Hey hey party people in this video I'm going to critique two portfolios one student portfolio and one professional portfolio Let's start with the student portfolio. The student portfolio was submitted by person named Liv and this is their portfolio for a school to get accepted into a design program and my critique is not going to determine whether or not she gets accepted into this program, but she didn't want to know my thoughts on her work. Liv did send me the list of requirements for her portfolio so I am also critiquing based on how well she fulfilled the requirements the school sent because working designers we're all about you know, can you fulfill the design brief and that's any field fashion graphics all of it Number one on the list of requirements is her CV and earlier work I'm gonna skip the CV I'm not gonna show it either because it has some of our personal information Just be aware that every country has their own rules my only piece of general advice is to if you are going to study abroad or if you're going to Try to get a job in a different country Look up the resume requirements for that country. For example Some countries require a headshot with your resume US companies typically do not so look into that kind of thing. So here's Liv's page two they asked for her earlier work and Look, this mood board It's so pretty. I love this combination of colors and textures so much and I just get this I It's so yummy. I just love looking at it. Her color story follows her mood board, but I wish she had incorporated some of this beautiful rich brown which Really brings her mood board to life. It really kind of pumps up that green In comparison her materials are not as exciting because they're all flat fabrics Whether, I mean, she only has color swatches but lawn and twill they're both pretty flat Not much texture at all, and I got really excited for some textures in this mood board here She has a little collection She shows that she can sew and put garments together Which is an excellent strong suit to showcase Second piece of older work is a prom dress commission and My whole thing is the format is a bit messy I wish the photographs were a lot cleaner. They don't you don't need a professional photographer I see a lot of portfolios and I see people try to include photos of their work and I love that That is definitely a great thing But take the time to take good photos Whether they're on a dress form or you get someone to model for you Just the basics: clean lighting, daylight works the best so you don't need any fancy lights or anything like that and Be in focus. I see a lot of fuzzy photos and This channel has been entirely shot every single video, thumbnail photograph, Instagram pic has been shot by my iPhones so, you know, you don't need a fancy camera You don't need fancy lights. You do need to be in focus. You need clean lighting and you need your photos to be dead-on not this weird angle where the head looks really big or like looking up So the feet are really big and the head looks like no weird angles just really clean photos of your work so I wish this had that and the format Would have been easier to follow if she had gone like left to right We started with sketches we moved on to colors And etc, etc. It's just, just composition in general Readability in general. Number two on the requirements list was create a collection with seven outfits answering the question What do you think will be important within clothing in the future? and in what direction will fashion develop? Liv has a text response here and she talks about sustainability, using recycled eco-friendly materials, making timeless versatile pieces, and durable materials, better production methods, longevity, and quality. I love that answer I think that fashion is going there and if it's not it really should go there I think, one of Liv's strengths is definitely putting together mood board images. This cluster of images is really beautiful The ravens are a little bit random and then she kind of loses me over here But look at these colors How the colors work together how the different textures work together You're, you're really giving me kind of an enticing like I want to look at what clothes come out of these images sort of feel. I love that. We have your color story and I see that you tend to go for a really narrow color story and then some black. The previous one was a lot of greens and then some black and this one is a lot of these creamy rose peachy tones and some black so Consider breaking out of your comfort zone every once in a while in a future collection. I know at this stage you probably don't know a whole lot about fabrics, I know before I went to fashion school I didn't know a whole lot about fabrics, but do try to incorporate fabrics that aren't all flat because You have all of these more simple straightforward silhouettes and I think that you can bring some design interests to these simple shapes with the introduction of a more varied color story and or texture. This is the design development page. You have a fabric sample here But I don't see it in your sketches or your flats, so I don't know how that relates so... When you have a picture of a sample, I think that you had to submit this digitally so you couldn't have a piece of fabric on your thing. So, that's fine but maybe include something for scale so that people can get an idea as to how it would work on the body maybe um a ruler a measuring tape next to it something to show scale. I do like these flats Liv had mentioned that this was her first time doing flats in Illustrator, which I find impressive for the first go. I love that they have put in darts and seams and gathers and really tried to show how these garments will be constructed and yeah, you know I could be really nitpicky and be like Liv, darts are too short and these seams are weird and this one is slightly-- like no. Okay. We are still looking at it in terms of this student She has had some schooling but she is Applying to go and study And so we always have to make sure that we're looking at it in terms of where the student is in their own education overall the collection fits what you set out in the beginning: natural fibers timeless versatile pieces colors that work for every season. So yeah, it's pretty good You know You set out the brief answering the question and then you followed your own brief Number three according to the requirements list pick a material and explore how it could be shaped transformed etc And how it can create awareness for the people wearing it and viewing it. 10 pictures plus write out your reasoning Liv wrote a little bit about the material she chose which is organza and she wrote about how she wants to work with the opacity and work with the volume and like flowiness versus structure all those things and My favorite pieces from the ten are the ones that I feel really show a deliberate design Deliberate being she did it on purpose Regardless of specific aesthetic or style your work should look like you meant to do that I'm a big fan of Bob Ross and happy accidents and all that good stuff, but in general your design should look like It shouldn't look like I have series of happy mistakes. On that note. I think that one and two and five Look a little bit like random scrunching. Four, six and nine look like beautiful garments that are the most wearable depending on how you personally deal with sheer clothes. I really like them. And then... And three Seven, eight and ten look the most like they're garments, but also pushing the boundaries a little bit My personal favorite is eight Number four one croquis sketch and two optional objects. This croquis, she looks like she's going to fall over a little bit cuz she so much of her with her arms like it feels very heavy over here and Then her feet are a little bit too much over here Proportions are pretty good But the anatomy needs work. These are the two optional objects Liv chose and this cactus Illustration is actually quite charming. It's kind of cute. With this glass, the Perspective is wrong Because the way the straw is you see that you're looking down into the cup if you look at the ellipse So you wouldn't see a flat bottom of that glass Again, my critique does not determine whether or not she gets accepted to the school But I really hope she does. I think she shows a lot of potential Especially, her boards are especially great Good luck Liv. Next let's look at the professional portfolio Michelle D'Urbano. