Portfolio Clinic

Today I had the opportunity to get some feedback on my portfolio from Bob Mytton, founder of the Mytton Williams here in Bath. He was impressed with my football chant hymn book, especially the core idea, although he stressed that I should push it as far as possible to make it look as much like a real hymn book as possible. He was also very positive about my 'Swearing Budgies of the World', although he struggled to see how it could be applied commercially. It made him smile and it was memorable, in his opinion, which is definitely a good thing. I pointed out that the famous 'Meerkat' TV ads must have been a hard sell but they have been wildly successful.

At this stage my portfolio was not presented very concisely. I took along an A1 portfolio case, an A2 one, an iPad and some books in a carrier bag. Bob commented that this didn't look very professional, which I knew and agreed with, and I know I have to do a lot of work to get my work presented in the best possible way. He said I should produce a PDF portfolio, as well as something I can show on the iPad. Any printed work should be consistent in size so perhaps I can put it all in the A2 case. It's a much more manageable size to carry around ad open out on a desk.

Looking at how some other people presented their work, I realised it would be really useful to put together a portfolio guide for the iPad, and probably also a PDF that can be emailed. For each project I need to have a little bit of text explaining the brief, my concept, the execution and my conclusion. This should be backed up with nice images showing my design - Bob made a point of saying that we should use big images, let the design breathe instead of cramming too much on one page/screen. This is especially true with screen-based outputs as pages are free. He said that you should aim to have around eight projects in a professional portfolio - stick the best two at the front and another strong project at the back, filling the middle with the rest.

Bob then told us that we should always try to visualize how a project would work as a complete campaign. I have done some of this in the past, showing designs in their real-life contexts (using Photoshop trickery). When working on a branding campaign, try to see how far you can push it, especially in terms of sub-brands so it looks like a considered and well-rounded campaign. He finished by saying that prospective employers want to see three years' worth of quality work, so I will include my strongest projects from the second year too.

I found this exercise very useful and would really like to do a work placement at Mytton Williams. After hand-in I will work on a couple of good branding projects and then contact Bob.