51 replies to this topic

[Cyberdemon]

15? You easily do better work then 80% of my college's graduating class.

While no one particularly area blows me away, there is a consistent level of quality throughout the entire project. You clearly identify the problem, your sketches are great for someone your age, the renderings are great for someone of any age, and the graphic layout of the pages is clean, well laid out, and easy to read.

If you're this good now, I can only imagine how good you'd be after 4 years of design school. You're already ahead of the game, but you need the degree to really go anywhere in the design world. Design school will also help you learn about lots of other related issues like human factors, design research, and manufacturing.

Welcome to the site, and keep working at it. If you're lucky enough to be that good at your age any design school would be crazy not to accept you.

[Cyberdemon]

Question for you: Are you at a more art oriented school? Or do you do all of this just for fun?

Nice graphic. You should finish it the way you planned so you can stick it into a portfolio.

[Cyberdemon]

I wouldn't worry about a portfolio just yet. Really a portfolio is just all your work put into one place. Since you're not applying for jobs (and many schools don't require one for admissions) theres no reason to try and put one together.

You can always put the stuff you've done up on Coroflot.com, thats the easiest place to keep it all in a central location. Most people don't really have a portfolio till their 2nd/3rd years of college when they have to start applying for internships.

[Cyberdemon]

It depends on the school. Schools that are more art based usually require a portfolio, but it's usually fairly vague and based more around traditional art. Design schools generally don't expect you to be designers when you come in as freshmen, but they want to see you have a core art foundation to work from.

More technical ID programs usually don't require that.

Either way, an entry portfolio to school is usually to show you have those core skills (which you clearly do and then some). A portfolio to get a job has more of a focus on things like your ability to generate ideas and present them clearly vs. the ability to draw nice pictures.

Either way if you're only in 10th grade college is still a long ways away. Don't sweat it, just have fun and keep working on projects and the portfolio will build itself.

[Cyberdemon]

As far as portfolios go, you're generally right, but like I said every school is different. Since I don't think design is really part of any high school curriculum, usually those portfolios are looking more for core artistic skills. You can probably wow them with design work in there, but I'm sure they'll also want to see things like figure drawings, still life, scuplture, etc.

I don't think you need to do anything a year early, you might be thinking of early admission/early decision, which is what some students do to try and secure their place at their top choice school. Basically that says "I'm applying extra early cause I want to go here, and if I get accepted I'm definately going". Ensures them that if they offer you a spot, they get your money. That also varies between schools though. If you have certain schools you're interested in then check out their websites, they'll have the whole admissions process. I don't think you have to start worrying until the end of 11th grade though.

I didn't get into the ID program I applied to that required a portfolio...of course that might have been due to the fact that my teacher didn't know how to work her camera, so all of the slides we had to send (before the glory days of the PDF file) were out of focus, or in focus but taken with a $10 disposable camera. I suppose in hind sight maybe that worked out for the best though. Syracuse was too cold for my tastes anyways.