Monthly Archives: March 2013

Digital Portfolio Resources

Excerpts from the book “Creating Your Digital Portfolio: The Essential Guide to Showcasing Your Design Work Online” by Ian Clazie:

Design resources

Technical resources

Free services

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Avoid common presentation mistakes

Excerpts from the book “Creating Your Digital Portfolio: The Essential Guide to Showcasing Your Design Work Online” by Ian Clazie:

“Here are the common mistakes when presenting a portfolio and some suggestions on how to avoid them:

  • Don’t be clueless about the role and the company. Do your homework. Review the company’s website and what people are saying about them.
  • Don’t get lost on your way to a meeting and don’t be late. Be prepared ahead of time with adequate directions and aim to get to the area early. Get a coffee so you only have to stroll across the road.
  • Don’t rely on the reviewer having a computer or an internet connection you can access. Have your entire portfolio site or simply your work samples available on a laptop without needing an internet connection.
  • Don’t talk too fast or give excessively long answers to questions. Relax. Breathe calmly. Give relatively short answers to questions. Allow the reviewer to talk and listen intently.
  • Don’t be overly negative about past employers as it may reveal that you’re a magnet for controversy. Do discuss past situations in terms of challenges and the steps you took to put in place solutions to overcome them. Emphasize the positive.
  • Don’t forget that you are the one driving the presentation of your portfolio. Be the one to set the pace and tell your story.

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Questions to ask in interviews

Excerpts from the book “Creating Your Digital Portfolio: The Essential Guide to Showcasing Your Design Work Online” by Ian Clazie:

“Asking good questions in an interview or business meeting achieves three key things:

  1. Good questions create good answers. The knowledge you gain will benefit you later.
  2. You can demonstrate that you have done your homework and are interested in the business and the individual.
  3. You can communicate that you are evaluating your interviewers just as they are evaluating you. This is a two-way dialog, so asking the right questions can help level up the perceived power balance to some degree.

…here are some common questions that can lead to interesting information and discussion. General questions to ask employers of creative professionals when seeking contract work or permanent employment:

“What’s a day in the life like for the role you’re trying to fill?”

“What’s your favorite project the company has worked on/delivered in recent memory and why?”

“What, in your opinion, is the company’s crowning achievement?”

“How do you describe what the company does when pressed to do so in as few words as possible?”

“What is the single most exciting creative trend or innovation that the company has its eye on at the moment?”

“Who do you consider to be your competition and what companies do you admire?”

These questions are all conversation starters and typically can’t be answered with one or two words. Getting them talking is a good thing. Practice being a good listener and take it all in. Continue reading →

Biography and resumé tips

Excerpts from the book “Creating Your Digital Portfolio: The Essential Guide to Showcasing Your Design Work Online” by Ian Clazie:

“In website speak, your ‘bio’ or biography will generally sit on a page called ‘About’. This page can contain a number of elements for fleshing out your profile. A short bio or description of your experience, skills, and current status (are you looking for work and if so what kind?) is the standard core content for your ‘About’ page. If you want to put a face to the name you can include a profile photo. Clear links to your detailed work history in the form of a resumé are also at home here, as well as a list of awards and honors. This is the place to display those trophies you’ve collected.

Remember to convey a positive and friendly but professional tone. As always, proofread your writing to avoid mistakes. If you decide to include a photo, make it a good one that says something about you. If you are open and outgoing, choose a portrait style that conveys this.

Including your resumé is important if your objective is to find employment. Potential employers will definitely want to check your work experience and education, along with information on referrals. If you are positioning yourself as a business, however, a resumé can be a confusing inclusion. More appropriate in this case may be a list of past and present clients and relevant credentials.

A common way to include your resumé that ensures ease of printing is to link to it as a PDF in a new window. Be sure to give an indication near the link that this is what visitors can expect when they click.

The popular career networking service LinkedIn is another good option for presenting your resumé. Simply sign up for your free account if you don’t already have one, fill in your profile details, and link to your profile from your ‘About’ page.

Lastly, remember to provide a prominent link to your contact information, as this is one of the key functions of your site — allowing interested people to get in touch with you.”

