We may be getting a little ahead of ourselves here, but I believe its good to look into the future and have a little foresight. During the second half of Thursday's class this week, we brainstormed on the purpose and utility of a portfolio.
Together, we fleshed out the major requirements for content, concerns of usability, ways in which we can employ a portfolio, and things to think about when designing our sites. The UI must be clean and simple to navigate, but still be interesting and fun! We looked at some of the sites in our Portfolio list on the right side bar of this blog and found Thibaud's UI to be particularly entertaining. Conversely - we thought that the way Meprinsa set up his navigation through his different projects to be a little clunky.
OkayDave.com rounded out our exploration into portfolios. We look at how he carried his self proclaimed 'childness' throughout his site, how that contributed to a cohesive design and helped to put his work in context. The transitions between the homepage and the individual projects pages was extremely interesting and visually stimulating. In addition to slides and text info about his different works, he also included a well edited video describing his intent, process and end result. By doing this, he managed to make some work that was only just "okay" and turn it into something that really highlighted his strengths and thorough approach to his work. This also made his work seem a little more adult and professional.Dave's site is a little over the top and probably wouldn't appeal to most stuffy suit corporate types, but it could appeal to a lot of "hey we need an awesome illustrator/concept art/game art guy!" types. Understanding the INDUSTRY to which you are applying is key! Dave knows who is target audience is and he's talking straight to them. Before we can start to make our portfolios, we have to nail down who it is exactly we want to talk to - and we do that by figuring out what part of what industry we want to take on.
Lets review the Mind Maps each of the classes made. DMA250-01 did a great job with working out some of those usability concerns we mentioned earlier. Click to view larger, or download the pdf:
DMA250-02 tackled how we can use our portfolios and other media to network - we are going to build on all of these concepts throughout the semester. Click to view larger or download the pdf:
Comment with what you thought was the most important thing we covered in this lesson.
4 comments:
I don't know what the most important thing we covered to everyone else is, but I thought that understanding how important first impressions are to people and potential employers is, was pretty important. Almost everyone drew an opinion of the various portfolios the moment they viewed them before actually exploring them and seeing all the had to offer. Seeing as how we did this, you can guarantee what you give an employer to view will be no different. Acknowledging while creating your portfolio could mean the difference between "hired," and "we'll call you."
I think it was really interesting when we looked at those examples of contemporary digital portfolios on the projector. I agree with blackpixi, when we viewed those portfolios as group it seemed it only took a few seconds before we decided if it was something we either liked or disliked. That’s the visual world, we only give things one glance and if it doesn’t interest us, sayonara! I think the most important thing I got out of this session was that I realized that a digital portfolio requires a certain balance. It has to be captivating but at the same time professional. The portfolio should to represent your own style and energy while not being too overpowering.
I enjoyed hearing the way other people think about their portfolios. It was interesting to get different view points, and see everything get mapped together to be something usable. Plus, okaydave.com, really cool site.
In my opinion, when looking at the portfolios like blackpixi said, everyone had a first impression and for the most part the impressions were positive. First impressions are extremely important but can quickly change as you explore the various pages, navigation can be dificult, the style of the page itself can be completely different from the style of other works, etc. and i think the most important part of a portfolio is the cohesion of the portfolio and the work it contains.
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