'Buick', owner of the 't' publishers company, shoots from the hip at innocent people in a picozine gangster style. Show some respect to his victims here. 
Hey everybody, check out these cool paper puppets based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. They are the work of Illustrator Brian Gubicza. This Dracula set and a set based on Alice in Wonderland are available as a do it yourself kits from his Etsy shop here. Also peep Brian's killer Illustration work at his site here.
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Matteo Gentile
(Roma, Italy)
Featured Project : Aprilia Creatura Concept
Can't find much info on this book,Paper Toys by Francois Chetcuti, but it looks like it will be available May 7th. You can pre-order it from Amazon here.
photo: vanessa kennedy
So by now perhaps you've read through last week's advice column on how to keep from making the most common mistakes when creating your online portfolio (and perhaps you've written in to say how horrified you are that coroflot would suggest using a template, rather than building the whole thing from scratch -- that's fair, there are some good arguments on both sides). Assuming you've decided to make the leap and start publishing your work, whether through a template, a custom-designed site, a hacked blog, or something else of your own (hopefully low-Flash) design, there are a few additional suggestions that have cropped up since then from an array of sources.
Besides last week's expert adviser (Miles Begin of Pollen Design), I was lucky enough to attend a talk at Portland-area stationery store and designer's mecca Office on the subject of...portfolios. Representatives from a number of local creative employers were there, including Nike, Nemo, and UNKL, and although the discussion was more broadly focused on both physical and digital portfolios, some excellent tips came out; some confirming last week's caveats, and others building on them.
1. Make sure you are in there somewhere.
One point that all of last week's presenters agreed upon, and Begin reinforced, is that the world is full of good portfolios, physical and otherwise. The ideal candidate, from the point of view of many creative employers, is someone who combines talent and obvious passion, and communicates both simultaneously. So in addition to showing projects from school, freelance gigs, and assorted other "official" projects, it can be surprisingly effective to post work that you got excited about.
This can include client work, of course, but it doesn't strictly have to. "I want to see your best work, regardless of where it came from," explained the first presenter, a graphic design lead from Nike. This brought up a string of recollections: applicants showing short films they'd made about past projects; applicants taking a dead concept from a client job, resurrecting it, and completely fleshing it out simply because they loved it. This kind of vanity project can seem too indulgent to go in a serious portfolio, but if it's well executed it can become the star of your collection. A portfolio that contains nothing but sober, perfect client work can get in line with hundreds of others just like it.
2. Get your own domain.
It's true that there are plenty of places to get your site hosted for free, and they'll give you a domain name too. But the fact is, if you're trying to look professional, yourname.blogspot.com feels kind of like a business card printed at home on bond paper: fine for students and newbies, but lame otherwise. Getting your own domain is so cheap and so easy these days (ten bucks and 15 minutes, typically) that there's really no excuse not to. Not sure where to start? Here's a list of registrars.
3. Be broad. And deep.
There's a great term that a lot of design shops are using these days to describe their ideal new hire: "T-shaped" (I think IDEO's Tom Kelley coined it, but tell me if you know otherwise). The T-shaped creative professional is someone who has a breadth of ability and experience, with deep competency in a few select areas. This implies professionalism, but also an ability to entertain dissimilar points of view and work smoothly with multi-talented teams.
T-shaped is an excellent way to think of a well-designed portfolio too. You'll hear a lot of experienced designers say that you don't want to show every single thing you've got on a website or in a mailer; you want to save that for an in-person interview, where you can present your work to its best effect. But when browsers examine an online portfolio, they expect more than just one or two minutes worth of material, especially if they like what they see. Says Pollen's Begin, "If you're doing a website, you've got to show a lot of work...not a lot of projects necessarily, but a lot of process. That's how I get an idea of what kind of designer you are."
The T-shaped portfolio solves both these problems: by giving an overview of a large number of projects, then depicting a few of your best in greater detail, you demonstrate both flexibility and expertise without overwhelming the viewer. This means showing research, process sketches, alternate proposals, maybe even some interim screenshots. As long as there's not too much of it, this can go a long way toward giving an understanding of how you think, rather than just some cute pictures.
4. Make sure at least some of your images are professional quality.
This one's mostly for the ID folks. No, not every single photo you upload needs to have been shot in a studio under $12,000 worth of strobe lighting, but the difference between a crappy snapshot and a carefully lit and post-processed photograph from a decent SLR is tremendous. If you've got the inclination to learn, a little product photography skill can reap some great rewards. Get a reasonable camera and a tripod, build yourself a lightbox, and spend a few days experimenting. If that doesn't appeal, get some pics from marketing if they've had some done, or pay someone better than you to take care of it.
Note that scanned sketches, drawings, and other process work can be rougher, and that's OK. As long as there are a few shining instances of your work looking its best in every project, supporting images can stay sketchy and still contribute to the overall story.
5. Pick--and stick to--a consistent visual style.
OK, you're a designer, so you knew that already, but it's remarkable how many otherwise aesthetically with-it people completely lose their marbles when they start working on the web. So pick yourself a palette, one or two good fonts, and a consistent graphic layout that highlights your work without calling attention to itself. Then use it. Religiously. Remember, a lot of the people viewing your site are creative professionals too, and will notice if you keep breaking your grid, or switch from Arial to Tahoma halfway through.