Interview Tips

As we continue in the internship hunting season, I’ll try to post some relevant advice! The following is from the book “How to be a graphic designer, without losing your soul” by Adrian Shaughnessy under the subheading “What do employers really want?” (page 48):

 

“In the intimate and psychologically revealing space of a design studio, we have to “get on” with the people we work with. Keep this in mind when you are being interviewed. Look for ways to reassure a prospective interviewer that you are hard-working, adaptable, and socially well-adjusted. There is no need to bang on about your talent — an experienced designer will be able to assess your merits as a designer within a few seconds of opening your portfolio. Assessing your personality is harder — the least you can do is help. Stress that you don’t mind doing the dreary stuff and that you are happy to assist the senior designers; show a willingness to understand the studio’s culture; show that you already know something about the studio’s work; and most importantly, trust your personality, and trust your work.

Learn to enjoy interviews. View them as precious opportunities to study the thinking and working process of designers and studios; as opportunities to have your work critiqued by your peers; as ways of measuring your progress. Don’t be afraid to ask for a blunt assessment of your work, and if the comments seem valid and worthwhile, act on them quickly.”

Work Less and Do More by Applying the Pareto Principle to Your Task List

No idea how effective this is, but couldn’t hurt to learn another time management tip!

[Excerpts from “Work Less and Do More by Applying the Pareto Principle to Your Task List” by Melanie Pinola]:

The Pareto Principle says that in most situations roughly 80% of effects come from only 20% of the causes. We can use the Pareto Principle to better manage our time and focus on the things on our task list that really make a difference.

Harvard Business Review notes that practically everything is unimportant. The Pareto Principle has been applied to almost every human endeavor, from software development to investing. (Two examples: 90% of Warren Buffet’s wealth is from just ten investments and, in sales, typically 80% of revenue comes from 20% of the sales team.)

Looking at our own productivity from the lens of this “law of the vital few,” we can cut the 80% of our tasks or projects that are unimportant or don’t contribute to our end goals.

You can use the 80/20 rule to cut out or delegate categories of tasks or focus on individual to-dos:

HBR suggests writing down your top six priorities of the day—and then crossing out the bottom five. Work on the top one for 90-minutes first thing in the morning. Every time you’re about to waste time on things like Twitter or checking email, write down what you are about to do (to stop you in your tracks).

If you have trouble prioritizing your tasks, the Inc. business blog suggests another strategy:

“When you make a “to do” list, prioritize each item by the amount of effort required (1 to 10, with 1 being the least amount of effort) and the potential positive results (1 to 10, with 10 being the highest impact.)

Now divide the potential results by the amount of effort to get a “priority” ranking. Do the items with the lowest resulting priority number first. Here’s a simple example:

  • Task 1: Write report on trip meeting.
    Effort=10, Result=2, Priority=5
  • Task 2: Prepare presentation for marketing.
    Effort=4, Result=4, Priority=1
  • Task 3: Call current customer about referral.
    Effort=1, Result=10, Priority=0.1

See your new priority-based order? You do Task 3 first, Task 2 second, and Task 1 last–if at all.”

This way, you ensure you do those important low-effort tasks that make up 80% of your success.

The Unimportance of Practically Everything | Harvard Business Review

Surprising Secret to Time Management | Inc.

Evernote Tips

[Excerpts from “I’ve Been Using Evernote All Wrong. Here’s Why It’s Actually Amazing” by Whitson Gordon]

“For years, I kept hearing how awesome Evernote was: how it could store everything you possibly needed, make it available everywhere, and how scores of people couldn’t live without it. I tried it multiple times, and never saw the appeal until now. Here’s what I was missing.

Any time we talk about Evernote, a good number of you say the same thing: you’ve tried it time and time again, but you could never really “get into it.” I was in the same camp, but after reading the other side’s experiences in this article and its comments, I decided to give it another shot. If you’re like I was and haven’t yet experienced the greatness of Evernote, here are some things you should try.

The More You Add, the More Useful Evernote Becomes

Let’s start with the most important trick: In order to see why everyone likes Evernote, it’s important to take advantage of everything it has to offer (rather than use it as just another note taker). Reader ppdd says it best:

“The key to Evernote is to commit to it and jump in with both feet. It’s pretty rotten if you’re just using it for a few isolated tasks, because absolutely, it doesn’t do any one thing perfectly and it’s not as fast as other apps.

