Portfolio Direction / Lecture

Today I attended a one hour lecture from ex creative director from Dorset based studio Marketing Matters George Beverley, followed by a brief portfolio tips and discussion session with the creative director of Thinking Juice, Gellan Watt, an award winning design studio from Dorset.

I made it my business to attend both of these lectures as I felt unsure of the best way to organize a portfolio and I'm glad I made the effort to attend as the information and advice received at both talks was invaluable to me as someone who is planning on trying to obtain a placement or intern at a studio after the completion of this year. I written up a brief overview of each session.

George Beverley - Portfolio 101

For starters I was glad to make it into the lecture at all due to the huge amount of people who wanted to attend but due to the size of lecture to get a seat.

The guest speaker, George Beverly presented a brief set of points and tips which I felt hugely useful in the development of my portfolio but also the interview process and my confidence. I have listed the points he presented below.

- Be 100% happy with all thework you decide to include in your portfolio.

- Dont show other peoples work as your own! (I couldn't believe this but it happens more than you would think apparantly)! He spoke on this with first hand experience, with an interviewee showing George a peice of work he himself (George) had designed

- Know your own work

- About 8-10 peices of work. Quality over quantity, if you only have 5 peices of strong work, only inlude 5. Do not try to gain a larger body of work by including peices of work you are not happy with or have low standard.

- Use an A3 portfolio, transportable, presentable. (I have ordered an A3 portfolio box, I feel it is a nicer way of presenting the work over the standard ringbound option).

He also spoke briefly about the interview process, stating that you should go to an interview with confidence, while being yourself as it will take alot of the pressure off. Previous to an interview one should try and find out about the company, and their work. His final point was learn to take critiscm, and learn to extract positivity from critiscm, enquiring as to why, and become comfortable with critiscm as by reflecting on feedback work will improve. Be honest, use common sense, be on time, show personality and enthusiasm and talent.

Gellen Watt - Portfolio FAQ's and Advice

Gellen's discussion basically continued on from Georges, with more discussion on the design of a portfolio. His advice was to be precise, show work using the space avaliable to its best. Do not crowd portfolio slides and again, dont include any work your not 110% happy with.

Overall, the lecture/discussions were invaluable to me as I plan to prepare my CV and portfolio within the next week.