Week 2 - Craziness Ensues

In Chapter 2 of Baron's book Designing a Digital Portfolio we begin to read about adapting our portfolio for the work and direction we would like to head in. It starts with a self-assessment checklist to point out out strengths and weaknesses. Included in the checklist is our education, work experience, software knowledge, etc. Then in the checklist it starts to ask questions regarding our different goals for our portfolio. My reasons for creating a portfolio as per the checklist are because its required for school, need the experience, unemployed and looking for a job, need the experience, and a creative outlet. The checklist also has our questions about our work ethic and personality. Finding the personality of my work is going to be a hard task. Since most of the work has been assigned, it doesn't describe accurately my work. A few words that I can think of to describe my work would be: playful, sarcastic, and funny; but that only applies to a few pieces.

One of the elements for a digital portfolio is personality. The personality of a website is immediately prevalent as soon as it is visited. Jeff the Designer's website has changed since it was published in the book, but it still has a similar feel with its images and layout. While I wouldn't describe this as the best portfolio web site I have seen, it definitely has some quality work within it. It is evident based on the portfolio work that websites are not his forte either.

When I read about some of the goals for a digital portfolio, it starts the second paragraph for it with, "It's not enough to say, 'I need a job!' A job is a financial requirement, not a goal." Well this is true, and I know I have said this several times, "I need a job!" Getting a job after college is important to all of us. And I for one, know that I would ideally like a job doing what I enjoy, or at least be on a reasonable path to ending up with a job I enjoy.

While reading this chapter, I was finally able to stop scrambling to find as many portfolio pieces as I could to throw into my portfolio and decided that it would be better to have less pieces with a higher caliber of work. I want pieces in here that will stand out and be remember (for good reasons) to anyone who views it. With that said, I will probably spend a lot of time reworking a few older pieces to get them up to par.

After I read chapters 3 & 4 of 'How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul' I determined that freelancing is not something I want to be doing out of college. I would consider doing it part-time to build my portfolio some more and to stay active in the field, but I don't think that it is a reasonable option for me out of college. Perhaps it could be down the road, but I would rather start up a design studio with other designers instead of flying solo. I like the idea of working with other like minded individuals and building a reputable name that others can be a part of as well. I did find it amazing that out of 500,000 designers in the U.S. nearly 1/3 of them are self-employed. To me, that is a staggering amount. It shows how competitive the field is as well.

While reading about creating an identity for setting up a studio, I found a line of sympathy for all of us. "We are generally bad at designing for ourselves. Designers spend their working lives telling their clients how to cultivate an appropriate image, yet seem paralyzed when they have to do it for themselves. " I saw that and thought to myself, "I knew it! Finally, someone agrees!" Of course that didn't make matters any better, I still have to do design a portfolio for myself.