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Chris de Groot
The Showcase Portfolio The Presentation of One’s Self to a Potential Employer
The portfolio is a familiar phenomenon, and many people will deal with one. These days even primary schools are starting to use portfolios. You can find a lot of information about portfolios and their dos and don’ts on the Internet. This article focuses on the portfolio of the architect/ designer aimed at bringing the architect to the attention of an employer: the showcase portfolio. Presentation of Your Portfolio When I look at a portfolio, I am naturally interested in its content, but also in the portfolio’s design. The form of a portfolio can be as revealing as its content. I can evaluate people from the design; it tells me whether its designer is conservative or adventurous, cool or discreet, precise or sloppy. You can tell whether people have spent enough time maintaining their portfolio. A portfolio says something about a person’s ability to communicate about his/her own ideas and designs. ‘Selling’ Yourself An important aspect of an architect’s practice is ‘selling’ his/her work. However good your design is, it is very disappointing
if you are unable to effectively explain why your design is so brilliant or so special. It will all be for nothing. In the real world, unfortunately, a plan does not sell itself. It is very disappointing when you have completed your studies and have the potential to become a good architect, but this is not reflected by your portfolio, so you do not get the chance to present yourself. Academic programmes, in my opinion, devote too little attention to this important aspect of the architect’s profession. I see a large number of portfolios from architects, technicians and students every year. Their quality varies enormously. Striking the Right Chord In a design profession it is particularly important for a portfolio to strike the right chord right away. For this, a number of considerations are essential. I will focus on the aspects that are crucial to the interview with a future employer / for an internship. Ready to Use Portfolio comes from the Latin portare (to carry) and folium (a sheet of paper). Today, however, there is not much carrying involved. Most portfolios are sent via e-mail to someone you do not know, but who works at a firm where you want to work or do an internship. It is important to realize that the person who receives your portfolio is probably very busy and receives many portfolios every week, accompanied by CVs and cover letters. It will therefore not help this person to have to do a lot of reading, and certainly not to have to make a lot of effort to be able to view the portfolio. So always make sure
your portfolio is ready to use immediately. If it takes a lot of effort to get a printout (to review it with someone else) or if it is likely that it will not display properly on a screen, the portfolio will not even be looked at, and you will have lost the battle in advance. Edit Your Portfolio Show only your best work, what you are genuinely proud of. It is better to send a 10-page portfolio with a few beautiful large-size pictures that are clear than a 100-page portfolio with a lot of text and filled with tiny pictures that are hard to decipher. This sounds logical, yet many portfolios are too thick and unclear. If you want to communicate that you have a lot of experience or participated in a lot of activities during your studies, you can do this with an easy-to-read list. The person viewing the portfolio wants to be grabbed by the designing qualities of the person who put it together. If the portfolio can only be understood by spending a couple of hours reading, your work will not receive the right attention. A thick, seemingly endless portfolio discourages people from looking at it properly. So it is crucial to edit yourself. Well Made This is why it is essential that the portfolio be well made. It must be immediately clear from the portfolio that it comes from a good designer with an eye for layout and quality. This is even more important if you cannot be present when your portfolio is reviewed. The pictures you present therefore have to be the best you have, and ‘speak for themselves’ without explanation. The brief texts included in the portfolio have