Author: Jennifer de Graaf

Last week’s Interview with an Employer post was not the last, I have another in the works….but first, let’s get back to your portfolio.

I recently posted about digital portfolio options. Today, I have resources for printed portfolios. While many digital options are free, getting stuff printed isn’t. It doesn’t have to be super expensive, though. With little more than access to a computer with a word processing program (and either a simple binding or sweet folding) you can make a portfolio. In fact, some view a well-done hand-made portfolio as a sign of your attention to detail and appreciation for excellent craftsmanship.

Below are only a few resources for your printed portfolio – there are so many excellent products and services out there! Please feel free to add your suggestions below in the comments if you have a favorite that did not get mentioned.

Put your stuff in a portfolio cover: Art stores are a good place to find something to put your materials in. Most of them have the plastic Itoya “Profolios” (starting at $6. if you shop around), but there are more polished options like:

Pina Zangaro: At the higher end (a simple cloth binder is over $20.), Pina Zangaro makes nice presentation book covers and metal boxes. You can buy direct from them or at art stores and resellers online.

Printing services: Many printing services will send samples of their materials to you for free. There’s nothing like having a physical sample of the stuff to give you a feeling for your finished product when designing a professionally printed piece for your marketing system. Their job is to make you want to have something printed, so many of them put inspirational and how-to information on their website – check these out:

Moo – Moo is known for their ability to print a different image on every business card, mini-card, label, or postcard in the pack. I liked how this guy turned a pack of their business cards into Flashcards advertising his services.

4by6: Wherever you are, you probably have a local printer that can do most of what 4by6 does, but I list them because they include educational information on printing in their (free) sample pack and didn’t stop there….see this section of their website for loads of technical information.

Blurb: You can design and have a (portfolio) book professionally printed by Blurb one at a time – they have added a ‘proline’ (more expensive) set of options where you can choose cloth covers, different end papers and so forth. There is even a way to slurp your blog straight into their templates if you so desire.

Paper Chase: Meet one of the competitors for Blurb. Paper Chase is a high-end professional printing company in Los Angeles, CA. Prices for some things are comparable to Blurb, but they have more upscale options. Check out their “Portfolio Program” which I think is very clever marketing, and a good idea if it will work for you.

Print Handbook: Some graphic designers make whole careers with printed projects, but this little book is a nice shortcut for the rest of us trying to understand the basics.

I have read the stories about people getting hired from their website alone, and I am sure that the debate over print vs. digital will continue for a long time. However, most audiences still expect to be shown something when they invite you for an interview, so be prepared to have something at hand. It would be in pretty bad form to show up for an interview saying, ‘but didn’t you see my website?’ Whether you print images off your home computer or invest in a professionally printed book, the issue is the same. How you solve the design problem of communicating your abilities and what those abilities are is the most important thing!

I’ll be posting another “Interview with an Employer” for you next time. Stay tuned, I really think you’ll like it!

I recently hinted that this post would be a bit different from previous ones. As part of my research for these posts on Land8, I have been asking colleagues for their perspective. Each of them is in the position of doing the hiring and portfolio review for their respective firms. I have asked them to tell me what is important to them without many specific questions to respond to. It is very interesting to see what comes up spontaneously, and I hope that these bits of advice give you something to consider in your own portfolio design process. You should know that the information was typed by me (from my notes), then approved or modified by the person interviewed, and posted here for you. It is through this process, that as much as possible, these are their words.

Mr. H (who has asked me to keep both his name and firm anonymous) is a talented architect who works for a well-known high-end architecture firm in Dallas, Texas. He is responsible for large scale projects all over the world, and is also in a position to review portfolios and interview job candidates. I am grateful to him for taking some time out of what I know is a very demanding schedule to chat with me about resumes and portfolios. Below are my notes from the conversation, approved by Mr. H:

Resumes:

• Condense your resume as much as possible, especially if you have a lot of experience. Aim to fit it on a single page.
• Not having a photo of yourself on the resume is an American phenomenon. In Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, there is always a photo on the resume!