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly Michelle is a fashion and textile designer who Specializes in fashion and homewares and interiors and when we were talking via email I did tell her that I was not going to approach the homewares and interiors because that is not my field of expertise. Longtime viewers know my rule: if I don't know about it, I don't talk about it. I do not like to blow sunshine up no one's nowhere. Let's look here The home page is nice. She is a textile designer, so to have this sort of fabric image in the front makes sense to me She has her social media here, little blurb about herself, cum laude congratulations good work and then she has this PDF Journal and I have scrolled through this journal and it's kind of amazing And some people, you know, the interviewers, some people like to look at those process books more than they like the resulting projects. I do think that this file size is a bit much there's a lot of text and I know this is your research but if you are really eager to share it you want to think about your audience and You know, we are not the kind that read big heavy text Not people who are looking for designers to hire. I know that sounds bad, but I'm trying to be realistic. It's not that these job recruiters are unintelligent and can't read It's that they probably get a lot of links a lot of portfolios They're looking at a lot of these and they just don't have the time and energy to read huge volumes. So if you really want people to understand your process, I think you would be better off doing some captions under pictures so that you're explaining the process with visuals to make it really clear. I have a fairly recent laptop and it is not having a fun time Loading this PDF and so it might be worth your while to see if you can reduce the file size and re-upload most importantly I think that instead of having this journal on your home page that it should be attached To the final images for the project. I believe that this journal goes over more than one project and I think that it would serve you well to separate it so that you have the final images for a project and Then underneath you have the link to the PDF with only the pages for process on that project. That might help with the file size and the loading and stuff like that I'm getting all warm thinking about Michelle's work because it's It's beautiful. It's so Beautiful. It's so like ah I will drop a link to her website in my description box below and y'all should go look at it and just I've looked at this several times While preparing for this video and There is just so much good on eye candy And I always end up catching something new because there's so much going on Look at these Illustrations they are so freakin charming. I want to die. Look at them. Look at them. I love it. This is such a great example of how something can be very stylized and yet really clearly communicate the design to us. It's really obvious what's happening with the clothes, but it is a very stylized look. I love it. Those are cool And then she also has photographs with credits that's good of her collection Beautiful textures beautiful colors and then here is her next project. I don't have much to critique on with your work. You show your inspiration you show your process and You follow through and you deliver on some truly beautiful clothes. It is Wearable but not commercial as in you can wear it, but they are very special They are very unique. Michelle, and I say this with love and respect for your work. Your website is really annoying to look at The slow click click click. It's very annoying I want to look at stuff and I don't want someone to tell me in what order to look at things and when I need to look at things and how To look at things. I think that you should format your webpage like this So here's the bar with all your links your header bar. Here's your main image that we're looking at I think you should have a series of thumbnails of all these pages So if someone wants to just go look at your illustrations again they could find the kind of vague thumbnail for your illustrations and click on that and then here you should have a link to the journal to show your process for that particular and This is a more professional easy to read Organization of your website That's what I think and then you should have it set up like this for all of your projects instead of having them all Stacked behind each other. So here's your sketches and illustrations. Here are your botanicals and These are too big in my opinion, I think that you should be able to see the entire image in one scroll. You shouldn't have to scroll to see, like this is a good size. You see the entire image on the screen at one time beautiful work though Miscellaneous. I don't think you need this miscellaneous stuff. Your work is on another level when I look at your finished projects I'm like wow hire her right now, but these do not add to that elevated level, that elevated design eye that you showed in your projects. More sketches and I also believe that These do not add anything, they do not bolster your reputation as a great designer. So this is older work I love this. The format is nice You can see each textile Works for me you have some cool work here. But again, they should be sized like this You can see the whole image in one go I don't know why this fashion project is hidden in the "More" section. This is fall/winter 16/17--that's not that old. You can have another tab up here for that. There's the CV. I would recommend that you have it on the website and not just as a downloadable doc Press: perfect show off what you've done and contact and you might think it's nitpicking at this point but I don't like this going back and forth all caps and then not all caps Just, it's just another thing that adds to the inconsistency and disorganization of the website Overall, I think the work is beautiful Michelle. The work is intriguing. I keep looking. I keep clicking Even though it's so annoying because it's beautiful but you know, not everyone is gonna be as patient as I am So, please do your work a favor and think about reorganizing your website. A few wrap-up notes: number one: if you choose to comment or ask a question to the two people that submitted their portfolios today, I want you to keep in mind that it's a scary thing to submit work to a big audience for someone, basically a stranger, to critique it. So have some respect for the people who submitted work and please be kind and respectful in your comments to them Number two: I do not do private critique. I do video critique like this. Right now I have enough portfolio submissions for until the end of 2018. If you would like to submit your work for a 2019 review Drop me an email at teaching@zoehong.com. If your website is online, send me a link. If your work is in PDF format, do not send me work in your original email. Please like this video if you learned something new today Please give some props to Liv and Michelle for sharing their awesome work with us and creating this learning opportunity for the rest of you Share, subscribe, you know, click that notification bell All those good things and I will see you in the next video
