How you present your portfolio can easily make or break it for you.  This week in “Building Design Portfolios,” it tells how to present a print portfolio.  You must select the best examples of your work and order them in a way that flows.  Having random works of art from different time periods of your development as a designer won’t cut it without proper coordinating.  When presenting the print portfolio to a person directly, you must be prepared to pick up on the flow of the meeting, like if they like something in particular, make sure you spend a bit more time on that piece.  Also be prepared to defend your design decisions.  No one likes an unconfident or standoffish designer.

When you are promoting yourself to potential clients or employers, you should produce some self promo pieces.  They don’t have to be expensive, which is why they are so practical.  Sending out a cheap pamphlet with some samples of work can be a good way to land in an employers call-back pile when they need work or a designer.  Also sending promo pieces via email is a very cheap way to promote yourself.  All you need to do is author some PDF’s and attach them to an email.  Free and easy.

When job hunting for the first time, you have to remember common courtesies that will set you apart from most other people, like how to appropriately send out your resume, how to act during interviews, how to call people on the telephone.  Little things like a thank you note for an interview, or being on time make the difference.

You have to also make sure that your digital files are of the highest quality possible.  In “Designing a Digital Portfolio,” it talks about the most common tools that you must use in order to produce the highest quality digital images or video.  I already know about all of these methods (like cropping, adjusting tone, fixing pixelated areas, etc…) so I figure I am safe in this department.  I know the differences the right format or encode can make when saving something, believe me.  I deal with it daily at my job.

This week I added color and other style elements to my website mockups from last week.  I have one pretty strong idea that I really like.  Hopefully it will pass the test : ]