Portfolio:

• Make it creative, sophisticated, simple.
• Using too much technology makes me feel like the applicant is trying too hard.
• Image quality is really important!
• Show ONLY the projects you are proud of.

Putting your face to the resume or portfolio shows that there is a real person who stands behind the work, taking responsibility and hopefully looking like someone we would want to work with. Make sure that it is a candid photo, not a professional portrait, not staged (I don’t want to see you working at your desk), and no photos of you drinking at a party or sunning on the beach. You should be depicted in a natural, casual setting, like a normal person out there in the world.

Know your audience! Understand what the firm you are applying to is known for and tailor your materials to that. Even if you are trying to break into their market and don’t have a lot (or any) of their kind of project, BE AWARE of what it is that they do.

I hope to have several of these conversations available for Land8 readers, and I would welcome contact from any employers who would like to insert their two cents (anonymously or not). Next time, I will be posting a bit about some of the resources available to those of you who are diving into the world of printed portfolios.

I felt the need to share some inspirational things after writing the post on design last week. Interesting design ideas don’t always spontaneously burst forth, so below are some of my favorite web-hosted portfolio options. I know you are all resourceful, clever designers, but maybe there is something in this list that will help you solve a problem or give you some inspiration. If a digital portfolio isn’t for you, don’t worry, more resources are coming in the future!

Issuu: It appears from reading posts in Land8 that web-hosted book formats are very popular right now. Issuu seems to be the most popular of these, and it is free!

VisualCV: In this website, you can have several different versions of your resume with images and also upload pdf files (like letters of recommendation!) for viewing. Again, having an account with the site is free.

WordPress: There are so many blogging websites, your options for this are limitless. I include only wordpress here because I know more people who use it than people who use others. It is free, flexible, and easy to use.

Carbonmade: Again, the opportunities for creating your own website for your portfolio are pretty much limitless. I chose to add Carbonmade because their website allows for categories of different industries (check out the architecture sites) and is…you guessed it, FREE.

I am sure that I have not listed about a bazillion other options. A quick visit to Google will show you that. Each of these four are good, functional, web-based ways of making your work available at a click. With the flexibility of different format or template options in each and your own materials and ingenuity, I am sure you can create something both useful and stunning. Please let us know in the comments if you have a resource that you think is superior! Good or bad experience with any of the above? Let us know!

We will be doing something slightly different next time, so stay tuned. I am excited about this, and am only hoping it will be ready in time…..

Using the work and opinions of others to jump-start ideas for your portfolio (like those listed in last week’s post) is awesome, but copying someone else’s portfolio design to showcase your own work is a lousy idea if you want to be recognized for your design abilities. Your portfolio is the one place where you are the only common denominator.

I could repeat what other people have said about the principles of design, but I won’t. That information is out there for you to find, and if anyone is interested, here and here are a couple of places to start.

Having said that, how can I craft a blog post that covers portfolio design for all formats at all levels in one shot? I really can’t, and I would have to be an absolute fool to try. What I can do, however, is to begin the discussion with some design considerations that I hope will help you make decisions along the way:

• Attractive: Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but nobody likes an ugly portfolio. Everything matters including page layout (web and print), color, fonts, paper, proportions, and your images.

• Cohesive: The portfolio must make sense as a unit, giving a clear idea of your personal style. The best way to be memorable is to design to please yourself, understanding that whatever work you have done, it was done for someone else – your audience wants to know what you can do for them.

• Understandable: If your portfolio is too complicated, you risk losing your audience’s attention. I once had an interview with three principles. One went through my book project by project, inspecting each image carefully. The guy next to him glanced at my book while the first guy perused it, and then passed it to the third principal who had been talking to me, ignoring the book. When it was passed over to this last guy, he flipped through it in less than ten seconds while continuing the conversation. Plan your portfolio so that it will work for all three of those fellas.

• Organized: How you organize your materials says something about your thought process. Page layout and color can play a big part in visual organization, and if you use sections in your portfolio, each section should be beefy enough to stand on its own. The decision whether you should choose chronological order, project type, or some other method must depend on what you are presenting and what makes the most sense to you.

