Portfolio Development

Hello Students,

Having a polished and professional looking portfolio is key to your success in finding work after High School and moving on to developing a career. Download the ROP Portfolio Handbook to use as a guide for creating your own portfolio, a requirement in all ROP classes.

Portfolio's are due by beginning of May and must be ready for presentation, evaluation and critique (make it perfect!) but that is no reason to slack on this project. You should put great time and care into creating the professional side of your portfolio and then you will be ready to add your creative projects as the semester progresses. You will complete a digital version as a PDF file for evaluation. Class winner will be able to print and prepare their portfolio for inclusion in the Portfolio Showcase competition. Everyone can print a copy to keep and report covers will be provided if possible.

Remember that the best portfolio in class will be sent to the portfolio design competition that ROP has at the end of each school year, your portfolio will compete against other graphic design classes across the county, and there are prizes!

A judge evaluates print portfolio's from past entrants...

Portfolio Cover Design Assignment:

• Design an eye catching cover design for you your portfolio
• Include your name, the title of this class, the school you are currently attending and the year
• Design your cover for standard letter size 8.5X11 inch paper
• When you are done post your portfolio cover design to your blog
• Portfolio structure design is due today
• Cover design is due on wednesday

Portfolio Development Long Term Assignment:

• Your portfolio must be created in Indesign and the final file must be a multi-page PDF document
• Use the Pages palette to create multiple pages for your portfolio with Indesign
• Your portfolio cover, table of contents and all materials should look clean and consistent. Use consistent design style across all aspects of your portfolio, this includes color, typography, layout and style

Your Portfolio must contain in this order: See portfolio handbook for more details...

1. Cover page with your name, class title, year. Spend some time on this, it should show good design skill and be reflective of your personality
2. Table of contents
3. Letter of Introduction
4. Resume
5. Handwritten Job Application 
6. List of References
7. Letter of Recommendation -  cannot be from your ROP teacher or a family member
8. 3 or more work samples with written explanation about the work, why is it important to your career choice? What did the project entail, what were the challenges and difficulties? Give us details.

How Your Portfolio Is Evaluated:

• Contains required content and format
• Well organized
• Free of grammer problems
• ROP related work samples
• Shows creativity
• Nice appearance
• Shows skill development
• Appropriate for use in job search
• Professional appearance
• Nice presentation
• Shows good design and wise choice of color palettes
• Shows consistency across all pages
• Reflects your style, personality and interests

A print portfolio can take many forms, it can be professionally bound, stitched by hand or bound with a spiral ring... how will you create your portfolio, what will make it stand out above the rest?

Tips For Winning The Portfolio Competition:

In the last few years the portfolio competition has gotten fierce, especially for the graphic design category. Other schools have printing facilities that we don't, so you must use your creativity, ingenuity and eye for design to stand above the rest. Consider purchasing a large format portfolio binder and printing work samples at 11X17", or consider making a hand-bound book format to showcase your work. The limits are only contained by your creativity!

Use this as a rough guide to laying out your own portfolio...

Ok, have fun!

Previous Student Portfolio Cover Design Samples:

P.S. There are more samples on the back table for review...

How to Write a Good Great Resume

Hello Students,

Having a solid resume is the cornerstone to your job future. A well written and well designed resume is what sets you apart from other job applicants. A perfectly written job application, a quality resume and a list of positive references is the job seekers trifecta. In this class we will teach you these skills and more. Below is a list of writing tips, read over it before finalizing your resume.

Link, right click to download: ROP PORTFOLIO HANDBOOK

Resume Writing Tips:

Put your typography skills to work:

Never use comic sans! Also, refer back to our rules on typography in our introduction to typography and utilize those guidelines in your resume. Choose fonts that are complimentary to each other and assist in creating information hierarchy, this helps the reviewer find the information they need quickly. Choose a good sans serif font for your section titles and a complimentary serif font for the rest.

Have an objective:

Know the purpose of your resume and edit it for different job scenarios. Having a focused job objective listed on your resume will help you with attaining an interview and getting hired.

Back up your special skills with job experience:

List your skills but make sure your listed job experience, training or education reflects those skills. Are you really good at making websites? Let them know how and where you learned that skill.

Research and use the right keywords:

Every industry has its own language, research job offerings and pay attention to the keywords that are used. If you put your resume online with a job placement service they will often use certain keywords to search their database for potential hires.

Be descriptive with job experience:

A job title will communicate your role, but not the details of your work experience. List the duties, tasks, activities, skills and achievements that were part of your job.

