Building a Portfolio:

Transcription

1 Building a Portfolio: What it is. Why have one. How it is done. MIT Ideation Lab / September 18 th, 2014

2 But first, a mini quiz What are five important elements for making a portfolio? just kidding The notecards are for you to make notes and jot down questions.

3 What? visual representation of your work, complementing your resume a physical book? not necessarily could be a pdf, a website, etc. consider your audience

4 Why? required for your new job or school efficient example of your own design work

5 How? don t worry about making the actual portfolio now, but......start documenting now incremental preparation for the future (might be too stressed later)

6 Things to collect: sketches goals storyboards diagrams CAD design notebook analysis product specs testing prototypes

7 Getting Started (not linear) Documentation collection of the materials from your experiences Audience who sees the portfolio Content refinement of the raw documentation Layout arrangement of elements in space Medium website, pdf, print?

8 Content benchmarking existing portfolios do some quick prototypes share with others Vimeo, YouTube, Flickr Seelio, Weebly, Behance, Coroflot WordPress, Tumblr Share with someone in person

9 Content Mindmap looking at all you ve done

10 Content Practicing Design assistive shower seat In Product Engineering Processes, teams of 16 students go from idea to alpha prototype within one semester. The theme in Fall 2006 was independent living and with the focus area of hygiene, our team developed the U-Shower, an assistive shower seat that helps seated shower users who have limited Overview upper mobility. I was one of two system integrators, leading user research 4 and general organization of the team. Developing text writing about your experiences

11 Lauren Hernley is a Mechanical Engineer at Euro-Pro after doing graduate research at MIT.

12 Process Guidelines Tips

13 Process Collect photos and content (Get in the habit of documenting your work as you go) List out your projects Rank and order projects (chronological? most relevant/important?) Sketch or storyboard portfolio layout

14 Paper vs. Online

15 Paper vs. Online Often required for job applications Easier to skim Can be easier to get started Can still be posted online for easy sharing

16 Paper vs. Online Often required for job applications Easier to skim Can be easier to get started Can still be posted online for easy sharing Allows for greater flexibility & creativity Useful for everything - not just jobs Google searchable Richer media (video, animation, etc.)

17 Layout

18 Layout Fit the content to the layout OR Fit the layout to the content

19 Process Guidelines Tips

20 Show, Don t Tell Use photos, video, sketches, etc. Be clear and concise with text

21 Be Honest I designed the Hubble telescope.

22 Be Honest I, along with 60 colleagues, designed the Hubble telescope.

23 Attention to Detale Matters Align images Use consistent formatting (font, margins, etc.) Spell check

24 Attention to Detail Matters Align images Use consistent formatting (font, margins, etc.) Spell check

25 Be Selective

26 Be Selective Know your audience Put best and/or most recent work first There s no need to include everything

27 Show Range

28 Review & Revise Havesomeoneunfamiliarwithyourwork reviewyourportfolio

29 Know Your Tools PowerPoint, Keynote, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign Lynda for help (lynda.mit.edu)

30 Process Guidelines Tips

31 Typeface Safe fonts: Helvetica Gill Sans Garamond Unsafe fonts: Comic Sans Papyrus STENCIL

32 Image Treatment Remove or use white backgrounds Images only need to be 70 dpi for web viewing

33 Don t Start From Scratch Utilize templates and website development aides

34 Tracking

35 My Portfolio

36 Alex Denniston is a Senior Engineer at Altitude, Inc.

37 Portfolio Session 18 September 2014 / MIT

38 Our Work We are Altitude. We Innovate / #

39 Engineering is important, communication is critical Trying to learn: can you do work AND can I work with you? The best solution is worthless if it can t be communicated effectively Storytelling is a part of the job Shows ability to evaluate work Bonus: makes you a better interviewer 2014 / #

40 Don t sell the product, sell yourself Keep the material accessible Looking for process (not just steps, but thoughts) Context is critical and helpful Every project has a story and a timeline, don t just skip to the end 2014 / #

41 It ll be the easiest to tell It ll be authentic and transparent They re hiring YOU Promote and prioritize the skills you have Faking it translates poorly and ends badly If you re not an artist, don t pretend Tell your story 2014 / #

42 For the skimmer For the one story For the detailed reader Provide a variety of reader experiences 2014 / #

43 Be ruthless. Be flexible. Tell the relevant details and no more Stories aren t reports; effort and impact can be independent Some stories deserve more attention than others ROI vs. Revenue, only ask as much of as me as I m going to get in return 2014 / #

44 Some suggestions: Scour Coroflot, Issuu, Slideshare Ask for feedback (and be willing to listen to it) Use the Mom test first, then add detail Sketch outlines make it much more manageable 2014 / #

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51 Recap What? visual representation of your work Why? better communicate your work How? start documenting now

52 check out the site Go Build a Portfolio MIT Ideation Lab / September 18 th, 2013 Geoff Tsai <gtt@mit.edu> / Lauren Hernley <lrhernley@gmail.com> / Alex Denniston <a_denniston@altitudeinc.com> survey: