22.05.07
Portfolio questions, answered

This recent degree show mailer from a college featured a misspelt name badge for the johnson banks creative director and an inch mark in the headline. Double-bad, you might say. It prompted us to dig out this questionnaire we recently filled out for our friends at Under Consideration.

How many student portfolios do you see in a month? Or in a year?

We get a lot of applications for placements and internships each week, and at graduation time a truly vast amount of applications for jobs. It’s actually quite rare that we see many of the physical portfolios because we’ve had to put in processes to weed out the duff applications. By the time we see the actual person and their work, we’re usually hoping they’re going to work out.

What would you advise a student do (or not do) when designing and producing their portfolio?

Well, it strikes us that the digital form of the folio has now taken on paramount importance. We’re much happier clicking through a straightforward pdf of greatest hits or a simple click-through website than having to waste time hearing about someone’s issues with their typography tutor or how they passed their cycling proficiency test. By pre-vetting, electronically, it speeds things up massively.

What do you look for in a student portfolio?

Ideas, followed by great ideas, then more great ideas. We can teach people how to use the design programmes - it seems much harder to teach people how to have the ideas in the first place.

How many pieces would you say make the perfect portfolio?

In the digital realm, once we’ve been persuaded to open the pdf or visit the URL, a dozen or so pieces works best for us. Generally students very rarely have more than ten killer ideas. In fact, if we’re honest, it’s quite rare to see anyone with more than 4 or 5. Trouble is, we’re suspicious if people only show us 6 projects – we start thinking ‘where’s all the other stuff then’?

And what kind of project should be included/excluded? Do you like seeing personal projects, school projects, gig posters? Or none of the above?

We think students should be using college time to be pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in graphic design, so we’re not terribly interested in the dodgy logo for the local hairdresser or tacky gig flyers (unless they are brilliant). If someone’s work is entirely personal, conceptual, ‘out there’ work, then if it’s amazing we might take a punt – that’s when the placement/intern system works well for us because we can see how someone whose mind is open can handle the day-to-day realities of graphic design. The colleges that stuff vocational, ‘real world’ projects down their students don’t get much support from us because they seem to have closed themselves too early. They develop an inability to think outside the box and that is a real pain... we have to undo all their preconceptions when they start work properly.

Tell us about the most memorable portfolio you have encountered

Well, we were approached by a very good student with a really lovely, simple, click through website stuffed with fantastic work (ie definitely over 6 and maybe 12 killers). That was the best over the last few years. Trouble is when they came on placement, we found out that this person was a bit odd, to say the least, and in a small studio, personality is a real issue… We have in the past received some lovely little books of work, which can also work because they’re tough to chuck in the bin.

What would you say are the most common mistakes?

Well the big turn-offs for us are spelling names wrong (for heavens sake MICHAEL JOHNSON is pretty easy to spell) or calling Michael Michael BANKS (duh), or a cv littered with spelling mistakes. One is forgivable, any more is just plain lazy. We’re really not fans of unjustified over-confidence, so the ‘I think johnson banks would really benefit from my incredible, unique approach’ kind of thing goes down like a lead balloon here. Huge and unwieldy server smashing pdfs are a bit of a drag too, as are overly complex and over-engineered websites (We’re judging people on their ideas, not their ‘flash rollover’ coding skills). We’ll very rarely put a student CD Rom in our machines now after various horrendous crashes caused by dodgy ones. Being a digital smart-arse is all well and good, but if you do it, make sure it’s brilliant.

Please tell us a little bit about your portfolio review process

Two of us handle the enquiries. We sieve them with pdfs and websites, the people we think are possibilities get an interview, the good ones come on placement. Sometimes the good colleges send us their stars on placement before they graduate so we get ‘first-look’ at the good people. That’s very helpful to us. We’d never employ now without a placement/intern period first (ie ‘come and try us out for two months and we’ll see how it goes’). It also gives them the chance to see what they think of us, as well.

What was your first portfolio like? What did you learn from it? Do you still have it?

‘My first folio was appalling’ (says Michael). ‘I’d done a ‘marketing and visual art’ degree which left me with half a portfolio, mainly consisting of dodgy two colour posters for the local theatre group and college art gallery. Really, really awful. Unsurprisingly I couldn’t get a job anywhere, even if I offered to pay them, not vice versa. Not long after I travelled the world looking for work and kept my projects on 35mm slides, which was again a nightmare because no one could ever be bothered to project them. So my entire early career was based on people trying to judge my work by peering at tiny glass slides. I noticed that I started to design projects that would work well that small – still quite a good rule when you think about it, and I still catch myself wondering ‘what would it look like on slide…’

Latest thoughts