<p>Hi, I'm a current senior who is looking to go to National Portfolio Day this year to get some critique/criticism on my work. The only thing is, I'm mostly interested in graphic design and, as a result, much of my work is typographic and digital. Would this sort of work be received well or are they looking for more of a traditionally-made portfolio? I don't have many paintings, drawings, etc. and the ones I have done aren't very exciting. If I were to go, my portfolio would mostly consist of smaller prints of digital art that focuses more on color schemes, typography, patterns, etc. than realistic drawing skill. Would it be a waste to go to NPD if this is the case? I can't seem to find information about this anywhere.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to take what you have, I would assume you are looking at schools that have strong design departments anyway. And since it sounds like you’re definitely leaning towards design anyway just go with what you have and see what they have to say. You could grab two or so of your strongest more traditional art pieces but since that’s not even the direction you would want to go take the computer images of the design projects.</p>
<p>My child took only computer images of all the work even though it wasn’t at all a design portfolio and the reaction was quite positive. Did this partly because all the work was so large-scale and/or sculpture but I’d say that if your work is strong it doesn’t need to be presented traditionally anyway and if you are going into design it is unlikely that you will be doing much of the old pasting up and design with galleys anymore anyway. Don’t worry about it, take what you have and see what they say. That’s what NPD is for anyway. </p>
<p>But definitely make sure you have made a list of choices and weed out those that are geared towards more traditional art and go towards those that are very computer hip and literate and have strong and up-to-date design departments.</p>
<p>“My child took only computer images of all the work even though it wasn’t at all a design portfolio and the reaction was quite positive.”</p>
<p>I’m sorry this is mis-stated. My child took an actual computer with the images loaded onto the computer. There weren’t even any print-outs of the images. So basically they were looking at the images they same way they would if they were sent as part of an application through a CD slide program.</p>
<p>But even if you just go with everything loaded on a computer you might want to print the images also as it wouldn’t be that difficult to carry that little bit of extra.</p>
<p>Artsmarts, it is interesting that the reviewers did not mind the computer images. At the NPD here, many of the reviewers stated that unless the pieces were too massive to bring, they wanted to see the real work. One reviewer made the comment that they came all the way to Philadelphia to see the work, the least the kids could do was to bring the real pieces. This came up because dd’s school had suggested having stuff on her computer. Luckily, she had both last year, so she got good reviews. I was surprised by the response of the reviewers. This year, everything will be brought, except one or two extremely large things. Just another view point. </p>
<p>Obviously Antiquekey, if your stuff was done on the computer, that is a different story. I would agree that you should bring your traditional work too. The reviewers are looking for things beyond finished work sometimes, such as how you shade or your use of lines. This may come through even though you do not think this work is as good as your nontraditional stuff. Good luck!</p>
<p>my take is lil’ smarty must be a genius, if Cooper almighty suggested go do ED.
since Cooper openhouse poster said
“Please bring actual work”
they obviously prefer real stuff over digital. </p>
<p>what I have learned is, people with the eye could tell how good or bad the piece is regardless of however presented.
I was at the Lincoln center for something else recently and there is this huge (I mean HUGE, like 100ft by 60ft-sh) poster of new opera “Siegfried” hanging in front of operahouse. which artwork was done by this Brit painter I like.
The Met opera has a little gallery in it and showing “poster project” it was happened to be open (not always; if you wanna go, check gallery hours) and in it are all ideas, rough studies for the poster done by the artist.
and the final poster/chosen one is tiny painting with seems like lesser effort put into it compere to bigger, flasher designs also shown alongside.</p>
<p>what I am trying to say here is, somehow someone knew this is the one to make the great poster, to be enlarged million times bigger and hold WOW! effect.
In trained eyes, maybe shabby-ness of presentation or format of students’ work do not matter much if kids are in line of exceptional artist or would be the one.
problem here is esp. at NPD, depends on which reviewer you get, you never know what you are dealing with.
even from the same school (namely SAIC), same portfolio could be one year loved, one year criticized or ignored.
don’t take it personal, ask around and if you hear same thing over and over again from other folks, maybe you should listen to that.</p>
<p>Putting aside motherhood, yes, little smarty-pants work was very strong which may have helped, also so many projects were overscale that may have helped as there was no way the items could have been carted to NPD. Also little smarty-pants had already spent 3 years in weekly critiques so wasn’t daunted by the process which I think helped. And there were a few schools, granted, that said “Well, we wanted to see the real work.” To which the child’s response was “well, if you aren’t that into digital work maybe we’re just not a good match. Nice to meetcha anyway.”</p>
<p>And this was done both at NPD with Cooper and subsequently at an actual review at Cooper itself and they thought it was all great so go figure.</p>
<p>Probably safest to go with originals if possible but if all you have is digital you’re looking for a school that is digital and design oriented with a strong typography program. Then still GO.</p>
<p>But isn’t it curious that they all take slide-show digital images for the actual portfolio application so that’s theoretically all they’re going to see anyway and yet at NPD they want to see actual work. I must say I had some empathy for those kids lugging those huge portfolios around that day.</p>
<p>But the thing is to GO and be brave and undaunted and don’t get your feelings hurt or be defensive about your work. And get lots of sleep the night before but I think I already said that.</p>
<p>“And this was done both at NPD with Cooper and subsequently at an actual review at Cooper itself and they thought it was all great so go figure.”
And by “this” I mean only taking the computer with the images loaded.
You know you just never know, it depends on who you see sometimes, what kind of day they’re having, if they had a fight with their husband/wife/significant other/dog/cat the night before…well, actually hopefully they’re more professional than that but maybe not, who knows.</p>
<p>Oh and don’t assume that an ED request from Cooper makes that home test any easier. That part didn’t go so smoothly due to other commitments that just HAD to be taken care of so even with the roll-over that one didn’t work out. Probably just as well as the conceptual art thing isn’t so attractive to my literally minded child.</p>
<p>Thank you for all your feedback! I do actually have 18x24 print-outs of my digital pieces but I suppose it’d be easier to either take smaller prints or take my computer? I’ll try to dig up some more traditional pieces from my portfolio and I’ll definitely take the advice about getting criticism from different people.</p>