Portfolio Progress - More Research

In order to help gain knowledge for my attempt at making a portfolio, I took a look at some books which helped me get a much better understanding of what a good portfolio will contain.

Building Design Portfolios - By Sara Eisenman

A nice guide to presenting your portfolio, focusing on the fact that it's the first step, the initial look into the minds eye of any designer. Essentially where we all begin our real careers. It clearly establishes that making an effective portfolio is an art itself, and for any designer is an essential skill for survival. It's quite clear in its points of giving you the right tips, knowing full well the importance placed in an effective one, in how it could make, or indeed break your early career.
 
Although I obviously couldn't read the whole thing, the main things that stood out to me were the interviews and segments written by actual professionals who have designed their own portfolios and those on the other side of the table who have looked at loads of them, which was a great way of seeing what works, and what clearly doesn't.

The next book I looked at was Designing a Digital Portfolio - By Cynthia L Baron.

Another useful book that had some really good points that I took from it. It fully recognises the changing environment and technological changes that may affect your created portfolio, and addresses each aspect accordingly. Alot of it wasn't as relevant to me as it might be to someone else, ie: talking about aiming your work at different audiences, which doesn't really apply to me as I can only target the one, but it was useful in how it helped me visualize how to organize, design and present my work. The key is to get noticed and stand out from the crowd, and the theme running throughout emphasised this.

Last but not least, I checked out "Design Matters - Portfolios" - By Maura Keller

This was probably the best of the three, and something I may purchase myself after this module concludes. It states the obvious but in an insightful way, stating a good portfolio is a direct path to increased salary, which stands to reason when it comes down to getting a great job or not. It defines the core elements of self promotion through portfolio creation and provides the insights graphic designers need to showcase their work in unique and creative ways. Even more effective are the case studies it contains that show the different techniques designers use to create successful portfolios for different audiences and even the results. 

All in all I have a much better understanding now of what is expected of my portfolio. As We're still new to all this, I've still got lots of questions and loads more to learn, but I think the best thing now is to sketch out some ideas and get busy putting my pixels into practise!