i would suggest

- no shadow under images and writings
- first image i see is not sketchup perspective
- i would like to see some projects in details
- last image in your portfolio... there are better images to end your portfolio with
- more sketches, diagrams, and less perspectives
- to change 'virthplace' to 'birthplace' in pg 40
- to change 'off' to 'of' in pg 40
- to check spellings


for your thesis project,
what program/features are you filling in existing post office building? that's a big building itself...

thanks for the feedback.

i still need to go through and proofread and all that, so ill be sure to pick up the spelling and such, but thanks for pointing it out.

for the thesis: the old post office building will house the residential component. the north tower will house somewhat standard apartment/condo living, while the south tower, due to its larger F2F height will have more warehouse loft/industrial type housing.

The upper two floors of the central area spanning over Congress have loading ramps remaining from when the upper floors were used for loading and unloading mail trucks, and will convert nicely to parking.

your personal work just seems so much more inspired - the professional work seems so lifeless but I guess you dont have as much control over that

Haha I suppose thats one of the drawbacks of being a lowly intern at a midsized firm. The projects aren't all that interesting, but the rationale for inclusion is to be able to walk into an interview and say, "here, I realize the professional work isn't very substantive, but it is experience, and this is what I would design if I had more creative control"

At the same time, 4 of the 6 professional projects were very short term, get-them-out-the-door type projects with very little budget, so it is nice to be able to show that the company had enough faith in me to essentially let me run with it alone and produce something they could sell to the client

Emphasize your academic work.

The peoria high school addition is your strongest professional project. Otherwise, minimize the focus of the other 3 projects.

I'm not a fan of the letter formatted references and descriptions of each project. Take it upon yourself to describe the project and your role, like you did with your own designs.

Translate, if you can, the working drawings into presentation quality images. Limit the axons of the carthage theatre, clear the detail/section tags from the carthage plan, odgen high school wall section needs cleanup...

The champaign rail station is the weakest project - put it in the middle. End with a tower project or your thesis. The train rendering is huge - shrink it down.

Don't feel the need to showcase every built project as a full spread. Since you are young it is not expected that you have a 1" thick portfolio. Employers will focus on the creativity of your academic work. They will understand that your professional work granted you practical experience evident through the projects you present.

Man, I really get the sense from your portfolio that you're technically competent. Lots of firms will dig that.

More conceptual/abstract drawings/diagrams would be cool, though.

I always find it exciting to see other people’s work. it summarizes your academia and/or work experiences. Rule of thumb is that if you keep the viewer occupied for more than a minute, then you did a great job on your portfolio. Keep in mind that if this is a portfolio that you want to show employers, then they are viewing countless portfolios so yours has to stand out from the rest. But overall, I found myself skimming really fast. Not to say that you have bad designs but it didn’t really pop out as much to me. There were some nice renderings but I wanted to see a bit more diagrams, technical drawings that emphasized more on your projects rather than your work experience. The Wolf.point.tower I think you left me hanging. i stated slowing down and I wanted to see more diagrammatical concepts that illustrates the tectonics of your project. You demonstrate that you know the fundamentals of putting a construction document together but to apply that on your personal projects is something else.

Those are mine two cents. In which I want back.

architerp: something I was wrestling with all along was the organization of the sections. I think by moving academic up front it would give greater emphasis to the academic work, and then the final "design" project is the spec office, rather than the rail station. The weakness of the rail station comes from the fact that it was just part of the overall masterplan design, hence them being together. The masterplan was the primary goal, with the rail museum being like 2 week concept design. Similar to the Synergicity/SynergiCenter project.

Interesting point about the letters. They've actually been well received by people I've had look at the portfolio, including some folks from Gensler when they hosted a portfolio seminar back in October. Diff'rent strokes I suppose, heh.

jk3hl: that's really what I'm going for with it, to let firms know that I will be able to dive right in and get to work. I'm hoping to work on high rises for some Chicago firms, so its not like I'll be a lead designer anytime soon, but if I can demonstrate some technical competence, it should payoff...hopefully.


Thanks for all the great feedback everybody. Keep it coming.

_

Just to reiterate some of the previous points:

_The shadow under the font... super lame. it screams mid-90's power point. not a style worth commemorating.

_I find if odd that the first bit of writing in your portfolio is from someone else. Maybe it's crossed out because this is filler you intend on replacing with your own personal statement? If not, please do.

_Overall I think the inclusion of professional reference letters is awkward at best. This is the kind of information that should be reserved for the interview. It would be a lot stronger if you made the effort to describe the projects in your own words.

