After reviewing the work of several students and designers over the past few weeks (which we’ll have a special, snazzy announcement for later on this month) it dawned on me that it can be ever-so important to do some “helpful how-to” work for those aspiring to get in on the annual Design Hiring Blitz.

With that said, I’ll be starting up a weekly series detailing how to interview for a job or internship, and the special preparation that designers need to go along with it, from the assembly of portfolio work to the actual interview and post-interview.

Part 1 of our mind-bending design series:
Selecting What to Show in a Portfolio

Be you a student or professional, there is always a time in your design career when you have to interview for a new job. Designers are nomads… we hop from one firm to the next, looking for something new and fresh to lend our insights on. Some call it “Design A.D.D.” Or, perhaps you are a student looking to nail that first great internship that you’ve been told will make you a better designer beyond anything you can learn in school.

Regardless of the reason, you now have to gather your work and put together the all-important portfolio. So, here are the dos and don’ts about it.

DO:
1) Picking your projects.
Every now and then we’ll receive a portfolio that has pages and pages of individual projects. By the time a designer runs us through her or his portfolio, we’ve been so inundated with product overkill that we’ve already forgotten the first 50% of the body of work. To get around that, choose your top 3-4 projects to show. It is also acceptable, and valuable, to have extra work in a separate stack in case the studio is juicy for your work and would like to see more.

2) Show your design process.
We all know it. “Research begets sketches begets mock-up.” Well then, why not show the process effectively? The real meat of any project is the lead-up to a final product. And it all starts with the Problem Statement. What were you trying to solve for? Have your Problem Statement clearly written up, with any other needed quick tidbits about why you did the project. Next, find those thumbnails, sketches, and final images that define the product’s development. It’s a general acceptance that pointing out one or two major milestones per project and how you solved them is a great way to show your thought process. Have your process complete. And if the project started mid-way, or only focused on a small aspect of the process, clearly make that a point as you put together your portfolio.

3) Sketches, sketches, sketches
The #1 rule of any portfolio is that potential employers love to see your problem-solving process. The best way to show this is through thumbnails, sketches, sectional sketches, exploded views, and the like. Make sure you select sketches that helped define your product along the way, from loose sketches to final renderings. Having two to three pages of loose, developmental monochromatic sketches is great. Couple that with a few pages showing your final renderings or more-developed sketches. Don’t be afraid to show those thumbnails as well: remember you’re a designer who can solve problems. And always label your ideas on the sketches. Placing call-outs explaining what your sketch is showing is important, as sometimes the people you present your work to will oftentimes take a copy of your portfolio to show other staff for approval, so giving them all the info they will need to present is just as valuable as you being there.

4) Package and technical drawings
The ability to understand engineering data is priceless these days. Show that you have a firm understanding of package space, limitations, and opportunities as it will show a potential company that you can bring your great ideas to the real world and maintain their integrity. Whatever method you use, showing a CAD or sketched section or two can be a great hook.

5) Collaborative efforts
If you worked with an engineering group, or materials designer, or anyone else on a project, make it a point to let a company know that. Show that you understand and value the input that co-workers can bring to a project. Don’t be afraid to show work that was collaborative, as 99% of the work in the Design Industry currently is.

6) Be well-rounded
Don’t just stick to cars or toasters, show a breadth of work. Companies love to see designers who can be creative with whatever task is given to them, not just door handles or wheels. A great rule to remember is that 2/3 of the work you show could be based on one field, with the other 1/3 on other products. For instance, 2/3 of your work can be automobile exteriors, with another 1/3 being other products. Which leads us to…

7) Be specialized
This may sound like an oxymoron from point #7, but it is just as valuable. Sell yourself as an expert in a field, perhaps with a couple of your award-winning projects. Don’t be afraid to bill yourself as the world’s foremost expert on headlamp design (if the job you are applying for falls in a related field). As valuable as variation is, so is the ability to focus and specialize on a project. Showing three completely unrelated products (a pencil sharpener, a rubber ducky, and the exterior of a Buick, for example) won’t get you that job at Chrysler (but it might at Target).

8 ) How do you sketch?
It’s important to show work that covers several techniques. Sketching on vellum or Canson paper was great back in the day but different employers use a variety of methods to sell their ideas, and you need to do the same. Show paper sketches, Alias models, Painter and Photoshop sketching, the clay model you made, etc. And if you don’t have any of those, then it’s high time you bought a Mac (or PC, I guess) and learned.

9) Fake work
Don’t have enough work from school or previous employment to show? Then make up a project for yourself and run it through the process. These are great to help flush out your portfolio. Not only are they generally quicker to finish but also a lot more fun to do, as you should pick a project based on something you love or have a passion for.

10) Take a picture… or not
If you have a final model, always take a photo. However, unless you know how to take high-quality photographs it is best to leave it to the professionals to do for you. If you have friends in the photography department of your school, seek them out for an hour’s worth of quick work (and slip them enough cash to buy some grub to make it worth their while). Take a lot of photos, but only use three or four of your best in your portfolio.

DON’TS
1) You are not an artist
Well, you are, but that’s not how you want to sell yourself. With that in mind, don’t bother showing your model of Athena you made out of asbestos… design companies don’t generally care for it. Fine arts work, ink blots, art photography, quilting… none of it will get you a job in the design world. If need be, bring it along with you in a small amounts and don’t present it unless the interview is going REALLY, REALLY well and you have already gone through your design work.

2) Arbitrary sketches
Often we’ll be in the middle of a portfolio review and the individual will point out that “this is the point where everything fell apart and I had to start over”. Whenever you do that, you are wasting not only your time, but the studio’s as well. Also, never put a sketch in a project for the sake of having another hot sketch in there; if it didn’t directly solve a problem or lead to the final solution it doesn’t belong there.

3) Research
We always forget research. Research is an important part of your portfolio, but doesn’t need to be a focus. Have a short summary of your research (a page or so) not 10 pages showing every aspect of a consumer’s needs.

4) Will you be designing this in 5 years?
If you don’t plan on designing toasters in 5 years, don’t show them in your portfolio. Be selective of what actually is your best work: the stuff you ENJOY and fell very accomplished when you completed it.

5) Other people’s work
The biggest no-no is taking credit for work that is not yours. If you only did one button on someone else’s dashboard, don’t bother showing it unless you did something different and it will blow the socks off of the company you are interviewing to. And don’t ever show the entire dashboard if all you did was that button. Just focus on what you worked on, not what everyone else did for you in advance.

EXTRAS
We are all artists at heart, and all of us do plenty of artwork and other projects than the ones we’ve chosen for our portfolio. There can actually be a time and place for it in an interview, but only if you’re certain that you’ve really hit it off with the people interviewing you. And even then, only if they ask to see what other types of things you have done in your artsy life.

It’s perfectly fine to bring along a sketchbook of thumbnails or other projects, sketches you did for your History of Modern Design II class, a small booklet of photograph work, web or graphic design, or images of your paintings. However, always keep these separate from your main body of work so as not to detract from the real presentation. If you hit it off with the interviewers, and they ask to see more of your accolades, feel free to bring out some of this work in small amounts.