• Lead-time: This is important for two reasons: whether it will it be ready in time for you to use at your next opportunity AND to demonstrate to others (employers!) that you understand the value of time.

• Cost-effective: Send the message that you respect budgets and resources. Both are not only on the minds of employers and clients, but you also need to be aware of your own expenses as they apply to available resources. Consider how many you need to make, how much waste will be generated, and whether it is recyclable or reusable.

• Memorable: Aside from your personal style, look at all the portfolios you can and evaluate what they have in common in comparison to what you are including. For example, if everybody else has similar looking SketchUp renderings, will you do it too? Can you think of any way that your work can break out of the norm? What is it about your work and its presentation that will make someone want to turn the page or continue clicking?

• Neighbors: Don’t smash everything in without first deciding which images look the best together both on the same page and in viewing order. Start and finish strong. In general, people remember beginnings and endings better than middles.

• KISS: Keep It Simple. Make sure that the portfolio keeps focus on the work more than the portfolio itself. Too many projects can detract from the power of each individual project.

• Quality over quantity: When it comes to the question “how many?”, I’ve heard everything from “I want to see only three excellent images, that is all I need to judge someone’s work” to “Oh, twenty or so would probably be good”. Somewhere in the middle is probably about right. Again, only the best will do! When in doubt, can you leave it out?

Please add your thoughts on design in the comments and use the Portfolio and Design group on Land8 as well. I’m feeling the need for more inspiration after writing this, so in the next post, I will share some of the services, products, and other resources that might get those creative juices moving.

Last time, we talked about content that can be added to your portfolio regardless of employment status. While I try to keep my posts specific to Landscape Architecture, comparisons can be made with Architecture, Photography, and Graphic Art among other creative fields. If you think about what these folks are saying and apply that critical thinking path to your own work and your target audience, you’ll be in good shape when it comes time to make critical decisions about your portfolio.

I have accumulated an embarrassingly long list of online articles, and below are my current favorites:

Landscape Architecture:
Writing Project Descriptions, Landscape Architecture Dept. University of Illinois
Preparing Portfolios for Landscape Architects, Landscape Architecture Dept. University of Illinois

Architecture:
Is It Time To Rethink Your Resume? From Modative
What Hiring Managers Want to See from a recruiter for Architecture, Interiors, Planning and Engineering

Graphic Art:
Design Madison blog post: Handy Pocket Guide to Self Promotion
10 Portfolio Commandments from HOW Magazine (explore their website, it is chock full of fun related stuff!)
7 Tips for Creating a Print-Based Design Portfolio
7 Ingenious Resumes

Photography:
Four blog posts! Portfolio review comments from Editors, Entertainment Industry, and Advertising Execs. Here’s one about portfolio reviews .
Video: Ask an Art Buyer (self promotion review)
How to Get Noticed by the British Journal of Photography
Portfolio Review with Claudia Monaco (another art rep)
Wanderlust: I love what this photographer says about his portfolio re-design

Other Stuff:
Writing for the Web
Content Portfolio (seems to have been abandoned in 2009, but is still interesting)
Idea Book: listing of interesting articles and fun things.
Artist Portfolio Guidelines

Please feel free to list any resources on portfolio design that you have found as well, I am sure we’re all looking for more things to bookmark.

Next time, I will be posting my top ten design considerations!

Last time I posted suggestions of what you might consider putting in your Landscape Architecture portfolio. Today, however, I ask you to consider each project and take a look at how well your materials represent the work and you. Did someone else do a rendering? Did one of your favorite projects take a detour from the way you hoped the design would go? Well don’t just sit there, do something about it!

Consider the work you intend to show and decide if there is anything that you can do to add depth to individual projects or to better represent your own skill set.

