Thanks to the following portfolio reviewers:
Blake Welch-Welch Creative Group
Brad Thomas-Makina Creative
John Metcalf-Perfect Square
We appreciate your time that you so graciously gave to FRC², and your professional feedback to the participants was very informative, valuable, and productive! We can't express enough what it means to our group that you shared your advice, experience, and talent with us!
The following people had the awesome opportunity to get their portfolios reviewed. Here is there feedback on the experience:
Mark Foxsparrow:
Hi Everyone! I participated in the "Portfolio Review" Yesterday and I would like to tell you what a great opportunity it was, and why anyone who plans to enter and succeed in a creativity driven job field, NEEDS to take advantage of programs like this…
First off, I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to Blake Welch, Brad Thomas, and John Metcalf, the professionals involved in the Portfolio Review, and also Cheryl Matsumoto and her team for coordinating the event. The service you've provided for us is admirable and invaluable! My peers and I owe you a great deal. That being said…
I, like many other creatives, am an extremely shy, eccentric introvert who loves to create and would be content to ignore most other aspects of art business, especially critique. But this is a business, after all, and if you want to do what you are passionate about for a living and be successful, then you MUST be marketable. You need to cater to your audience and be able to view your creation from an outside perspective, in order to convey what it is you or a client wants to communicate through your work. If that communication is skewed somehow, then the viewer might not get the message, and we all know how extremely frustrating it can be to put yourself out on a limb, only to be misunderstood. Imagine this…
You really want to travel to a different country, let’s say Japan. You start by taking Japanese lessons, and discover after a few months that you are actually pretty good at it, so you buy a plane ticket, load your camera and leave to enjoy a month or two abroad, submersed in rich Japanese culture… Upon your arrival you are rudely awakened by the fact that you can’t seem to communicate with anybody despite your perfect sentence structure and knack for pronunciation. It turns out that the class you took was designed for business and concentrated almost solely on “formal” Japanese. It was also taught by an instructor from Tokyo, who spoke a different dialect than they speak in Nagasaki, where you have chosen to start your ‘Vacation.” Sure you can make out a few words and even some rudimentary ideas but the language that you are hearing is strewn with accents, slang and vague cultural references that seem, in many ways ungraspable. The communication is forced and awkward. After a week or two of struggling, even though you have spent the last four months of your life working very hard to get here, you decide that maybe this isn’t the place for you and return home. Scenarios like this happen all the time, in many types of learning situations. A student excels at something, works very hard learning their craft, (sometimes over the course of years) only to be turned off by a harsh unforgiving reality while attempting to enter a real world environment.
Wouldn’t it be great if before you paid for your plane ticket to Japan, cleared your schedule and took that trip, you were able to get some feedback from someone from your own culture that has already gone and lived there? Somebody to tell you what to expect, and what will be expected of you… a friend that could not only help you understand the applied language, but also the thoughts, reasoning and origins behind it. A partner that would, in addition to helping you understand the cultural differences, would help you plot your course, inform them of your pending arrival, and strive to make you feel welcome in an environment completely foreign to you. Do you think that trip might have ended differently?
Luckily, we have people like Blake, Brad, and John and Cheryl who are dedicated to helping blossoming students and have pioneered the way toward the creative job market. These professionals, in every sense of the word, through years in the field are able to recognize the nuances of the language, and guide us toward effective communication with our audience. I am not saying that constructive criticism is ever going to be easy, it isn’t supposed to be, after all, nobody likes having their pronunciation corrected, but it should bring you peace to know that your criticizer is someone who sincerely wants you to succeed. I implore all of my friends and fellow students to seek professional feedback at any chance that they might encounter. It might just be the best tool we have for building a future where we can do what we love.
Thank you again!
-Mark Foxsparrow
Amber Nowell:
The portfolio review was a wonderful experience. Looking for work over the past few years I've frequently come across job postings looking for designers that do it all: websites, coding, videography, sound editing, expertise in outdated software, you name it, and all for a wage impossible to live on. This, paired with the assumption that I would have to sacrifice my own style in order to find a job, had led me to throw in the towel with looking for work in the field. I had decided to settle for sticking to the printing side of the industry. But all of this changed Saturday when I met with Blake Welch, John Metcalf, and Brad Thomas. Not only were these guys refreshingly down to earth and easy to talk to, but they were incredibly passionate about what they do and their enthusiasm was contagious. The suggestions given felt less like the typical critique and more like a joyful collaboration. Within that half-hour a new world of possibilities opened up for me. What I discovered is that the right employer will play to the strengths and style of each employee and won't expect a designer to be a one-stop-shop for all creative endeavors a client can think up. That a good work environment will encourage play and experimentation, and challenge the designer without the need to forfeit their creative voice for the sake of a paycheck. This brief meeting instilled in me a renewed excitement for both my work and future possibilities. I'm deeply grateful to Blake, John, and Brad for allowing me the opportunity to share my work with them, for their support and candor, and to everyone involved at FRC2 for making it all possible.
Thanks!
Amber
Robin Huber:
I appreciated the time and interest that Blake Welch, Brad Thomas
and John Metcalf took at the portfolio reviews last Saturday. What a
great opportunity to learn from the pro's! They gave me valuable
information about my portfolio. One suggestion that they gave to me was
to slow down as I was presenting my portfolio and talk specifically
about each design. It would be helpful to speak about WHY I chose the
colors, fonts, and designs to portray what the client is trying to say
through the design. As designers, we speak to the public by designing
something visually that shows what the client is saying about his
business. We designers are the visual voice. I will be updating my
portfolio with some of the suggestions from the review.
After
the reviews, we met at a coffee shop to talk. FRCC Professor Dale
Rosenbach joined us along with members of FRC2 and the three honored
graphic design guests. We were entertained by the professional designers
as they spoke about the graphic design industry. This was a day of
learning and growing.
Thanks!
Robin Huber
Feedback will be available shortly!
Lane Leazer:
Amara Murray:
