Portfolio Critique Thread

[Daniel Radai]

Hello, I am a graduate from Hungary. This is the first version of my portfolio and i would be grateful for some comments, critiques! Thanks in advance!:)

[Chuck B. Edwards]

Hello all – here is my latest portfolio. Let me know what you think?

The portfolio includes write-ups on selected projects and provided links for more info on the project. I am not sure if I am just showing too mulch fluff and not enough detail and concept stuff.

Thanks,

Chuck

[Ryan Sand]

You have some clean graphics that resemble the white clean plans of professional firms.  However It is hard for me to really focus on where I should start aside from the introduction pages to each project.

1) there is a lot of text off the bat on the first page of each project.  It is hard for one to want to spend time reading all of it.  Take some of the text and place it next to the image it correlates with.  remember the 3-30-3 rule and think will they spend 3 min reading all of this, and if they do will they have a chance to check out the imagery.

2) enjoy the aesthetic principle of white space.  To not entirely fill the page means not only a legible layout but also that you reviewed your work and weren’t attempting to smash everything in at once.  I can see your work resembles a process, however I cannot decipher what that process is through all the imagery unless it is limited to a few images.  One way to do this is to look and see which images are similar to something you’ve already “said” (for example in the first project you include a site plan 3x and 2 of them take about 1/4 a spread).  

3) hierarchy:  for pages like your analysis spread, remember you included those to express your thought process not necesarily a set of attractive images.  If you built those models, I recomend highlighting those as people rarely build anything by hand anymore (due to digital options)

4) Begin and end with strong material, the first and last thing they should be able to retain should be strong work and a last impression is always important.

Overall you have some very attractive items and I would use your designers eye in everything from, is this image important to the story of the project and my process? to how much will they be able to really retain?.

 

[Ryan Sand]

1) Clean design layouts:  I would recommend having a consistent layout base. (rule of 3rds, clean lines (ex recommendation: on the “open space design” give the text the same height as the plan.  Blow one perspective up and include a few small ones to support a detail? 

2) Negative Space: With a clean layout, include negative space, allowing the reader to breathe as well as sense the hierarchy of your work.  

3) Highlight Construction: You took a risk and built something you designed I think that is valuable and I would recommend you show a plan model and then highlight the project you built with your hands more so.  Demonstrate your designers eye with photography and take some great attractive photos of your human scale “model”(landscape).

4) What is your passion/what do you want to do? As graphics are always able to be developed it is the person behind the pencil/mouse that gets the project done and takes it to a new level.  Why do you enjoy landscape architecture, how do your projects demonstrate what you do?

 

[Ryan Sand]

As you have a lot of built work and it seems that is a pride of yours, show how detailed your design is by taking strong detail photos (similar to the waterfall you did on the outdoor kitchen.  The fact that it was built shows you had all the papers drawn out to the needed quality.  

If you are interested in process, include a good quality masterplan drawing and as students would use a sketch up model use your built work as the perspective… 

Are you showing this to employers or clients, include some space in your “construction drawings” and color graphics pages and tell them what is important about your ability to communicate, your medium, or even what clients respond best to… your experience?

[Ryan Sand]

I thought since I commented on a few, I’d throw my portfolio into the shredder to get torn apart.

Due to size restrictions (which I guess I need to tackle) I cut a few pages out in the middle as well as the intro and back cover pages.  I’m not too worried as they are personal pages.

Let me know your insight on

a) the understanding of the project and how the imagery assists in explaining it.

b) quality of graphics and style (are they professional quality)

c) the portfolio as a strong representation as my person as well as work quality.

Thanks for your time
Ryan

[Mary Dubyaga (Koryaka)]

hi, 

your portfolio looks nice, a good scope of work is presented, but there is no structure to the book. You should organize it somehow or categorize the projects. It seems just like a collection of random works.

[Chuck B. Edwards]

Ryan,
Thanks for the feedback. This is my portfolio I typically share with Architects and Builders that specialize in High-end residential projects – as that is what I typically specialize in.

I kind of went back and forth to show some more construction drawings, but after reviewing all the comments on this thread, I thought it would be useful to show the built pictures – as they pop a little more than a BW detail.

For the color graphics page, I wanted to highlight the different mediums that I have used before — freehand rendering, SketchUp (with and without Shaderlight) and Land Designer Photo Imaging. I can see how it could be useful to label the images and the medium used on this sheet.

I didn’t include overview perspectives on each project because of the space limitation and how the perspective would read on each page – instead I tried to pick the best pictures of the projects than I provided links that follow each project from concept drawings (including overall perspectives) built pictures. I hope that makes sense and that the portfolio reads well.

Thanks,
Chuck

[Ryan Sand]

Can you expand on that a bit more? I have always seen a work sample as a collection of various works.  Do they not seem Landscape Architecture related?  Is it the formatting that doesn’t seem consistent?  A page before the table of contents not included mentions the various scales of design and correlates with the scale identification in the background of each project, it may be possible I didn’t express this efficiently?  Attached below are the introductory pages, do these help at all?.  Thanks for your time.

[Mary Dubyaga (Koryaka)]

Ryan, I thought I was commenting on the very first portfolio of the person who opened this topic. Sorry for confusing you.

I didn’t see the most recent comments.

But if you still want my feedback, yours does have a structure . “The scale of projects ” seems like a good organization strategy to me.

And the “graphic movement” presentation is very appropriate, where you have the collage of sketches. 

Great job! How long did it take you to create your portfolio?

 

 

 

[Daniel Radai]

Hey Ryan,

Thx for your time & comments, I will keep them in mind for the 2nd version!

Another waterpolo player;)

[Ryan Sand]

Thank you,  The concept of the portfolio has been evolving since I graduated.  It was my goal to create a portfolio that not only could be used as a review of my work but also an educational exploration (scale/design).  I couldn’t really tell you how long it took to create the portfolio itself.  Just as I think everyones occurs, work comes in and work goes out, the most important and hardest is playing triage with work  samples.

[Tim Zhang]

Thanks for your response, I never heard of Mac before your post, I’ll look into it. You’re responding to my portfolio I posted over a year ago when I was a few months out of school, hence the school projects in the portfolio. I did finally get a job a month after I posted it because of the helpful community on this forum.

[Daniel Radai]

Maybe a dumb question, but I am curious about it for a while, so how do you Guys usually compress your folios? Which method turned out to be the best? E.g. I usually make a png out of a single pdf and then create a pdf out of them! But sometime I can lose some quality.. Thank you for sharing! 

[Chuck B. Edwards]

Daniel,

Mine was pretty simple – (I don’t have some of the fancy graphics that some of the other members have) – but I still think it reads OK.

I sketched out my layout first, to get the general concept. I picked the projects and images I wanted to use. I then edited the photos (JPG). I tried to keep the images as small as I could, but still be clear.

I Then made my layout in Word, inserted the images and saved it as a PDF. The word document was over 9MB, but when I converted to PDF it ended up being 4 MB. I hope this helped.

This is my attempt –

[Author]

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