Format your text:

Use bold text to start each section. Use bullets for lists. Make the document easy to quickly scan and read. Clarity of format is crucial, you have ten seconds before the employer will move on to another applicant.

List most recent job experience first:

This also goes for education, list the most recent first. If your still in High School you can say "future class of 2012", or "Currently attending HS".

List most important skills first:

When writing out your skill list make the most important skills the first ones on the list. If you are applying for a web design job, list your web skills first. Change and edit this for different industries/jobs.

Leave out the obvious:

It is not necessary to add "available for interview" or "references available upon request". References are standard and expected, and of course you are available for an interview. Thats the whole point!

Avoid negativity:

Don't trash talk past employers or state that you didn't like a past job. Simply state that you were looking for future opportunities.

Go with what you got:

If you haven't had work experience yet, just list any summer jobs, volunteer experience etc. If you have hobbies that are relevant to the job you can list those. If you don't have a diploma or degree then just list your estimated date for completion.

Proofread your resume:

Have your neighbor or classmate read your resume. Sometimes the spellchecker doesn't catch typos. The more eyeballs that see your resume before it gets in the hands of the employer the better.

Although these resumes contain similar information, styles do vary.

- Mr.W

Use Typefaces to Create a "Type Face"

New Assignment: Create a "Type Face":

In this assignment your goal is to use elements of typefaces/fonts to create an illustration. The technique for this works well with a photograph. You can create many type objects and use them to fill in the dark areas in a photo, then remove the photo and you are left with an image. You could also get creative and create an object or portrait without a photo, just use your imagination.

• Find a photo to use a reference, if you change the photo to black and white with photoshop it will be easier for your process in Illustrator
• Launch Adobe Illustrator, make a new document
• Use the File>Place function to bring in your reference photo
• Use the text tool to create different characters, use different fonts as well
• Select your text and go to Type>Create Outlines
• Ungroup your text objects to manipulate them individually, avoid distorting your characters, use alt-shift while scaling objects
• Arrange them into your drawing or use them to fill in the dark areas of your photo
• Remove the photo or hide it to see your progress
• Check out the examples below for inspiration, all those drawings were made from fonts!

Boba Fett Type Face Portrait By: Jared Fail

The Joker Type Face Portrait By: Dyana Aguilera

Sean Connery Type Face Portrait By: Skylen Fail

Have fun!

- Mr.W

Getting Intimate With Typography: Hand Lettering

Hello Students,

Your next assignment will help you become familiar with letterforms. Your assignment is to hand letter your own name. You will sketch each letter and then scan the sketch and trace with Adobe Illustrator, add color and final touches before turning in.

Experimental "A" created by AJ

Hand Lettering Assignment:

Use all the skills you have learned regarding color theory, typography and the principals and elements of design to create your own illustrated hand-lettering.

• Start by examining how your name looks in different fonts. Use Illustrator to make a few versions and think of an original way to modify or design your own letters
• Start sketching with pencil and paper, start with some small versions then try sketching each letter almost as big as the piece of paper
• Sketch out each letter and scan/photograph them, copy the images to your computer and use the File Menu>Place function to bring them into Adobe Illustrator
• Trace the letters shapes and other illustrative elements with the pen or pencil tools. Remember to close your paths to fill with color correctly, avoid using strokes on your objects... strive to use fill-only for best results
• Assemble your final letters in order to spell out your name
• Apply color and backgrounds
• Post to your blog when complete
• For inspiration check out Letter Cult or these examples of illustrative lettering

Student Showcase: Hand Lettering Examples

Introduction to Typography

Typography is an important element to design, communication and information delivery. It is everywhere yet we rarely recognize it. After todays lecture read through this page and scroll down to see your assignment...

THE 19 RULES OF TYPOGRAPHY

(From the book: Digital Color and Type, Rob Carter. Rotovision 2002)

Remember, rules must first be understood before they can be broken. Once you have a good foundation of these rules, you can freely journey into unconventional terrain.

Rule 1: For optimum legibility, choose classical, time-tested typefaces. These typefaces should be drawn and crafted with consistency among characters, and exhibit highly legible proportions. Examples include: Baskerville, Bembo, Bodoni, Caslon, Centaur, Franklin Gothic, Frutiger, Futura, Garamond, Gill Sans, Goudy Old Style, Helvetica, News Gothic, Palatino, Perpetua, Sabon, Times New Roman, and Univers.