1. Hand-drawings. Of landscapes. Go out and practice, it is free.
2. New renderings: If you have the ability to do a better job on the rendering than you did before, or maybe the rendering that was done was not your handiwork, think about replacing it.
3. Photography: Be sure that the images you include are relevant to your portfolio, and your photographs are the very best you can do. I urge you to give attribution for the subject if the project is not your own (but the photos are) and to photographers who photographed work that you are taking responsibility for.
4. Writing samples: I keep coming back to this for a couple of reasons: you can do it, you need to be good at it, and it is free.
5. Paper architecture: No experience? No problem. Enter a design competition, or find a site and design something for it. Maybe you would like to re-design a nearby site or a friend or family’s property. Employed or not, you have the ability to produce work. Never let a little thing like lack of a job or client get in your way.
6. Creative hobbies and other pursuits: Okay, I include this for only one reason. Ordinarily, I would say to only include stuff that is Landscape Architecture related, but I had the experience of an unrelated interest benefiting my employer. My boss knew that I had been a rower in college from casual conversation. One day I was asked to join a meeting with a prospective client, they were discussing a project that included a rowing regatta venue. I explained staging, boat sizes, and race protocols. If my boss hadn’t known that I was an oarswoman in college, he would not have known to ask me about this esoteric subject. How does this apply to you? I would say that if you have something seemingly unrelated that makes you more unique, find a way to link it to Landscape Architecture or research it so that you can design for it. I had to think on my feet in that meeting, but if I had ever studied the design issues of regattas, I would have been even better prepared.
7. Planting palette graphics: perhaps your project had a planting palette but you did not create graphics specific to the planting list. Here is your chance to generate something that communicates that planting palette better now.
8. Sketchup (or other 3-d) Models: SketchUp is becoming pretty ubiquitous. I love that the software is free and that there are video tutorials online. If you’ve got a project that is lacking something, maybe you have enough information to build a SketchUp model and add a few images from that!
9. Style boards: Many times these are not generated during project development, so why don’t you make one?
10. Awards and Honors: Sounds like something for your resume, right? Having stuff like this in your resume is awesome, but if you put it in your portfolio as well, it may become an even stronger conversation piece.
11. Re-designed project: We’ve all had the experience of working on a project and having our ideas altered by bosses and/or clients. Well, this is your portfolio, so what if you took that same project, and provided graphics of how YOU would have done it differently? Your portfolio doesn’t have to be exclusive to what real-life handed you. If you opt to re-design it, make sure that presenting your alternative is not a negative commentary on the real project, but is more about how you would love to have happen if real life had not intervened.

I recognize that pulling your portfolio together is hard enough without all the extra effort of re-doing things. Maybe in considering the list above you will find opportunities to improve your portfolio or just to improve your skills – either way, working towards your ultimate goal is a good thing, right?

Next time, I will be posting articles on portfolio design that I found online. If you have a favorite, please feel free to send it to me!

In the last post, we compared hard copy portfolios with digital versions. Today, we need to find something to put in it, whatever platform you are working with. Below are a few ideas, some are obvious, but perhaps not all of them. While you read through these, consider who you are making this portfolio for.

• Technical Drawings: Site Plans, sections, elevations, details, and GIS maps. The bread and butter of getting work built!

• Graphics: Beautiful renderings, sketches, perspectives, and models are important and speak to an ability to communicate your ideas.

• Process Graphics: Conceptual plans and other doodles that went into conceptualizing your work are especially important to prospective employers. These may not seem so important, but they do illustrate your thought processes.

• Photography: Photographs that show the project looking its best can be very effective. A warning: if you include photographs of projects that you did not have a hand in creating, make this fact absolutely clear.

• Style Boards: Not all firms or projects use these, but they can still be very useful for getting a concept across fast.

• Project Information: Project descriptions, size, location, budget, the scope of work, project team members, awards, and other information. Some people like to include written information in the portfolio while others prefer a more purely visual approach.

• Project Management: Schedules, budgets, proposals, and cost estimates come to mind. Someone who wants to be a designer should, of course, present a design-driven portfolio. Conversely, someone who aspires to a position that is more supervisory should be ready to provide materials related to this aspect of the work.

• Writing Samples: Have you written articles for design publications or newspaper articles? Do you write or contribute to a blog? Maybe you wrote really awesome memos at your last job…clients may not be as interested in this, but prospective employers often want to see that you can write.

• Sketches: Hand drawings and sketches related to Landscape Architecture are becoming increasingly rare. Please don’t include sketches of your mother or your dog. Limit yourself to the subject at hand.

