography geek in me.

Sconie- Grotesk, I believe. Which is just an iteration or two prior to Helvetica, so pretty close.

Grotesk is a type of font, no? Maybe you mean Akzidenz Grotesk?

yup, yup. Sorry, too lazy for complicated foreign words like that.

Ha ha it's cool. I was thrown off a bit.

afrdzak,

i like where you were going on the cover page, but the inside pages just get too messy. why is the title text bigger than the work itself? and why are there two random colors on the left side?

check out my portfolio (sorry about the self-promotion). i like 1 font, with about 2-3 size changes (title, body, page number) and a possilbe bold text here or there. let the work speak for itself, this is a portfolio for architecture, not graphic design. never let the graphic design fight with the personal work, it just gets a muddy and distracting. i'm a fan of minimalism when it comes to portfolios, but minimalism with big form. you should notice the graphic design but not more than the work itself.

e-mail some arch schools like cornell, aa, and syracuse and ask for any free publications, posters, etc. they'll be happy to give it to you.. i'm a big fan of cornell's graphic handouts.