What Firms Are Looking For in Student Portfolios

[Juan Antonio Lopez]

Hi,  I am currently a 4th year undergraduate of Landscape Architecture at Cal Poly Pomona and I was wondering what exactly firms are looking for in a student’s portfolio.  Also what can I do get an edge over other applicants.  Do firms prefer more digital or hand drawn work?  What about group work?  Thanks for taking the time to answer.

[Clayton H. Dent]

When I interviewed for my internship which I’m doing right now, it seemed that they looked for a variety of all that. Shows that you are not just one dimensional. Group work shows that you can work with others which i good, and i used both digital and hand drawn drawings as well as show models and how you can take a project from start to finish. A lot of it kind of depends on the firm though. I’m only doing hand drawings for this firm, so they probably did not care about my computer work to much. But for the edge, just be able to show as much experience with as many things as you can.

[Daniel Miller]

When I finished up at CPP I had a wide array of projects — ranging from 1st year VoF to 4th year senior projects. It doesn’t/didn’t matter what format or medium the original project was done in, but in my opinion you’re better off laying it out in InDesign or a program you’re comfortable with and creating a solid package that you can present to potential employers. Your portfolio is only as strong as your weakest piece, unfortunately I’ve seen a lot of people with decent layouts, but they didn’t create projects that were “portfolio worthy” while they originally doing them. Most firms aren’t going to expect that you’re going to be super proficient in Cad or InDesign coming right out of school, but they’d probably like to know that you’re familiar with it and can be an asset to their firm.

[Lucy Wang]

I’m a student too so I can’t give you advice on what most LA firms are looking for right now but I thought that this article might be of use to you. http://www.studiomezz.com/10-inspirational-resources-for-print-digi… The first couple of links will take you to print landscape architecture portfolios. I highly suggest checking out Lulu and Issuu first.

There are definitely some outstanding portfolios and some less than stellar ones. Try going through these portfolios as if you were in the employer’s shoes. Which portfolios stand out to you? Who out of these would you hire? After you narrow it down, figure out what it is about these portfolios that you like so much: quality of work? diversity of skills? show of personality? clean look?

For example, after having gone through a dozen of these portfolios, I made a list of characteristics that I personally preferred. For instance, shorter is better because those that try to display every little project the student has done feels like a lot of filler and takes a very long time to download. Sometimes I didn’t even finish these portfolios because it was just so long. Portfolios that start and end strong with a consistent, unifying theme also caught my eye. Students who made personal logos or created their own website (with a purchased domain, not freewebs) often had impressive portfolios as well. Oh, and one other thing I noticed:

People who are really good in one particular area but mediocre to good in most other areas did best when they played up that one particular skill. If it’s impressive and you weave it throughout the portfolio it sticks with the viewer. I’ve seen some portfolios where the artist shows amazing skill in X skill (like watercolor) but only included one such example.

[Juan Antonio Lopez]

Thanks so much! Appreciate you taking the time.

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