Hi friends, at the end of my summer vacation in Italy I met a young ex student from a british car design school who wanted to show me his portfolio for some tips before looking for a job. As usual I told him that I was happy to do it and so we did. He came with his portable PC and showed me a sort of Power Point presentation with all the selected projects, at the end he also had his CV. I asked him to show the presentation again, at the end of the second round I started to give him my constructive critic.

Car Design school

Usually a good design school has some courses about how to put together design portfolios, (Art Center in Pasadena US and IAAD in Italy IT do) this was not the case. The british school has a life of about 5 years which means that it is very young in the design education business and is no guarantee for a good training. The transportation design teacher was basically formatting all students on how he would do a portfolio and his taste did not have anything to do with an automotive design book. Students (this is from his story about the school) could not be creative and alternative because the (famous) teacher woul get upset.

Here the problems

Bad Design school choice: I was sorry to let him understand this, but it is true. The few teachers have not an automotive design background, but rather an Industrial Design one specialized on boat design too far from car design culture and automotive design industry. The power point presentation had a bad order about his projects and the selection was not cars oriented (a lot of boats and accessories). The editorial graphics of every page was 90's style too old fashion and competing against the sketches and renderings. The overall result was confused. At the end a book to re-do before applying for a job position.

The good thing

The good thing is tha talent of this italian guy, his determination and strong will to make it as a designer, ready to put himself in discussion to improve and progress. We talked for about 2 hours, I explained to him that a professional portfolio is mainly a personal presentation of ourselves and for this reason we must personalize it. Our teacher should only help us not to make evident mistakes that might penalize our effort. With his book he will sell himself, he will convince someone to hire him.

The key element not to forget

Content is the key

Good sketches history on each project and nice color work for final presentation

Check out the order of your book, it has to provoke emotions so what is the best order to do so?

We must dose the number of projects because we give a message, so car design? More car projects. Industrial design? More ID projects, at so on.

Do not forget that we (professional designers) remember portfolios thanks to the mistakes we find in them! So make sure that your book is perfect!

Other articles on the same or similar subject:

Design presentation

Student's presentation

Final presentation