• YOU: Again, we’re back to you. If your portfolio will be viewed without your wonderful self sitting right there, consider adding your name and contact information. True, you can contain all this in an email or cover letter, but what if your viewer chooses to bookmark your digital portfolio and deletes the email or loses the cover letter that came with the printed copy?

Landscape Architecture portfolios are unique because when the project has been installed, it may be years away from looking its best, and may or may not ever reach that potential. Most of the time, we are not in control over how our work will be treated down the line, though we do the best we can to protect our client’s investment. This fact alone makes portfolio design for Landscape Architecture especially challenging.

While our work literally grows, and even if it dies, we can still add to and improve how these projects are represented in our portfolios. We’ll review some of these ideas next time.

As always, please comment or drop me a line. Did I miss something? How has your content affected your portfolio’s efficacy?

Last time, I posted about portfolio formats. The ways we each approach and use our portfolios are sometimes as unique as we are. There are countless examples out there on the subject, and I wanted to share my top ten favorite (in print) resources.

• Portfolio Design by Harold Linton. Geared towards architecture, it shows many examples of portfolios.

• Designing a Digital Portfolio by Cynthia Baron. Good general information on the thought process of developing a digital portfolio, but this book is a little older (so technical information is out of date).

• The Graphic Designer’s Guide to Portfolio Design by Debbie Rose Myers. Another well-rounded book. Written for graphic design, much of the the information is still applicable to Landscape Architecture.

• Designing Creative Resumes by Gregg Berryman. This slim tome is fun, creative, and old. I still flip through it every time I re-do mine, to remind myself to push for something new.

• The Ultimate Portfolio by Martha Metzdorf. This book is geared towards graphic artists and illustrators, but contains good discussion on the reasons the examples were designed the way they were (something I find invaluable).

• Writing for Design Professionals by Stephen Kliment – I like this book and include it even though it is not exclusively about portfolios or design. I think it is a must read for developing a professional writing style in a design industry.

• Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Samara – There are several books on page layout, and I would be remiss if I didn’t include one. Much of it gets more technical than you may need, but with so much information, even skimming this book can be helpful for advancing your understanding of this important subject.

• Breaking In: Over 100 Advertising Insiders Reveal How to Build a Portfolio That Will Get You Hired by William Spencer – This book contains interviews with people in the advertising industry about what they look for in a creative portfolio. It, too, is focused on graphic art. One of the lessons here is that each person interviewed had a slightly different viewpoint, so there is no single right answer when developing your portfolio.

• No Plastic Sleeves: The Complete Portfolio Guide for Photographers and Designers by Larry Volk and Danielle Currier – This is my current personal favorite. It is written with graphic artists and photographers in mind, but includes the most current, detailed, and comprehensive information of them all. Please also find their BLOG.

• Magazines: HOW Magazine is my favorite, but anything on Landscape Architecture, Architecture, graphic art, or photography is good. The purpose of these publications is to showcase design work, so take a look at how they go about it. Try also foreign magazines like Topos (German), Abitare (Italian), and Gardens Illustrated (British).

Continuing to seek inspiration for your next portfolio, showing your best effort each time, is an essential part of maintaining your image. Portfolio upkeep is a process that should be ongoing whether each of us is currently employed by others or ourselves, and I hope that everyone finds something useful in this list. If there are other print resources you love, please send them along or share them in the comments. This isn’t the end, though, I will be sharing many more resources in the future.

The next post will discuss the meat in a Landscape Architecture portfolio: the content.

As always, please feel free to share your stories with me anytime!

Last time, I wrote about the elements of a marketing system. Most of those elements can be in either digital or print format. The format is less important than the decisions you make around content, design, and presentation, but a poorly designed portfolio will drag down the impression it leaves no matter how good your work is.

Just about every article, discussion thread, and book I read in my research agreed that both a digital presence and printed material were important to have, the online component being in support of a printed portfolio. For the sake of argument, let’s consider some of the practical considerations of both digital and print portfolios:

Digital media: website, blog, pdf, files on a USB, CD, DVD, iPad, or laptop are the most common. Online “books” (like Issuu.com), video, and PowerPoint or flickr.com slideshows have also been used (successfully? you tell me). There are also web-hosted opportunities like VisualCV.com and the portfolio application on LinkedIn.com.

