#16 - Practical Teachings N.01
An exercise that made me learn so much so quick
I know there’s quite a lot of junior designers and students here, let’s quickly poll it just for sake of data:
If you’re answer is mid or senior, WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING HERE????
Got nothing to teach anyone, I’m just here sharing the tips and tricks I would’ve loved to receive when I was the student.
If you’re a jr or a student, I’m here for you.
Does your uni portfolio suck? NO SHIT.
Uni is not (or at least rarely) structured and imagined to really get you ready with a workable portfolio by the end. Some say they do, but I have SEEN portfolios, and there’s rarely workable stuff there. Not your fault. Not a diss. Just stating facts.
Do I have a magic trick to create an incredible portfolio? not really, but I did have to work on an exercise that has helped me sharpen my branding skills and confidence quite much.
I have never really bothered with branding, it’s hard, it’s often the chaotic-est and most emotional phase of identities (for client) and I rarely have the patience or care for it.
Said that – since joining ALT (and before that as their contractor designer) – I had to work on this “exercise” and I would love to prompt you to do the same if you want more portfolio without the pressure and compromise of free real work, and without the whole competition style mockery.
Before ppl come to my throat:
YES, real work is best in portfolio, but BAD real work is not. So unless you can land a cool collab where you can ACTUALLY have free reign, a somehow badly compromised branding for your aunt won’t help. You want your portfolio to show who you are as a designer.
So to get to the point.
Conceptual work is great, there’s no shame in it and even the Big Dogs do it. I think it’s great for many reasons. First being - as you can imagine - there’s no client to battle with, you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT. You will never have to make the logo bigger!!!!!! It’s the perfect chance to work on something exactly as you wish, in the time you have, and with an imaginary unlimited production budget.
But the exercise I want to suggest narrows it all down a notch as I do think having SOME sort of limit helps express creativity and sharpen skills.
THE EXERCISE
Pick a typeface you love/a popular one/one a friend designed.
Look at it really well, from any angle, imagine all of its personalities.
OK, now I want you to design 5 x 5-10 imgs case study for a brand using this typeface (you can use a supporting typeface ONLY for secondary bits and details)
When I first sat down to do this for ALT Riviera and especially ALT Maria Clara, it was such a fun process of slowly getting to actually SEE the typefaces, in all their angles and interpretations, and it was quite a fun way to test the limits of how far from my comfort zone I could push myself. This was not necessarily a typeface I would’ve picked for a design job, so this made it even more challenging.
I’ll leave some examples using ALT MC here for accountability and to show you what I mean:
I think these can look a lot better in a portfolio than silly uni projects + you’re in more control than those “prompt generator” or “fake client” as you can actually create something you’d be proud and happy to show in a portfolio.
I can personally see how these helped me work on a set of skills I never really cared for or worked on + posting these actually landed me a couple logo/branding jobs, which is always a plus.
If you’re not into branding, I’m sure you can apply this to different skillsets, eg imagine 5 books, 5 exhibitions, 5 websites/apps etc. I want you to take this idea and make it work FOR you.
Some assets if you don’t know where to start:
MOCKUPS
benditomockup.com
mockup.maison
supply.family
artdirected.design
mockupworld.co
mockups-design.com
unblast.com
mrmockup.com
goodmockups.com
pixelbuddha.net
ICONS/VECTORS
publicdomainvectors.org
flaticon.com
iconfinder.com
icons8.com
thenounproject.com
IMAGES
are.na/jack-f/pubdomordie
unsplash.com
free-images.com
loc.gov/free-to-use/
pexels.com/public-domain-images/
rawpixel.com/public-domain
publicdomainreview.org/collections/
Si.edu/openaccess
digitalcollections.nypl.org
openverse.org
Have fun!
XO
G