Graphic design students ‘test drive’ portfolios at annual event
May 1st, 2007
Beth Blackford discusses her work with Mark Rosenthal, creative director at Creative Alliance.
University of Louisville graphic design students recently got a dress rehearsal for the real world at the fifth annual Portfolio Day. Seventeen students who are completing bachelor of fine arts degrees in communication art and design exhibited their work for members of Louisville’s professional design community at the Cressman Center for Visual Arts.
Since the Department of Fine Arts restructured in the early part of this decade and created a BFA track in communication art and design, “students are coming out with a lot more design work under their belts,” said Leslie Friesen, Power Creative Designer-in-Residence.
“Our studio art majors have a senior show, but since graphic design is not an ‘exhibition’ medium, we decided a Portfolio Day was the appropriate venue to show their work,” she said.
Each student has a table to present his or her work. Professionals, who represent large and small ad agencies, freelance designers and corporate designers, go from table to table.
They not only have the opportunity to see the student’s work and talk with them about it, they also assess the overall program based on what they see. Assessment areas include student understanding of design context, conceptual and compositional abilities, technical skills, ability to talk about their work and openness to feedback.
Their assessments benefit both the students and the program.
“It was a good opportunity to realize what exactly these design professionals were looking for and give them a chance to express it before real-world interviews,” said graphic design major Mark Parris. “It gave me a better understanding of what should and should not be included in my portfolio in the future.”
Friesen and fellow faculty member Steve Skaggs also tweak the program based on the assessments.
“If we see areas in the assessments that are not as high as we would like, we put additional emphasis on those,” she explained.
Friesen said Portfolio Day gives students a chance to ‘test-drive’ their portfolios and get professional feedback before they are in a true job interview situation and it builds a relationship with the local professional community.
“The design/ad community now has a high expectation and high appreciation for the quality of our students and their work,” she said.
“While the review is not a ‘job fair,’ we have had a number of students who get interviews and subsequent job offers based on the Portfolio Day exposure,” Friesen said.
As more graduates have started working in local agencies, Portfolio Day also has become an alumni event, she said, with alumni attending the review and having lunch with the students.
“Leslie and Steve have done a good job with this program,” Parris said. “I look forward to seeing where we all end up and where this department is headed.”