The designer from Nemo related a story of an intern applicant from last year, who got hired based on two qualifications. First, that her work as a graphic designer was outstanding, and the second, that the visual style that permeated every piece of information she published--blog, portfolio, MySpace page, even her personal style of dress--held together in a consistent and original way. In her case, it was a strong palette of black, white, and red, a slightly spooky goth-tinged aesthetic, and a strong commitment to personal craft, down to clothes and accessories modified to fit her custom image. "It wasn't exactly the sort of style we would use here at Nemo," she explained, "but the fact that she was able to apply this style so universally made us think 'My God, this woman really knows what she's doing.'"
6. Make it easy to get additional information.
What's your Dream Client or New Employer do after they've read through your portfolio and been impressed? She might want to contact you, so make sure your contact information is front and center on every page. She might need something to print out and show to the Luddites upstairs, so have a PDF of your resume/CV and some work samples ready for download. And of course, include links to past employers, clients, media coverage you've received, or anything else she might want to see; not only does it make things easier for the reader, it's likely to bump up your search engine rating too.
From the Coroflot portfolio of : Studio Hideki
(London, United Kingdom)
Featured Project : La Luna: desk fan
photo: pandoro
So, you've got a corefolio posted; you've put together a nice PDF sampler; you've printed out a gorgeous little book to take to interviews. You're working your networks, both real and virtual, and so far...not much. Potential employers are looking over your work, and maybe they like what they see, but somehow this isn't translating into more gigs, or that one crucial interview.
One possible answer to these woes is a personal portfolio website. They've been around for a while now, and emails from colleagues in the creative professions are increasingly signed with a short list of URLs in addition to a Yours Truly--with good reason.
Group sites like Coroflot, AIGA and others offer instant visibility and searchability, and for that reason they are indispensable. Many recruiters and working designers will tell you, however, that such postings by themselves aren't quite enough to make a hiring call, and given the option, they'll move on to someone with additional sources of information. A portfolio website can be the perfect next source, and given the relative ease of creating one these days, they're rapidly becoming an expected part of any designer's self-marketing plan.
The problem is, they're so easy to get wrong. After listening to years of complaints about some of the visual garbage recruiters and seniors have had to sort through, I decided to seek some specific answers about what separates a job-winning portfolio site from a confusing mess.
Miles Begin is a staff designer at Pollen Design, a small product consultancy in New York City (full disclosure: I freelanced for Pollen a few years back, before Miles hired on), and as the designated portfolio reviewer, he looks through around 15 PDF portfolios a week from hopeful applicants and aspiring interns.
Speaking over the phone last week, Miles was able to immediately confirm a few suspicions: that the fraction of applicants with web portfolios is large and growing (about 40% of applicants have them now, by his estimation); that he, and many in his situation, prefer websites to PDFs alone, because of the clearer picture they paint of a designer's personality and process; and that many of these sites are horrific, but in easily avoidable ways.
As with so many things in design, and real life, getting a portfolio website right seems to be less a matter of what you do than what you don't. Compiling Miles' observations together with other comments I've heard over the years, a few clear prohibitions seem like a good place to start. Here are six of them.
1. Don't think you're a web designer unless you actually are.
This is the Achilles heel of many creative professionals: the belief that being competent in one creative capacity qualifies you for another. Most of us recognize that a great cinematographer probably won't be such a great architect, but a huge number of industrial, graphic, interior, and other designers seem to forget this rule, and try to build a great website from scratch.
I know I did: my first go around a few years back, I holed up in my room for about a month, teaching myself Dreamweaver, calling up friends to ask them what exactly a Style Sheet was, and learning a lot in the process. It was fun, and engaging, and taught me plenty of useful skills, but the resulting website was utter crap.
"There's a difference between showing you're a good designer and making a bold statement that you don't really have the tools to make," says Begin. The problem with building a site from scratch, unless you're already skilled at web design, is the powerful desire to do too much, and do it poorly. Given the endless potential and flexibility of the web, it's easy to muck up an otherwise compelling body of work with animated graphics, complicated interfaces, soundtracks, easter eggs, pop-ups, Flash intros and all other manner of puffery, when all the visitor wants is to see some images with text. Few situations better merit the guideline "Less is more" than building your first portfolio site.
2. Don't think you're a graphic designer unless you actually are.
Now, some of you reading this are, in fact, graphic designers, and it's true that you'll be judged on the cleverness and innovation in your site's graphic layout. The rest of us aren't though, except in so far as it clearly showcases the work. "But how do I set myself apart from the other sites?" you might wonder, letting that concern prompt you into an obscure, frustrating, non-linear page format with a palette of eye-searing colors. The answer, as many experienced designers will tell you, is with the quality of your work. Remember, the point of the site isn't the site, it's the content.
Begin likes to see work in what he terms "Gizmodo style": one primary image at a time, accessed either through thumbnails or a slideshow. "It's so direct, so quick...you can take in a lot of information and not feel overwhelmed."
