Industry Portfolio Audit: Content, Organization, Format

There were several portfolios I enjoyed navigating through. I wasn’t so much concerned with their content as I was with the question: Did the UI/UX hold my interest? Did I want to linger there? Or was it confusing and simply wasn’t worth the time trying to figure it out?
I’ve listed several online portfolios in my Portfolio Roll (to the right.) Two of the most memorable are: http://emilianorodriguez.com.ar/. It was intriguing to navigate and slightly irreverent – I mean, a big hairy guy lying on the grass might be off-putting to some. However, his personality came through along with his skill level and creativity.
The other one I especially liked was http://www.provoxmarketing.com/ – whimsical and highly effective vehicle of presentation, though bordering on the irreverent. Neither one of these sites is likely to attract conservative institutional interest and that may not be what the authors intended anyway. Lesson learned: define your target audience.
Another issue I have with online portfolios is scrolling. I don’t like having to endlessly scroll to the bottom of the page. I want to see the whole thing presented to fit on a 1024 x 768px screen – margins, even better (doesn’t looked cramped.)
Finally, I was especially drawn to portfolios which I think I could create (or incorporate elements thereof) given my present skill level. It’s one thing to admire the bells, whistles and fireworks; it’s quite another to try and recreate them.

Laying aside personal preferences, when researching online portfolios, it’s important to evaluate three key elements:

Content: The majority of the portfolios I looked at were studios or ad agencies showcasing their collective output which included motion graphics, websites and print. Since I believe my employment future lies in print, I focused my investigation on these sites print projects; I found it helps to compare ‘apples to apples’ and not muddy the water by looking at websites, motion graphics, video etc. It’s entertaining to look but it can be overwhelming too.

Organization: After looking at a number of professional and student portfolios (see http://alumni.academyart.edu/search_portfolio.jsp), I believe I can break my portfolio into four navigational elements; with three sub-elements:
Home – a dazzling homepage (including contact info.)
About – Brief bio (no resume), contact info
Portfolio – Print, Websites, Motion
Contact – Contact info appears several times in my website, so users wont have to search for it.

Format: I still can’t say with definitive authority when I look at a website, “That was created in Flash or HTML/CSS or JavaScript.” – and let’s not even go to PHP or AfterEffects or… God-knows-what else. I can entertain educated guesses regarding which languages were used to create them but as far as I’m concerned I’m still learning this stuff. Given my skill level and familiarity with scripts, the obvious choice for me is Flash (ActionScript) or HTML/CSS when it comes time to creating my digital portfolio.

Logo concepts

Brand Identity

I’m hoping the attached collage, below (created as the first project in Web Design I) will fill in the gaps of my Brand Identity. The concept behind the collage assignment was to create a collage from magazine clippings. The composition could be our own invention but we had to include examples of color, texture and typography.
Next class, collages were critiqued to determine attributes expressed in our respective collages (artists remained unidentified.) Consistently throughout the crit of my collage words (adjectives/attributes) like: clean, geometric, conservative, professional, modern, organized, precise, smart (!, how did that get in there?) surfaced.
I’m including this collage as part of my search for a Brand Identity because I feel I’m getting a more accurate evaluation of the values my work implies from disinterested parties; as opposed to me evaluating myself.

Googling keywords ‘brown geometric’ and ‘brown precise’ yielded the following images (below.) Without getting too ‘final product’ oriented (i.e. logo, resume), I believe these images can form the concept of the persona I wish to present online.

Deficient Portfolio Work

I've heard it said, "No work is ever completed, it's simply abandoned."
With that said, I think this newsletter is the weakest of the pieces that I intend to include in my digital portfolio. I need to 'fix' the big brown box in the lower right corner (back cover.) It looks like 'filler' (that's what it is.) I need to remove the box and replace it with an 'article', even if that article is just greeking.

Typography Exercise

I never entertained any kind of internal debate with myself regarding which fonts I planned to use on my resume/business card or digital portfolio site. It had to be classic and legible. Even thinking about using Rockwell was kind of a stretch for me.

vimeo post

gunfight_rev from Robert Brown on Vimeo.

I created this last semester in Flash.

5 Blogs In My Intended Field

I had no idea where to start to look for 5 relevant blogs to follow. Just Googling any Tom, Dick or Jane seemed excessively random, so I followed Meg’s ‘recommendation’ and visited ImJustCreative's blog and added his favorites to my blogroll.