PRO:

1. Fast, inexpensive, and easy to distribute.
2. Can be as simple or complex as desired.
3. Shows an interest in current technologies.
4. Easy to specialize and update for different audiences (subdomains for websites, different online “books”, or customized CD’s for example).
5. Track viewing statistics (Google analytics or included features).
6. Digital media is more environmentally friendly, no trees were harmed, no ink used.
7. A CD or DVD of your work used as a mail-ahead or leave-behind would be able to contain more information than a brochure.

CON:

1. Digital formats are difficult to present in an interview.
2. With a website, you will have to pay for your domain name and hosting.
3. You might not have the right to publicly post all of your images due to copyright and client privacy issues.
4. Difficult to skim. Digital media relies on your audience’s patience with navigation, viewing images online, and reading text.
5. Doing this as the only portfolio format demands that you bring hardware to the meeting. Expect to be asked for a print portfolio.
6. Templates may be easy to use, but can look like others’ sites.
7. Files may be large enough to slow load times, and large pdf files can be difficult to transmit.
8. IF the recipient prints it, they’ll do so with their own ink and paper (and might resent the expense). They will likely be printing your work on 8-1/2 x 11” copy paper with unknown printer settings so the printed result is totally out of your hands.
9. Internet blocking software may prevent viewing. With all the other applications on their desk, will they really work at it?
10. It might not look right on someone else’s computer. Fonts, colors, and layout can shift.
11. They all look the same unless opened. This makes it difficult for your stuff to stand-out among all the others.
12. You probably will not be asked to use your digital know-how as a Landscape Architect.
13. Mailing CD’s that go into the trash, is not environmentally friendly.
14. It is easy to get carried away with the technical stuff and neglect the content.

Printed media:Construction document mini-sets, folded posters and brochures, professionally printed books and booklets, store-bought portfolio covers, hand-made books, cut sheets in folders or boxes, postcard sets, and other package designs are all options, and are often combined as part of a marketing system.

PRO:

1. Can be done with your own computer, and even professional printing is available at a wide variety of price points.
2. Easy to customize.
3. Easier to skim.
4. Easier to present.
5. You control the size, color, weight, and finishes.
6. Print materials are tactile.
7. You will probably be expected to have a printed portfolio for interviews.
8. Your skill with page layout and sequencing may be desirable for producing communication documents for clients.
9. A well-made print portfolio demonstrates attention to detail.
10. “Old school” is not always a bad thing! Think of it as “time-honored”.
11. In this digital age, print materials are becoming more unique and memorable.
12. Your materials (if kept) are visually distinctive and take up space. Out of sight may be out of mind.

CON:

1. Making several copies can get expensive quickly.
2. Customization ease and expense varies widely.
3. Hand-made pieces take time to make; your time.
4. Professional printers may have minimum orders and might charge you for proofs.
5. If you spend a lot of money on a fabulous portfolio, you will not want to lose it or leave it with someone.
6. It is easy to get carried away with the vehicle and neglect the content.
7. Paper shows wear and inks fade. A print portfolio will not last forever.
8. If you go with a particularly inexpensive option, you may be expected to leave it behind, whether you intended to or not.
9. Eek! I recently read about an applicant who housed their portfolio in a slick metal box. When the applicant slid the box across the (very expensive, ebony wood inlaid, one of a kind) conference table, it scarred the table’s surface.

You will find that some interviewers will skim your work in ten seconds and spend the rest of the time focused on the conversation with you. Others will expect you to walk them through your materials one project at a time. If they remember the package/website but not you or your work, it missed the mark. The most important thing that your portfolio needs to do is communicate the qualities that make you the best candidate for the work.

With both digital and print media, you can design pretty much anything you want. Keep in mind that designing the portfolio itself is a design opportunity.

Please send or comment with stories of how your portfolio’s format helped you earn a job or a client, and what additional pros and cons you encountered.