It really starts to show its brilliance once you start using it as your default bookmark/webclip app, notetaker, recipe box, repository of all your reference material, and so on. It’s great to have ALL the information you need indexed and searchable across every single platform you have. I love opening it up in a meeting and recording the meeting audio right along with my typed notes on my iPad. If I miss something (entirely possible while pecking things out on a glass screen) I can always return to it after the meeting.”

So, if you want to give Evernote another shot, try putting everything in it that you want to hang onto. The more you add, the more useful Evernote becomes. Here are a few examples of what you could do.  Continue reading →

How to Present Your Creative Portfolio

“Stack the deck in your favor. Expressing yourself will be a lot easier if you fill your book with samples that have good stories behind them… think about situations in which you were able to solve business problems, overcome creative challenges or generate positive results despite limited resources. As you consider which items to include, ask yourself the following questions about each one:

  • How relevant is this piece to the prospective employer’s needs?
  • What was the business objective, and how did this piece solve it?
  • How were the results measured? Is there any quantifiable data I can share?
  • Are there any aspects of this project that make it especially memorable or interesting?

Get your story straight. Of course, not all stories will have such a wow factor. Even if you don’t have heroic tales to tell, you still can impress prospective employers by discussing how your work has made a difference—for example, a business problem you helped solve.

Many people are hesitant to discuss their successes because it feels like bragging. To overcome this stumbling block, Ilise Benun, author of Stop Pushing Me Around: A Workplace Guide for the Timid, Shy and Less Assertive, suggests making a distinction between yourself and the work, and then centering the conversation only on the work.

“It’s a bit of a mind game, but start by avoiding the word ‘I,’” she explains. “Instead, start your sentences with ‘my clients’ or ‘my projects,’ and then focus on what you did and the results it generated.”

Example: You might say: “My clients wanted an entirely different look that would appeal to a younger demographic, and this web design met that objective. In fact, traffic from the target audience increased by 25 percent after it launched.”

Then, fill in the details by describing the decisions you made that led to the outcome. Connecting the dots from your choices to the results is key, says Stefan Mumaw, creative director at Callahan Creek and author ofCaffeine for the Creative Mind.

Consider the factors that excite you about a particular project: Was it that you were able to learn a skill, work with someone you admire or tackle a new challenge? When you talk about what inspires you, your enthusiasm naturally shines through.

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11 Nuggets Of Advice For Design Students, Direct From The Pros

 

  1. Stefan Sagmeister (New York, U.S.): “Work your ass off + Don’t be an asshole”
  2. Urs Lehni (Lehni-Trüb/Rollo Press/Corner College, Zurich, Switzerland): “Design is a lot of work’ (Cornel Windlin) + Don’t be late (again)”
  3. Paul Barnes (London, U.K.): “Look at the books in the library + Don’t expect to get your way at all times”
  4. Maki Suzuki (Abake, London, U.K.): “Try everything + Don’t read, watch, look at design compilation books or blogs”
  5. Matthias Görlich (Studio Matthias Görlich, Darmstadt, Germany): “Find it out for yourself + There are easier ways to earn money, honestly”
  6. Margaret Calvert (London, U.K.): “Enjoy + Don’t waste time” Liza Enebeis (Studio Dumbar, Rotterdam, Netherlands): “Whatever you do, explore the extremes, and don’t lose your sense of humour + If there is something else you want to do apart from design then do something else”
  7. Jan Wilker (karlssonwilker, New York, U.S.): “You suck–use this status wisely, then it’s only temporary + It’s a long-distance run, not a sprint”
  8. Isabelle Swiderski (Seven25, Vancouer, Canada): “Sketch, sketch, sketch + Don’t fall in love with your ideas”
  9. Fons Hickmann (Fons Hickmann m23, Berlin, Germany): “Be curious + Be afraid but go for it nonetheless”
  10. Daniel Eatock (London, UK): “Explore, invent + Scalpels are very sharp”
  11. Brian Webb (Webb & Webb, London, U.K.): “Don’t ever apologize for a job + If you’re not enjoying it, don’t do it”

 

Buy the book “I Used to Be a Design Student: 50 Graphic Designers Then and Now” here.

Source: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671972/11-nuggets-of-advice-for-design-students-direct-from-the-pros