Putting together a portfolio of your own work is stupidly hard to do. I'm currently in the process of trying to do that right now. How do I possibly show all these projects side by side when they're all vastly different from one another? How should I "brand" myself? SHOULD I brand myself? Should I have business cards? What's my color palette going to be? Should I have multiple logos? Should my website have multiple versions, all designed to showcase a different aspect of my visual style and personality?
These kinds of questions will never stop haunting you when you start to begin this process so it's nice to know that most of them are silly anyway. You don't need to spend time thinking about your personal branding if you're not the kind of person that wouldn't brand themselves to begin with, and so on and so forth. The truth is, you can do whatever the heck you want—and the weirder you are, the more indulgent you are, the crazier you are—the better. Whether or not something is important to you, is entirely your choice. How you approach everything be it your website, your social media prescence, resume, business cards, giveaways—anything that might have your name on it—should be among the most personal things you design.
But that doesn't mean you should overthink it. Looking back, overthinking my own personal branding was a waste of time. I realized that it was a much more intuitive process than I thought. You don't have to come up with a completely new idea if you don't want to (unless, of course, that sounds super fun to you). Chances are you already know exactly how you want to showcase your work because you've been subconsciously thinking about it this whole time—in the form of thinking about the kind of designer you want to be, and in thinking about what you like and don't like.
What kind of designer DO you want to be? What kind of PERSON do you want to be? That's maybe the only important question you need to ask yourself.
An Interview with:
Nimi Einstein (2017 grad)
Q:Your most recent portfolio turned out really well, and sticks out (in a good way). What were your goals with the design of it?
A:I really didn’t want to be stressed about my portfolio. I began getting very mixed messages, specifically whether or not to include a box—teachers said no, no, no—and I ended up realizing that I could do anything I wanted to with my portfolio. I honestly thought about making a scroll, big fold out poster, and even considered separate flat pieces that could slide into one book-sleeve-thing. I ended up realizing that my portfolio had one very specific purpose, to show my work quickly and well for one grading period of 48 hours. There was a small amount of faculty reviewing something like 120 portfolios and I knew by the end they must have been so tired at looking at the same projects in the same format. I had a couple of other considerations including wanting to stand out, looking a little fearless, but more importantly, not spending a lot of money. People had been spending upwards of $80–$120 on just the portfolio case, and it was ridiculous.
The magazine was a format that solved all of these problems and highlighted all of my strengths. As far as I knew, I was the only one in my year doing it, it showed off my layout skills, and the high quality photos of my projects where beautifully and quickly viewed. Magazines aren’t precious things and I was a sophomore making work that frankly, I was tired of at that point. I knew my work was going to get better, and so did my teachers. I ended up spending around $60 for three 8.5”x11” magazines and super quick shipping, and was done with my physical portfolio around a month before it was due. Pretty fun.
As for choosing my actual projects, I didn’t really have a choice. Everything worked together and highlighted the breadth of work I was doing. I had only made a certain amount of projects and this collection of 8 was my best considered, well rounded work.
Q:What’s a design pet-peeve of yours?
A:Text over transparent boxes over images. This shit never looks right. Just decide whats more important and let it shine. That and people just not wanting to change their minds after people give them critique. Its more important that you solve whatever problem you’re trying to fix. Your work is not you, your ego is not worth your project not being as good.
Q:In what specific ways do you hope to improve your design skills?
A:Ah! I just want to be smarter! And better rounded. I want to know so much about so many things so that I have a larger pool of things to pull from. I want to be more opinionated.
Q:Printing issues are really common for myself and a lot of other design students, but you’ve said you actually enjoy printing. How is this possible?! What’s your approach to printing?
A:I love printing! Just the idea of printing is awesome, machines that transfer your work from ones and zeros to ink and paper. Thats magic.
Printing is out of your control. Thats what it comes down to. You have to let go a little bit when you’re printing because there is no way it will look 100% the same as your screen. But your work shouldn’t be so crazy that it changes its entire meaning of your green is a tiny, tiny bit blue, you know?
There are ways to go into printing so that your heart won’t be too broken; 1, test print. 2, test print. 3, talk to someone who knows how to print well, make friends with people who print on different printers, people who WORK as printers.
Other fun things to think about when printing; you’re making something digital into something physical. There are several things that are uniquely one or the other, don’t try and bend these things to your will, it won’t work. Instead, focus on the strengths of the format. Ink-jet printers work from mixing colors together, therefore, the less colors you mix, the brighter and less muddied they will look. In a four-color printing method you are layering colors on top of each other. How can your design integrate these properties?