Portfolio Reviews: soak it in.

Last week, a slew of professional and accomplished graphic designers from around Vancouver Island came in to our marketing class to review our portfolios. We are spending the semester learning how to brand ourselves, which is absolutely fantastic. The practicality and real life skills that I've gained over the last few years is worth any amount of tuition (although university costs in Canada are a whole different blog post..).

In any case, the feedback that I received was nothing short of amazing. I left the class with my head so swollen with compliments that I'm surprised I made it through the door. I had a lot to show, which always feels good, but I could tell that each designer who came around to look at my work was visibly impressed with the breadth of my work, the fact that nearly all of my portfolio is actually client work as opposed to student work, and the amount of physical pieces that I had. Although I spent quite a bit of time compiling digital work on my computer, the physical prints I brought certainly stole the show. 

In particular, all the reviewers were extremely impressed by my work with Rewild Homes. I've been working more passionately and with more dedication on Rewild than anything else I've done over my entire design career. Having two consecutive years of Portal Magazine was great too, even though it's not the most cutting-edge design, because they said that it showed my ability to handle large documents and follow through to print. 

The spice packages were a big hit too. I got some really great feedback on how to take my display photos to the next level though - stop photographing them on white backgrounds. Sure, it looks nice, but it also screams student work. Rather, align the packages on a nice countertop and photograph them there. I'm going to do that over this semester with all of my work. High-ho silver, away!