Humble Beginning
Recently I let another designer, whom I respect, look over my first portfolio in a critical review type setting. As soon as he took the box up into his hand I began to speak. “Now this is the first one I …” He cut me off promptly, and told me that he knows I can ‘sell the desert to a camel,’ but that I am not allowed to talk in this exercise.
I am glad I didn’t because his comments were more than generous, and the portfolio alone fared much higher than I would have thought.
The portfolio itself is a series of bi-folded sheets tucked into a spray-paint adorned cardboard box. Each sheet speaks to a different skill that I was selling. Identity & Logo, World Wide Web, and Packaging Design are some of the categories the viewer would find — all under the three main titles “In Sight, Insight, Incite.” In Sight were the commissions I had completed at that point. Insight covered the works I had done in school or my own studies. Finally, Incite was a resumé and call to action. Clever I thought — still do actually.
The problem was that for all these words (this was a copy heavy piece) and themes, the portfolio really said nothing. Similar to a document I sometimes get from a client to place into a layout that has every other word emboldened or italicized, this portfolio — which was the voice of my skill, and my call for work — had nothing emphasized. In short, if everything is bold — nothing is bold.
I said in my first portfolio “I can do anything you need!” But it read instead “I don’t know what I am good at!” This was an indicator of a larger problem: when I first began to solicit my services as a creative, I really had no idea who I was as a designer.
The good news is that I love designing, and for the moment, that was good enough. Overtime I learned my strengths and how to emphasize those as the product that I was selling. Narrowing down the particular field of design that I work in is a step toward becoming a specialist, and therefore a sought after commodity.
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