[IxDA Discuss] Portfolios

[Cindy Alvarez]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Jeff White <jwhite31 at gmail.com> wrote:

> For months now, I've been wanting to redo my portfolio. I'm curious as to
> what approaches everyone is taking out there, and I'm really interested in
> tangible, print style portfolios, not a website.
>
> What approach did you take for your portfolio? What have you seen from
> others that you like? What resources are out there for portfolio
> inspiration? Hiring managers - what about a portfolio inspires you? Or
> depresses you? :-)


As a hiring manager, print style portfolios depress me.

Seriously, I would expect an interaction designer to have their portfolio
online, and here's why:  when people show me a physical portfolio, the
burden is on me to ask "why is this relevant?  what was your contribution?"
When people put their work in an online format, it's their responsibility to
figure out "what can I show?  how can I explain why what I did was
valuable?  how can I explain my thought process?"  That's the same type of
critical problem-solving that I expect them to be able to apply to a
software design challenge.

I don't have super high expectations for the level of visual design or the
amount of detail (I know many people have worked on projects where they
cannot publicly show work due to IP issues) - but I expect to see that the
effort was made.

Cindy