Next time, I will share my favorite 10 (in print) resources for portfolio design.

In the previous post, I wrote about what a portfolio is and listed some audiences you may be trying to impress with it. The portfolio itself is not the whole picture, though.

Regardless of whether you favor an online format or hard-copy portfolio, you will need additional items. Every one of the things mentioned here needs to contain your name and contact information. When viewed together, they are cohesive, and seen individually, they must be able to hold their own. Consider the following list as elements of a marketing system that includes your fabulous new portfolio.

• Cover letter: A cover letter accompanies all marketing material that is sent out, period. In an email, what you say in the body of the email may stand in for the cover letter, or you can attach a separate file for this. I won’t get into cover letter writing here, but think about how it will work and look with your other materials.

• Mail-ahead: In requesting an interview, you may choose to send a brochure, resume, and/or samples of work. Snail mailed or emailed, it must concisely represent your abilities. A business card serves about the same purpose with prospective clients, but may also be combined with other literature.

• Resume: They used to be just words on paper for pretty much everybody. Over the last 20 years or so, resumes from many creative fields have evolved to be visual, blending information with images. Having said that, it is also wise to maintain a separate text-only resume just in case. A text-only resume must be clear enough to read after having been faxed.

• Portfolio: How you would present yours in an interview? Consider whether you would be best represented with a hard copy portfolio, digital portfolio, or both (more on this in future posts). The portfolio should contain more work than the rest of the marketing system elements. If they’ve asked to meet and see your portfolio, show them additional work!

• Leave-behind: After presenting your portfolio (in person or not) this piece can help your interviewer remember who you were. I’m not accusing your audience of short-term memory problems, but with so much competition, a little reminder can’t hurt. Try highlighting accomplishments or memorable images in this piece. It can be anything from an email to a booklet. Feel free to hand your interviewer this item in person at the end of the interview or send it afterwards. A leave-behind could also be used as a follow-up piece, demonstrating that you are really interested.

• Thank you letter: of course you thanked your interviewer for their time, but don’t forget to send a thank you note. People like to be appreciated, and this also serves the purpose of reminding your audience about you. Send one to every person who interviewed you, and please don’t address it “to whom it may concern”. Failure to send a thank you (no matter what happened in the meeting) says a lot about you, so do not neglect to do it!

• Packaging: If you choose to do everything digitally, their computer serves as your packaging. Sending hard copy materials, though, is a different animal. Take a good look at your own mail; you know junk mail when you see it, and you recognize your utility bills without having to pay too much attention. What makes your mailed correspondence stand-out in their mail? Consider whether a hand-written address would mean something different to you than a type-written one, and if so, does your audience likely feel the same? How about if the color of the envelope corresponded to the contents (or not)? Is the paper smooth or rough, glossy or matte, and what does this contribute to the presentation?

• Writing: Blog posts, published articles, your cover letter, resume, practically this whole list counts. In addition to your other tremendous abilities, employers (and clients) want to know that you can communicate both verbally and in writing. They need the assurance that emails from you will be clear and professional. In addition to your grammatical skill, they will learn if you are a positive person or a total downer, if you’ll be considerate or rude. Do you sound like someone they would want to work with? Think about this in conjunction with the next two:

• Online profiles: Everything that is publicly visible is fair game. LinkedIn, Land8, Facebook, etc. Let’s say that you will be applying for your dream job. What will your interviewer find if they Google you? Have your posts in forums been helpful or grumpy? Is your profile public, or is everything private? How much can this person learn about you that you would want them to know? IF they look you up, it is part of your marketing system, like it or not.

• YOU! Last, but most importantly is who you are. Nobody can design marketing materials that represent you better than you can. Letters of recommendation and references will speak to the kind of person you are to work with, but you can’t craft what others will say. As professionals, we must behave like the people we present ourselves as or none of the above matters.

Next time, I will write about some portfolio formats with respect to their pros and cons. As before, please feel free to send me your ideas, opinions, and stories!

