portfolios are one of the most important pieces of document created by a designer it showcases you
your ideas your aesthetics now on this channel i have invited a lot of guests
for my portfolio review series viviano from mass operations mariana from zaha hadid architects
Olly from Bjarke Ingel's group chantal from zaha hadid architects and steven the founder
of show it better now in these episodes each of these guests helped us to see how
portfolio can be looked at in many different ways each of them brought their own expertise
their own design aesthetics now if you haven't watched these episodes i
highly recommend you go watch them because they can give you a lot of insight into what
can and should go into a portfolio so on this channel with all of the episodes combined
i have shown you 17 different portfolios but in order to select these i had to go through hundreds
and hundreds of folios for each episode so after reviewing so much work and connecting with all
of these amazing guests i have created this video that can give you the basics of portfolio
building this will help you prep a portfolio that best represents you now before i dive in
i will have a couple of announcements which i will make at the end of this video so stay tuned
okay so before we dive deeper into portfolio building i want to take a moment to talk about
what a portfolio actually means you see a portfolio is the first line of communication
that you have with your employer or an institution before even getting a chance to speak about your
projects your background your ideas you will be judged on your portfolios i think it is
so unfair that we have to reduce ourselves and reduct our intelligence and our creativity to
like 20 pages on a pdf and i felt this as a student and as a professional i still feel
like this i think it's really unfair which yes is quite unfair if you think about it but
that is what the challenge is so portfolios are not just formalities they are well designed
nicely presented windows into who you are and what you can do and that is why it is
important to note that there is no set format to make a portfolio it has to best represent you
and your work it is a piece of you so obviously it will be unique and you don't need to just
put your portfolio into pre-made boxes but having said that you do need to pay attention
on how you are graphically designing your portfolio and that brings us to our first point
now we as designers work on the smallest of details when it comes to our projects
from initial planning to final visualizations it's a tedious process but we thoughtfully craft our
entire project for a beautiful presentation so we already have the ability to care for how our
designs are communicated and presented but sadly we don't use that ability by portfolio building
portfolios aren't just scrapbooks where you just put your projects write a few words and be done
with it just like a project a portfolio also needs to be designed so the point is when it
comes to portfolios it is not just your building designs that need to shine but also your graphic
design abilities so the first tip for portfolio building is to actually carefully think and craft
out the pages craft out how your portfolio will be presented as i said it's the first line of
communication between you and your employer so you need to craft that communication you need to know
what your portfolio is saying and actually present that so bottom line graphic design is important
okay so you understand what a portfolio is you understand you need to design it graphically
let's come to one of the most important questions how long should a portfolio be
now this is one of the first things that people think about when making a portfolio what should be
the length of the folio offices don't want to see hundred pages filled with projects but they also
don't want to see everything you have in just five pages so what is the ideal length after looking
at loads of portfolios around the world and speaking with all of my guests i've realized that
the number of pages is not the number you should be looking at it's it's very difficult to narrow
it down to a page number because sometimes depending on the graphic design you can stream
through 60 pages in a few seconds very easily or if it's a very heavily overcrowded design
you know 20 pages might feel like a year rather than the number of pages what really matters is
the number of projects you put in and the golden range for this is between four to six projects
six should be the maximum number of projects that you put in your portfolio and that too if
you just can't let one go anything beyond that and your portfolio is already too big okay so now we
know how many projects to include in the folio but how do we choose from all of our projects
so as i told you earlier a portfolio needs to reflect you and your style so when we
are talking about selecting projects for your portfolio they need to be the ones that best
showcase your talents so basically select the top five projects that best summarize
your design style and your aesthetic and with each of them you can have a different
intention with one you may want to showcase your ability to plan spatially with another one
you might want to showcase your rendering abilities similarly even the scales can be
different for example if you are applying somewhere for urban design you might want
to include more macro level projects so the selection will purely depend on you
your skill set and your interests and with that i want to come to my next point
okay so now that we know how to choose a project there's actually a myth about portfolios and this
is specially for all the young students out there when i was in school and was making my portfolio
there was this advice that used to go around and that was that my portfolio needs to show evolution
basically it needs to show everything i did in my early years and how i have evolved as a
designer over the five years cut to today when i've seen hundreds and hundreds of portfolios
i can tell you with full confidence that that is not a good strategy your portfolios need to
showcase your skill set right now not what your skill set was five years ago everybody
evolves from their first to their final year in your portfolio you don't need to showcase that
you don't need to showcase an evolution what you need to showcase is your skill set what
you need to showcase is what you can do right now and also whichever is your best project
put it really early on in the portfolio so you can easily have the attention of your employer
or whoever is looking at your portfolio so do not go for this common myth that you need
to showcase evolution okay so now that we've talked about project selection let's quickly
come to the elements of a portfolio what all do you need to put inside
now there is obviously a cover page followed by a cv and usually after that there is an
index now you can choose to not put an index but i personally like to have a reference as to how many
projects i will see in a portfolio it helps me prepare so i like portfolios with an index in them
after that obviously come all the projects that you have selected for your portfolio remember
four to six and finally at the end is the miscellaneous or photography or artwork section
now especially for this section only put it in if you're really good at it
if you have great artwork or great photography skills mad sketching skills and you want to
showcase them put them right ahead but if you think you're mediocre at sketching i would
not recommend putting that in your portfolio as it'll just take up more pages and won't add value
to your portfolio as with everything else in the portfolio it is about putting your best foot
forward and remember don't make this section too long okay so now we have talked about the graphic
design the length of the portfolio the elements that go into the portfolio now i want to talk
about two important things two tips that you need to keep in mind while making the portfolio
number one visuals are important as architects the language that we communicate
