Portfolio Prep

Ever since I was a sophomore, I heard about senior portfolio and how stressful it was for seniors. I realized how much it was once I finally was a senior. Developing your brand is a lot on its own but add in creating a website, getting business cards, envelopes, and making a physical portfolio and it gets stressful. Back in December, I started putting together what I thought was my best work to put into my portfolio. I tweaked a few of my projects that I wanted to use for my printed portfolio and website. I had issues developing my brand which made me fall behind in the aspect of purchases my stationery pieces. While everyone in my class slowly started to have their business cards and envelopes, it made me start to panic and I ordered them once my brand was finalized. 

Recently, I had a bit of a mini-crisis. I ordered my portfolio book a few weeks ago and it was except to arrive April 24th and we needed it for May 2nd. I got an email April 29th saying it was back ordered and wouldn't be here until May 8 which was cutting it way too close to the actual date of portfolio review. I had to go out and hunt for a portfolio book so I would have one in time to get it ready for actual portfolio review. 

Assembling my physical portfolio was difficult for me. It was hard for me to figure out where I wanted to put each project and how I wanted to talk about them. When it came to the printing process for it, I got two copies of each project to be on the safe side since I am horrible at using an Exacto knife and have a high chance of cutting something that wasn't supposed to be cut. Good thing I got doubles of each, the first two I tried to cut looked like a five-year-old cut them with safety scissors. 

I used mock-ups to display my Mobile and Web-based projects. My poster and print projects were printed how they would be printed if they were being used. I used box and bottle mockups for my package design projects. Each project I printed on 11x17 to fit into my portfolio since most of my work consisted of posters that were 11x17. 

I never realized how much thought and time went into creating your portfolio. It wasn't just throwing together a group of your best projects and showing it to people. Everything you do in your portfolio and prep has a rhyme and reason to it.