Want some examples? Here are a few websites from Industrial Designers you've probably heard of:
Marc Newson
Ron Arad
Konstantin Grcic
Even our very own Yo
There's a little bit of cleverness and Flash in there, but for the most part they're quite similar: quiet color palettes, spare layouts, and clear photos of outstanding work. That's hard to top.
3. Don't go nuts with the branding thing.
By now nearly every creative professional is familiar with the idea that modern job-finding is an exercise in self-branding (and even if you haven't seen it somewhere else, we've written about it here). Marketing is a specialized discipline too though, just like the various branches of design, and it's also easy to over-do. So if you have a personal logo, icon, catchphrase, or whatever, use it with restraint.
It's a bit like seasoning a stew: a little spice can complement the ingredients, but too much will ruin them. If at any point you look at your portfolio site and see the branding elements before you see the work, they need toning down.
4. Don't write like a 12-year-old, or like a used car salesman.
If a visitor likes the work, they will read the copy, so make sure it reinforces the positive impression they've already got. As ridiculous as it seems to repeat it: spell-check everything. You're not seeking out a writing job, but you are trying to show intelligence, rigor and attention to detail; frequent misspellings imply the exact opposite, especially because they're so easy to avoid.
Have a friend who writes well read it over to check the grammar and flow, too. Even if it sets you back a couple of beers or a free lunch, it's worth it to avoid appearing inexperienced. This is doubly true when posting in a foreign language: get a native speaker to look your stuff over, lest a lack of fluency come across as laziness.
Remember, too, that you're not creating an advertisement, so don't write advertising copy. You want to appeal to other designers most likely, and they're as wary of slick writing as you are. So when you talk about your work, ask yourself what you'd want to know about it, and then state that as clearly, briefly, and directly as possible.
5. Don't expect it to be perfect immediately.
Note that item #1 above ends with the phrase "building your first portfolio site." That's on purpose. Websites are dynamic things, and viewers expect them to change. Moreover, if you're a working designer, you should be constantly posting new work, fine-tuning layouts, improving copy, adding links.
Maybe go back and make a short movie about an old project, or re-render an old model if you've gotten better in the meantime. The important thing is to not make your portfolio a statue on a pedestal, perfect and immutable. It won't be perfect at first, and anyway, viewers get bored with immutability. The process of updating and modifying also molds the site to your own aesthetic and personality, giving it what Begin calls "the personal touch to a website that just isn't there in a PDF portfolio...sort of like a pre-interview."
6. Don't re-invent the wheel.
The bright side of all of these warnings is that they're nothing new. Smart, talented people have been building websites for a long time now, and have figured out some elegant ways of making just the sort of site you want. The obvious (and most expensive) way to take advantage of this is to hire a professional to do your portfolio for you, which can yield some impressive results, for a price. For students and less established creatives with shallower pockets, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives.
Without recommending any particular one, I will say that simply typing "portfolio website template" into your Google bar will yield dozens of sites selling a dizzying array of pre-built templates, ready to cut and paste into your own domain. Some of them are great, some flashy, some elegant and some awful -- but nearly all of them are beyond your abilities to build from scratch unless you've been pushing Flash and CSS for a year or two. They also do most of the heavy lifting, leaving the user free to tweak colors, fonts, sizes and element placement with some basic HTML knowledge.
An even simpler alternative, suggested earlier this year in this Core77 discussion thread, is to make a portfolio out of a blog. It may sound simplistic, but there are plenty of things going in its favor: blogs are by definition extremely easy to update and modify, they're flexible enough to personalize (Wordpress a bit more so than Blogger), they don't require an FTP client, everyone knows how to navigate them, and there's an enormous ecosystem of advice, code, tutorials and free plug-ins available online for them. With umpteen million blogs in the world, chances are pretty good that any problem you encounter when building one has already been discussed, solved, and posted in 28 different places. Core's own rkuchinsky has several sites up powered by Blogger, all showcasing the sort of clarity and ease of navigation of which Begin would probably approve.
Next week: Six Things to Always Do When Building Your Site
Hey folks check out the latest cool little paper toy from Horrorwood “Ghosts in the Machine”.
We zijn druk in de weer met het maken van een nieuwe on- en offline tijdschrift onder de naam Pico. Pico is een klein tijdschrijft: 16 pagina’s op A7 formaat.
Met een abonnement krijg je iedere maand een gedrukt exemplaar in de bus, maar je kunt Pico ook als pdf downloaden. Het pdf bestand bestaat uit een dubbelzijdig A4 dat je print, vouwt, niet en rondom schoon snijdt. Heb je eindelijk eens wat aan je printer. Er is zelfs een gratis abonnement: het verplicht u en ons tot niets. (-;
Maar het leukste aan Pico is wel dat je ook zélf Pico’s kan maken. Het is echt simpel. Even aanmelden, plaatjes uploaden, en dan: download, print, vouw, niet, en snij.
Gratis. Leuk. Doen. Lees. http://www.picozine.com
Here are some cool little papertoys, Glueless by JasonHarlan. They are made of one piece with no glue construction. You can download them from Harlancore papertoy site here. While your there check out all the cool BoxPunx papertoys. Rock! 
