#Graphic design graduate portfolios how to#
#Graphic design graduate portfolios full#
#Graphic design graduate portfolios trial#

I think mine was about average in my program, maybe some projects better, some not. I'm 39 and an Art Director at a central London agency now.

#Graphic design graduate portfolios trial#

Speak about the things you like with a passion, offer to show what you can do in a trial setting, say how excited you are to learn - all these things will make you look way hungrier than 99% of your peers, especially in this day and age where most grads expect 4 times what my starting salary was without putting the shift in. Out of the 60 or so who graduated, all but about 3 or 4 of them never got jobs in the industry.

#Graphic design graduate portfolios how to#

but without knowing it I was teaching myself how to figure stuff out and try new things - something my classmates never did. and that's the key takeaway: I thought my work was shit compared to my classmates' too but it turned out that most of them were just stealing from books/magazines while I was trying to create my own stuff and failing over and over again because no one ever taught me how or knew how to rectify my mistakes. Within 3 months I was given an actual job and the guy they hired over me failed probation and was let go as a) he thought he'd made it (in a tiny ad agency in an ex mining town at the age of 21, I hasten to ad) and b) he'd essentially just regurgitated the work in his portfolio from other sources. I grasped the opportunity with both hands and happily worked on the most mundane projects with glee, well into the wee hours. Luckily, I got taken on as an intern/pity project by the same agency as they liked the way I spoke with passion and honesty in my interview, even though they admitted that the quality of my work was poor. I failed my only interview and they went for someone else who'd just graduated from a more prestigious uni. I never actually dived into either with both feet. I wanted to be a designer but I also wanted to be an illustrator. My folio upon leaving uni was beyond shit. You'll learn most of what you need to know on the actual job from seasoned pros.

Very few fresh out of college/uni designers are anything but lumps of clay in need of forming and higher education is terrible at moulding them because very few teachers/lecturers have spent real time in the industry as jobbing designers. Here's the honest truth: most grads' portfolios are middling at best. talk about your ideas and how you got to the final conclusion, not just pretty pictures of the final conclusion. what makes you interesting? what makes you conceptual and creative? what makes you the candidate that I should be considering? if you can't brand, market and sell yourself how will you do it for clients, some in industries you'll know nothing about i'm a creative director, i want to see someone that can brand and market themselves.

brand yourself and market yourself in a clever way.

work on self initiated projects that you are interested in and will help beef up your portfolio with creative work, not the same project that every other graduate will be showing

go above and beyond your school projects.

nobody shows the process or talks about it-they show the final result but not how they got there.

they all think sending out resumes and websites with their work are good enough to be contacted-nobody takes initiative to do anything beyond this.

they all graduate with the same types of work in their portfolio and don't take initiative to try and differentiate themselves.

In my experience graduating (a long time ago) and seeing new grad portfolios, the problems with new grads is this: Join our Discord server Design Subreddits LIST Please report any posts which break these rules, to maintain the quality of the subreddit.

#Graphic design graduate portfolios full#

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