_I agree with architerp, etc about the amount of professional work. You could really condense it down to the 2-3 projects that you were most involved with and that highlight the greatest range of skills. Overall I think there are far too many renderings and photos and not enough analytical information. Employers will want to see that you are more than a render/model person but understand how to detail a wall section. Spend some effort and make sure the drawings you include in this portfolio are legible and demonstrate your skills. This may mean having to almost redo them so they fit in portfolio format.

_I think your metro_redux and wolf_point towers are probably the strongest in your academic section. You should use them to bookend the other projects and also give us more of them, less of the others. For instance, you basically use the same rendering twice for metro_redux but then you have this really amazing detailed section that I am guessing will be about 3"x3" in the final printout. And no sections, plans, etc.

_A Masterplan project with no urban plan drawings? Hmmm....

_There is something about the rail museum project I am just not loving. Maybe because that giant rendering at the end reminds of Harry Potter. If it came down to it, I think this project could get axed. Does it demonstrate anything different from any of the other projects? If no, than toss it out.

_Did you really use Myriad Pro? Really? The Default Adobe font? You can do better.

_

ok, I wrote out a longer reply earlier that the internet ate, so here's the brief version with just the big issues:

- ditch the drop shadow

- ditch the red, it's overpowering your work

- a 2 page resume? really? You've only had three jobs! One page with an elegant layout and one blank would show more sense.

- agree with others that the reference letters aren't helping you out. They're ugly and are making your layouts very static.

- which leads me to: static layouts! lots of static layouts! Let some things cross over the border between pages. Don't make all your images that same medium size. Some of your renderings (I'm thinking of some of the site models, a rendered section) are absolutely beautiful, and they deserve more space. Other items deserve less. When everything's the same size and the same density (which it currently is), the eye has no entry point.

Yo, nect wasn't letting me post earlier today. I have a lot of the same comments as everyone else.

A lot of the projects, particularly your "built work" feature so much text (the letters) that the photos of the work seem secondary. Maybe it would be better to have a separate document w/ your resume and three letters attached. At the bottom of each letter put one good image of the actual project the client is talking about, and then the firm can refer to your portfolio to find out more about the project.

I think what's missing or confusing about a lot of the work is that I don't know where my eye should go. Especially in some of your academic work, you start to tell the story of the building, but you don't give the images enough room to breathe and the pages all start to look the same by the end. It becomes kinda hard to discern what your concept is with all those perspectives.

For instance, with your thesis (and I know you're still working on it). If would be nice if your "layers" diagram was way bigger and not so cluttered. How does that relate to the "mechanism" diagram? How do your sketches relate to the diagrams? How do you get from your sketches and diagrams to the final model?

Same thing with the Biometric Towers. It looks like (and I could be wrong) your layout is basically what your competition entry was, and then you added the explanation to the side. However, in a portfolio format, I won't be able to read that text on the actual board (it's so small!) and your images look super cluttered when they're not blown up to the larger size that I assume your competition was done on. That biometric towers project should take up at least six-eight pages just to adequately explain what's going on.

The way you laid out Wolfpoint towers is nice. You've got a diagram showing you looked at views, some pretty cool sketches to show your process. Then you open with a view of the building in the context of the city. Move to organization w/ a few small perspectives in the corner to show a street view. And then end w/ structural & VAV system diagrams. The only weak point is that perspective of the atrium at the end. If you compare that to say, your perspectives for Metropolitan.Redux, you can see how it needs some loving to make it sexier. I don't know, maybe bump up the contrast or fade out the back wall a little bit so it doesn't look so flat.

Honestly, if your portfolio consisted of four - six projects that all told a great story the way your Wolfpoint Towers does, I think you'd be fine. My votes would be for the Pastoral Center, Richmond's High School Addition, your Thesis, Wolfpoint, Metro.redux (with more development), & either the biometric tower or the cbd masterplan. If you want to show that you're really good at working drawings & CD coordination, then maybe a two page spread of the other professional work, just showing that, yes, you can do the technical drawings well.

I'm working on putting a portfolio together and wish I had all the professional work you have. Most of my comments above are just things other people have told me about different iterations of my own work. Overall, you've got really great skills & references. I would just work on the layout and editing down to just showing your strongest work. Putting together your portfolio can be a long, agonizing process.

Btw, I have a good buddy going to Champaigne for his Masters right now and he's really liking it. The work that comes out it is technically really good (yours included) and I appreciate how hard it is to put together a great set of CDs. Thanks for sharing.