Your design portfolio is one of the most unique, important design projects you will undertake. During the span of your career, you will need to put together several, changing the design and the content each time. In the simplest terms, your portfolio is a communication tool – marketing YOU.

If you google “Landscape Architecture” with “design portfolio”, you’ll get others’ online portfolios, and little to zero information about designing your own. Do the same search for graphic art, photography, or pretty much anything else and there are tons of resources. Land8 wanted to change that…..

….SO, in the coming weeks, I will be posting thoughts on portfolios for Landscape Architects. Whether you are working on your first or your twelfth, I sincerely hope that you find these posts a helpful resource.

Square one: in order to design any project, we must know what the project is and who it is for. With this knowledge you can move into the details, so let’s start with the absolute first thing – what is a design portfolio, and who is it for:

What is it? (hint: it should be all of these things)

• A representation of your work and professional experience
• A visual cue about your style, interests, approach, and sophistication
• A demonstration of your tech abilities – software, hard-copy, construction
• An illustration of your creativity and ability to solve this design problem
• A manifestation of your ability to edit, recognize the best, eliminate worst, and put it in an order that makes sense.

Who is it for? (keep the target audience in mind at all times)

• Employers so you get that job!
• Clients
• Grad schools and grant fund managers as part of the application process.
• You, as a record of your best work and a reminder of how far you’ve come.
• Your parents. This one is a little tongue in cheek, but I know I am not alone in having to explain to my parents that I did not go to school all those years to mow lawns.

Next week, I will write about how your portfolio fits into a marketing system.

I encourage everyone to send me your opinions, favorite ideas, and disaster stories; I will keep your feedback for these posts and anything that comes later….

Meet Ryan Skolny (the horizontal dude above) from Reading, PA.  He’s one of the many emerging professionals I met at ASLA’s annual meeting in Phoenix last month.  I met so many enthusiastic people – it was awesome!  I heard from many that they’d taken advantage of the portfolio review service and found the advice very helpful.  I was really glad to hear that and would encourage job seekers considering attending in Boston 2013 to sign up for this service as soon as sign-ups are open as it sounds like the slots fill up fast.  It has taken me nearly a month to get ready to post about the event(s), and I see from my inbox that some other people took the same amount of time to get it together, too. 

I was excited to see something this year that I assume is the revival of a very old tradition (they used to be called visiting cards or calling cards).  These little marvels are almost business cards, but if you’re not currently “in business” (i.e. unemployed), having these seems like a pretty great, inexpensive answer!  What’s the big difference?  The information.  I collected a few; one student made a point of telling me that it was not a business card, but a “contact card”.  Whatever you call it, seems like a good thing to make with the rest of your marketing package. 

So that got me to thinking – not only about what to put on your would-be business card, but what do you do with it, and what about all those business cards you wind up with from an event like the ASLA national conference, and also, how does one go about networking at one of these shin-digs?  I’ll tackle the first question here, and the others in the next post(s).

Of the (specifically non-business) cards I gathered from emerging professionals, the information on the cards was pretty consistent.  Most had a name and email address with one or two other pieces of information and a graphic element.  That was it, but what you include is up to you:

• Name: this is a must, sorry
• Email address: NOT a .edu email address, not current job email (and nothing creepy like “sexxxy_pants@ funtime.biz)
• Phone number: or not if you think handing your personal phone number to strangers is unwise.  You can also try using Google Voice
• Website: for your portfolio or a blog address (if you have one)
• QR code: for said website or blog (consider still including the web address written out for folks without smart phones like me)
• School: where you’re a student or your alma mater and degree you’re working on or have earned
• Mission statement: what you’re looking for, a quote, or some other splurb about you
• Graphic:  logo, doodle, image

Remember, these cards are not ordinary business cards; they’re tiny little design problems looking for your design solution.  They should have some graphic element in common with your other marketing materials (resume, portfolio, letters, etc) and need to be as nice as you can possibly make them.  They should include enough information that someone can find you, and hopefully remember who you were when they met you.

I personally think it is clever to leave enough white space that someone can jot down a note on the card to remind them who you are, or what you said.  This doesn’t work so well if your card has a shiny finish that smudges, so watch out for that.