Portfolio Website Planning

In order to promote my own work in the context of the show I have decided to create my own person portfolio website. After talking to my tutors I found out that using a tumblr powered site would fulfill the requirements of the brief. Given the time constrains for this part of the project I would definitely prefer to do it through tumblr then to hand code a full site from scratch, tumblr is also inherently responsive. The way I plan to do this is to use the tumblr API to create and edit a theme to place my content into. Below is a view of the editor when viewing my existing tumblr page:

After studying and researching tumblr as a platform for networking and career building I think it is going to be a huge advantage to me in terms of professional development and promotion. The key positive points I found in my research were:

• Easy to communicate
• Building up a following is facilitated by a well used tagging system
• Maintaining a following is easier because you have to actively opt out of viewing someones content one you follow them
• Posts are able to generate latent popularity long after they are originally posts via 're-blogging'

WIP Gallery Space

Today I started to design the inside of what the show would look like so that I can get some feedback from my class on Monday. In order to maximise hanging space and not just have a boring spread of stuff just hung on the walls I have designed some pieces to fit in the middle. These will be single struts that hang from the joists on the roof and on the floor below, with fishing line and clips to secure the work in the middle.

Mapping out Exhibition Space

As part of my role as Exhibition Space team leader the responsibility of making sure everything fits in the gallery space and getting it looking good falls to me (with opinions coming from the group as a whole). To help me keep track of what we were filling the gallery space with I went on a quick visit and took extensive measurements of the building:

I then took these measurements and created a SketchUp model of the gallery with people inside to give a sense of scale:

Then using the build in share facilities I uploaded the model to Google's 3D Warehouse library:

The link to these models was then shared by me to the Facebook group we have set up for our class for discussing things when we aren't in lesson. Through this URL my classmates are able to view the model online as well as download and manipulate it through Google's free SketchUp program. I think this will provide a valuable asset to our group and speed up decisions about where to hang things and other stylistic choices. It also means we can put on a more extravagant show given the time constraints for set-up, because we can accurately model things before the day rather then trying to decide when we don't have the time.

Research Into Professional Portfolios

In order to get a better idea of the different ways people present their work online I decided to find a few examples of web portfolios.

The first example I really liked was the website of James Paterson. It is presented in a very informal blog style with a detailed breakdown of projects as well as a journal of works in progress.

Although I really like this informal style I don't feel like I would have enough to write about each project to be able to pull a website this detailed off.

The next one I looked at was Tim Lahan's personal site. I really like the more simple menu with a single tile representing each piece of work, if I use something similar then adding more items shouldn't be a problem in terms of design changes.

The final site I looked at belonged to the Dutch design agency Studio airport. Its very similar to the previous one but with a horizontal menu. I think I with pursue something similar to the two of these for my personal portfolio, keeping things clean and minimal with a single image for each piece of work that leads to a separate page.

Promoting My Own Work

In the brief it explains how we are supposed to promote our own work within the context of our end of year show:

To do this I have chosen to make a website portfolio of my work. The main reason for this is that it is something that I have been wanting to do outside of Uni work anyway as it is the industry standard for presenting the best of your work in a professional environment. Because its not a physical thing I am definitely going to go with the brief and produce a small business card with my contact details and URL of my portfolio. This will be very useful to me when it comes to networking during the show as well as after it.

Visiting Brighton Media Centre

Because I live the closest to where we are going to hold the exhibition I decided to travel down there and take a few photos for the group to get a better idea of what the final show would look like:

Sponsorship?

As quite a lot of our budget is taken up by drinks for the opening night I thought it would be good idea to research into getting a company to sponsor our drinks for the night in return for advertisement. After talking to a few people that have done this kind of thing I found the company Diageo, who supply drinks for events and catering companies. On their website they have a contact form specifically for sponsorship requests which I have filled out in the hope of getting them to supply drinks:

Spreadsheet Organising

So that we can see what the group is doing I devised a spreadsheet using Google Docs to share what we have on the written plans. I also included an interactive progress chart and a budget calculating spreadsheet as well as the weekly planner and submissions tracker. These spreadsheets were shared to the group via a URL which can be used to access them at any time.

My Pitch for Branding

As part of out brief we have been asked to submit a proposal for a poster/branding identity. Below is what I came up with for the show:

I decided to go for a clean look with a bit of a quirky edge to make it seem more fun and less basic. In the end it wasn't chosen because the group put forward some really strong designs that better suited what the whole class had in mind.

Dividing Into Groups

In order to better organise and effectively spend our time we decided to divide in to groups and assign a group leader and list of responsibilities that each group will have to carry out. This means that people wont get too stressed out about the show as a whole, but can concentrate on one specific part of the running of the show. The committee (Ollie, Me and Hayley) will oversee the organisation of the group and make sure that each group is taking care of the responsibilities assigned to them, as well as ensuring that everyone has their opinion heard when it comes to group decisions. Below is the write up of the group divisions:

Timetabling

So that we could always keep track where we were in terms of development over time with the show we set some targets for getting all the things we need to do done by. Anything we need to get done by a specified time in the brief is generally allowed a week more on our timetable in case of any problems or unforeseen delays. Below is the write-up of our timetable we have pinned up in the classroom:

New Brief: End of Year Show

Our next project for this year is to put on an exhibition with BA group to promote our work, as well as self promote throughout the project. Our final exhibition will take place on the 12th and 13th of June at the Brighton Media Centre. My initial feeling towards this project is excitement as it means me are able to showcase what we've been doing for the last 2 years as well as network with professionals in our industry.