Week 3

Reading on in Designing a Digital Portfolio (DDP), by Cynthia L. Baron, Publisher: New Riders Press;

Chapter 3; titled Audience.

In your quest to designing a portfolio, we are creating the look and feel of our own work. This chapter talks about taking what we know and making the 'audience' understand it. When presenting your projects, it is in your best interest for your potential employer to view and see things in a way that is familiar to them, BUT unique without making them uncomfortable with your ideas and design.

"Your portfolio is an expression of who you are. But even the unique "you" changes according to your mood and situation. Kicking back with friends sparks a different state of mind than visiting family. It should. Your're relating to people whose assumptions, goals, and values are probably galaxies apart. However, unless you're a chameleon, you don't become someone new with each group. You adapt your style to feel more comfortable-or to make the people you're with more comfortable with you." (DDP Ch 3 P.41)

What do you do now? Asking yourself some key questions can get you started in the right direction. "Who's your target audience?" (DDP Ch 3 P.43) Create a personal definition of your target audience that you want your portfolio to appeal to. This will help you organize information that may be key to the employers and or clients whom will view your work. You wouldn't want your painting projects to be the forefront of your portfolio design if you were working on grabbing the attention of an Animation position; unless they of course are related.

Research, Research, Research! Knowing what other companies are looking for is key to answering many of the questions they may have about you in your portfolio design. The book explains how you can make a market assessment by specialization, company size, geography, etc. In addition, you can find out the clientele of many companies. Knowing whom you may be working for and getting a grasp of their current market will help you conceptualize your portfolio.

Free Advertising! Carefully planning your web page, discussing area's of expertise and experience along with other helpful hints will help you become available to clients whom may enter in local searches. Most search engines like Yahoo.Com, Google.com and others use <meta> tags as well as other information on your site when indexing. This information allows viewers to see links relevant to the content on your site. Planning these carefully will help a potential customer find what they need right away when they do their search on your site. Important keywords should NOT be in area's of your site that are irrelevant to their potential search. This will cause the client to click off and continue to another search.

Your not done yet! Or will you ever? Plan accordingly and expect expansion. You should always be looking into the future as you get more experienced. Your portfolio is a great opportunity to continually update. The more current experience a client views on your site, the better your chances of landing that job!

More on;

How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul (HBG), by Adrian Shaughnessy, Stefan Sagmeister. Chapter's 5 & 6

Running a Studio; Finding Talent

Chapter five pointed out some great points about acquiring talent and referred to the importance of talent diversity. There were a lot of great advice que's, especially about borrowing money, finding talent in I.T., and the importance of a good book-keeper. Something that really stuck in my mind was the fact that the chapter focused on starting small and letting the revenue pay for the upgrades to the business. There is no better way to run a business than on cash. When funds are low, the overhead is also low, unless you have collectors on your tail about repayment.

Finding a name, creating your identity, and other graphic elements may come easy to some. I would have a lot of fun with this. I like playing with logo design and thinking up creative but effective business names. Most successful businesses however use names that the customer/client will identify with. It is a tough job to find a successful business that completely creates an identity from nothing; however, Apple Computer Corp and GOOGLE have done a fine job creating an international identity from objects and colors nearly completely unrelated to the products and services they sell.

Find Great People!
As you build your business, it is important to hold diversity key in finding talent. A collaboration of different ideals will help create new concepts that can be interpreted more accurately by a wider audience. Take for instance an insurance company A. Insurance company A employs a 'mold' of people whom received a specific degree, then tailors their own training to all employees.

Now take your design firm and think about the processes you might undergo when selling a product to your client. Insurance company A will have to be very competitive and unimaginative as they go against all other companies whom sell similar products. Your design company however is handling the advertising for GEICO. GEICO uses amazing caricatures, plot-lines, graphic elements (the Geco), etc. They get these ideas by having a diverse design team. They are selling the same services as other insurers, but they make it fun, colorful, exciting, and most of all unique.

Finding a creative team that will help you come to these solutions for clients is key. Having them all with the same backgrounds will render new ideas as variations of the older. The United States is a great example of the strength of Diversity as it has landed a multitude of cultural music, art, inventions, and the list goes on.

With this strong team, it will be easier to approach new clients, find work and be competitive in the diverse market place.