All New Portfolio With A Couple Of New Samples...

[Guest barefootcreative]

latest note is down at the lower end of this thread...

 

or just follow the link and comment from the bottom up: http://duncanmckean.co.uk

[Cyberdemon 17]

I wrote out a long response yesterday and it looks like it got erased so I'll try and remember what I wrote.

 

Overall I think the quality of the work is probably decent for someone whos only got 2 years experience, and you do a pretty good job of showing a broad range of skills (CAD, sketching, etc).

 

My biggest concern in regard to formatting on the PDF: Lose all those background images. Your eye likes having some whitespace to work with, and the backgrounds on each page are just making the pages seem super busy.

You usually want to layer your information with the most important stuff biggest so your eye goes to it first, and then have some smaller stuff of lesser importance. Helps tell the story of the project.

[Cyberdemon 17]

I don't know if you need to show a cad rendering for every one, I would just show whatever your strongest rendering is. I think the phone does a pretty good job of that, if anything I would remove some of the detail views (maybe leave the big front view, the camera and one of the other details) because you don't need to show every side of the model, most of it ends up just being repeated.

 

You want each project to have a strong part that you show the most prominentely if the most important part of one project was the prototypes (cause you made a ton of them or they were really good models) then show those. Likewise if you made a bunch of models that weren't so hot, don't bother.

 

You want your short portfolio to say "These are the projects I've done, these are the skills I have, and heres an example showing I can develop a project from the problem to the final product". If thats good enough to land you the interview, then you can show them renderings you did for each project and more detail.

 

Being smart about what you show and also being concise is very important. Designers have VERY short attention spans. You want to be able to wow them to make your folio stand out amongst the other people in the "pile" and then have enough depth to show what you're capable of, even if it's a weaker area.

[Guest lock 1985]

I am currently on my placement now and I look at some of the CV's coming through the office. Whilst your CV is very well presented and professional looking it looks as though you are a company. In my experience its good to have well presented cv but dont go over the top, eg your header looks too big taking up around 1/5th of the page. I would also suggest you cut it down to 2 pages as you probably dont need to go into so much detail in the description of the thumbnails.

 

However its a hell of alot better than most of the crap that gets sent out. My advise if you cant get a placement is to just apply to anything and everything, you'll probally get better experience working for a small firm rather than a big company.

[Guest antidesign]

A number of things

 

I would say if you were to ask me a straight question, as a general rule, when all said and done, its probably true to say that you should cut out the padding and repetition in a potfolio.

 

The Teaser seems to be a hybrid between a portfolio and a CV. In a portfolio the images and the concepts should be paramount. You didn't repeat anything other than the border which is still huge. One of our tecturers used to tell us to image what it would look like if it was photocopied several times.

 

Cyberdemon is right designers have short attention spans and so do clients. They need to understand a concept/form/product quickly without confusion. That means generally having one 'headline' image and then some smaller side views or detail of operation and maybe a mood image and some graphics to tie the boards together. Also agree with Cyberdemon, white (or black) space is your friend.

 

There is a lot of diverse stuff on Coroflot, which may be better kept for another site. If you want to be a product designer be a product designer (or graphic or whatever). Reduce the amount of personnalisation (in my opinion) you're colleages may or may not be interested in your choice of reading material at a later date.

 

The phone is good.. Some of the packaging sketches look good but the final photo of the model is dissapointing. Grubby sketches are also a turn off. Open Photoshop and press 'Ctrl L' then play around with the controls until it looks right.

 

Personnally I enjoyed reading the list on the index of stuff on your site. Actually the front page is great but there is possibly more information than an emplyer would want. Also the Hunter S. Thompson Illi is awsome. Can you do something like that to illustrate how your designs work?

 

Lastly how's the weather over there? I miss the Bristol area. I think also that someone I worked for is one of you're lecturers at UWE. He used to go there on a Friday.

 

Ciao

 

David

[Guest barefootcreative]

okay...

 

 

new images and profile:

http://duncanmckean.co.uk

http://coroflot.com/duncanmckean

 

can i have some feedback please?

cheers,

D

[parel 2]

I really like the cover. Has a very professional graphic designer feel to it.

The rest of the portfolio needs a little more organization. Feels a little chaotic and a little too rough around the edges.

I really like the page on the May traffic map. Not sure how relevant it is- but it was visually interesting.

The sketches need a little more polish I am afraid.

The hero shots of the phone are nice.

[Guest barefootcreative]

thought you might say that about the sketches. its on my list to practice...