Portafolio mata carita

Why You Should Start Your Portfolio Now

Most design students start putting their portfolios together at the end of their education—indeed, most schools offer their "portfolio class" during the final semester. Bad idea. What you should do instead is start your portfolio the first semester of your design education. Here're 2 whys and 2 hows:

Why #1:

Everything you will eventually want to put in your portfolio will be a)lost b)stolen c)broken d)all three. Bottom line: when you're ready to "put together your portfolio," you will invariably have nothing to put in it—it'll all be gone. So it's a good idea to capture your work as you do it, and put it into a format that can easily be tweaked later.

Why #2:

Internships. Design studios considering interns will be much more impressed with someone who has a book of work to show than someone who "learns fast and is a hard worker."

How #1:

Take pictures of every single thing you produce—no matter how lame or how useless you think it is. Digital pictures are essentially free, so it's really your time we're talking about. And you don't have a leg to stand on arguing that the 9 hours you spent on your prototype doesn't merit the 1/60th second to document it. Then, right before the final crit of a project, take photos of the finished design (see light tent). That way, you'll capture it before it gets busted or fingerprinted to death. Put all these photos into a clearly labeled folder on your computer (or flickr, or blogger, or whatever). Label them really well, 'cause you may need to navigate them in 3 years from now.

How #2:

Hire the best graphic designer you can afford first semester and get them to create a simple, clear, master template that you can simply "populate" with your work. Categories can be project title, description paragraph, glamour shot, process photos, diagrams, etc. When each project is finished, insert all the assets you've been gathering into the template, and then move on. Don't design it (it's already designed—that's what you hired out), just populate it. Your book will now be an evolving document that will give you great comfort and hopefully create some great opportunities.

(By the way, we know that nothing we can possibly say here will actually make you follow this advice. But ask any recent grad what they'd do differently and listen to them respond, "I wish I documented my work while I was doing it." Promise.)

vía hack2school