Rule 2: Be mindful not to use too many different typefaces at any one time. The main reason for using more than one typeface is to create emphasis or to separate one part of the text from another. When too many different typefaces are used, the reader is unable to determine what is and what is not important.

Rule 3: Avoid combining typefaces that are too similar in appearance. If the reason for combining typefaces is to create emphasis, it is important to avoid the ambiguity caused by combining types that are too similar in appearance.

Rule 4: Text set in all capital letters severely retards reading. Use upper and lower case letter for optimum readability. Ascender and descenders provide the necessary visual cues to make text more readable. Text set entirely in upper-case letters form monotonous, rectangular shapes. Upper-case letters can successfully be used in display type (headlines; type above 16 points).

Rule 5: For text type, use sizes that, according to legibility studies, prove most readable. These sizes generally range from 8 to 12 points for text that is read from an average distance of 12 to 14 inches. Be sure to remember that sizes (based on the x-height of letters) appear different from one typeface to another.

Rule 6: Avoid using too many different type sizes and weights at the same time. Some experts recommend using no more than two sizes, one for display titles and one for text type.

Rule 7: Use text types of book weight. Avoid typefaces appearing too heavy or too light. Text typefaces that are too light cannot easily be distinguished from their backgrounds. In typefaces that are too heavy, counter forms diminish in size, making them less legible.

Rule 8: Use typefaces of medium width. Avoid typefaces that appear extremely wide or narrow in width. Rather than distorting text by stretching or squeezing the text width, use type families that include condensed and extended faces that fall within accepted proportional norms.

Rule 9: For text type, use consistent letter and word spacing to produce an even, uninterrupted texture. Letters should flow gracefully and naturally into words, and words into lines. This means that word spacing should increase proportionally as letter spacing increases.

Rule 10: Use appropriate line lengths. Lines that are too short or too long disrupt the reading process. As the eye travels along overly long lines, negotiating the next line becomes difficult. Reading overly short lines creates choppy eye movements that tire and annoy the reader. When working with text type, a maximum of about 70 charters (10 to 12 words) per line is thought to be most acceptable.

Rule 11: For text type, use line spacing that easily carries the eye from one line to the next. Lines of type with too little space between them slow the reading process; the eye is forced to take in several lines at one. By adding one to four points of space between lines of type (depending on the specific typeface), readability can be improved.

Rule 12: For optimum readability, use a flush left, ragged right type alignment. Although in special situations, other type alignments (flush right, ragged left; centered, and justified) are acceptable, the tradeoff is always a loss, however slight, in readability.

Rule 13: Strive for consistent, rhythmic rags (the rag is the right edge of your left-justified paragraph). The purpose of effective rags is not only to achieve aesthetic beauty, but to enable readers to move gently and effortlessly down a text column. Effective rags consist of lines establishing an informal but consistent pattern of line endings.

Rule 14: Clearly indicate paragraphs, but be careful not to upset the integrity and visual consistency of the text. The two most common ways of indicating paragraphs are by indenting and inserting additional space between paragraphs.

Rule 15: Avoid widows and orphans whenever possible. A widow is a word or very short line at either the beginning or end of a paragraph. An orphan is a single syllable at the end of a paragraph.

Rule 16: Emphasize elements within the text with discretion and without disturbing the flow of reading. You can use italics, underlined type, color type, different typeface, small capitals, capitals, bold type within light type, light type within bold type, larger type, and outline type to emphasize elements but never overdo it. Use minimum means for maximum results.

Rule 17: Always maintain the integrity of type. Avoid arbitrarily stretching letters. Well designed typefaces exhibit visual qualities that make them readable. Arbitrarily distorting them compromises their integrity.

Rule 18: Always align letters and words on the baseline. Letters are designed to coexist side-by-side on an invisible baseline.

Rule 19: When working with type and color, ensure that sufficient contrast exists between type and its background. Too little contrast in hue, value or saturation, or a combination of these factors, can result in type that is difficult, if not impossible, to read. Be careful when using photos or texture behind text.

Typography Assignment:

Create a cool typographic poster using a favorite quote, like the posters below

1. Search for a short quote about one of your favorite subjects or from a favorite author or artist, or make up your own.
2. Set up an 11X17 document in Illustrator
3. Create a poster using nothing but text, you can manipulate the text to illustrate your quote
4. Make a cool background for your poster, keep it subtle
5. Use colors that are easy to read and create impact
6. Think BIG! Big text, big message!
7. You should have 2 fonts maximum
8. You should show variance in size/color etc...