in is visual so for your portfolio whatever you put in drawing visualizations sketches collages
anything only put it in if they are good and if you think they need more work i would recommend
actually sitting down and putting work on those visuals it's not only a visual thing you don't
have to be superficial like hey you know if you do great renders if you do great diagrams it
matters i mean no like the content matters as well but the like kind of the first decisions
are very visually based so yeah you make a good first visual impression then then the rest will be
will be uh you know complimentary but if the visual it doesn't work from the start
then it's like a very bad first impression you're like all right so they have to work very hard at
uh being having great designs have a great variety in their portfolio being very consistent if if the
visual didn't work you know you need to polish those visuals so give your portfolio the time
and effort that it needs number two and probably one of the most important advices i can give you
do not overfill your portfolio now if you've seen my video where i showed you my portfolio
one thing you might have noticed is my portfolio was a little too cluttered it was very chaotic and
i wanted to put a lot of projects in very few pages so i just stuffed too much information
in my pages and it made it all a little unreadable so one of the most important advices i can give
you is give your drawings space to breathe let your details everything that you put in
let them shine and let them be seen so spread things out make it cleaner okay so after these
two tips let's quickly talk about what all softwares can you use to make your portfolio
number one is obviously photoshop now photoshop is a very very flexible tool you can do so much
with it i made my portfolio within photoshop the benefit of using photoshop for your portfolios
is you can easily edit your photos edit your drawings edit your visuals you can add effects
you can change colors everything that you want in photoshop so it makes it all very very easy
the downside to it is you create each page individually so you might not be able to put
all your pages together but all in all photoshop is a wonderful tool so if you know how to use it
i really recommend using that for your portfolios number two is illustrator or code draw now a lot
of my friends actually use this to create their portfolios it is a great software for anybody
out there using these softwares so if you want to create your portfolio and you know how to use them
go right ahead number three and probably one of the best softwares to use
is adobe indesign now adobe indesign is a specifically made software for publications
books magazines portfolios you name it you can make all of it in adobe indesign it is very
very easy to use and it has a lot of functionality that will really help with your portfolio building
the only downside is unlike photoshop you can't work on your visuals you can't add effects change
colors so if you want all of that to be done you need to pair adobe indesign with some other
software like photoshop but again this whole process is very very easy so adobe indesign is
one of the best choices for portfolio building so these are some of the top choices for portfolio
making but of course this list is not exhausting if you use some other software or have more
recommendations let us all know in the comments below and with that we have come to the end of
this video these are the basics of portfolio building so this was an introduction your first
step towards portfolio building everything that you need to keep in mind but this is actually the
tip of the iceberg there's actually a lot more that i've learned after looking at literally
hundreds of them i have also been fortunate enough to have conversations with architects around the
world and they have told me about their own portfolios what they look for in portfolios
and i have compiled all of this information in a new course that i call the portfolio masterclass
now you can get access to this portfolio master class for free how can that happen i will come
to that in a few minutes let me first tell you what all is included in the master class
now in this video i told you about the elements that go into making a portfolio
in the master class we'll go deeper into each of those elements we'll talk about cover pages
what is the best way to make them we'll talk about series what all information is needed
and how is it to be structured we'll also talk about the dimensions of the portfolio and also
how you can take your existing projects and incorporate them in such a way that your portfolio
can be graphically beautiful i will actually show you with examples of how you can take whatever
you have right now and rearrange them so that it is clear it is readable and everything has
space to shine this will actually be a class on how to communicate your designs the best way
how to manage the graphics of your portfolio we'll also be talking about color schemes
working drawings all the nitty gritty details and i will also talk about my application process
what all is involved and also give you tips for your interviews now in addition to all
of these you will also have access to all the patreon exclusive videos or portfolio reviews
which have even more detailed conversations with all the guests that have appeared on the show
so if you're interested in joining this workshop there are actually two options available for you
number one is joining this workshop live so as the name suggests i will be with you this will
be a live workshop this will include everything that i've just told you plus a live q a you
can ask me questions about whatever portfolios interviews the whole process and i will be there
to answer all of them the second option is to go for a pre-recorded session now the live and the
pre-recorded session will have the same contents but the difference is that there won't be a live
q a we won't be able to have a dialogue about your queries and questions in the pre-recorded version
but i have made this option available specially for all the students out there now the first 10
people who register for the live workshop will also get detailed portfolio feedbacks
for their own portfolios i will literally sit page by page i will tell you project by project
what i feel what i think you can do better what i like about the portfolio what i don't like
i will send you detailed feedbacks but this is only for the first 10 people who register
so if you're interested in attending the workshop you can find the form in the description below
okay let's come to the interesting part now you can have the access to the pre-recorded
version of this workshop for free and for that all you have to do is answer one simple question
which is your favorite building basically you have to comment below with your favorite building and i
will choose 10 people from those comments who will get access to the pre-recorded version of this
workshop for free you can do this you can comment till 7th of march 11 59 pm indian standard time
so go down comment below and also share it with your friends and yes just fyi the master class
is open to people all over the world now one last thing i want to tell you is i will soon
reveal the guess for portfolio review episode 6 but even before i reveal the guest if you
want your portfolio to get reviewed and to get featured on this channel you can mail it at ba
portfolio review the raid gmail.com i'm looking forward to some amazing portfolios and yeah
that was the video you guys i really hope you like it i really hope you took something from it
if you did give it a thumbs up share this video do subscribe to bless dark and don't forget in the
comments below let's have a conversation about the video also tell me which is your favorite
building if you want access to the master class for free also i've started posting youtube shorts
on this main channel how do you like them let me know that also in the comments below
and that was it i will see you guys soon with more such content until then bye bye
you