Professional Practice for Interior Designers. Christine M. Piotrowski
though you will most likely be presenting them to the prospective employer. Written explanations should not simply state what can be seen in the graphics.
Organization of the items is key to helping make your portfolio self‐explanatory. Remember that a portfolio tells a visual story about you.
Each piece that you include demonstrates how you can help the prospective employer.
What to Include
Because you may only have 30–60 minutes for the entire interview, you need to limit the number of items in your portfolio. Twenty‐five to thirty items or pages should be sufficient. This also ensures that you have time to ask your questions during the interview. Select items that show employers you have an understanding of the issues involved in designing interiors. This is especially important for students. You must include items that showcase your technical, creative, and problem‐solving skills. Table 6‐3 provides suggestions as to what can be included in a portfolio.
A student must show a variety of items that will help demonstrate his or her skills in the techniques and processes of interior design. Begin with a high‐quality piece or a project that showcases a whole project. The items selected should be your best work and provide examples of all the skills you possess.
The professional may find it easier to emphasize certain types of work, but may also have to show the breadth of his experience in designing projects. Professionals will want to lead with a recent award‐winning project and may even include a copy of the award certificate. Be sure you obtain the client's permission to photograph the interiors and that you have permission to duplicate work done at your place of employment. The rights clause in a design contract that relates to photographs does not cover a designer's personal use of photos. So you may need to talk to the photographer about getting prints.
Digital portfolios can be prepared in a variety of ways. Items are easily saved on DVDs due to their large storage capacity. USB flash drives are also great because they can store a lot of material and are easy to carry. For security, however, it is best to use a DVD‐R read‐only disc so that the receiver/viewer cannot alter it. You can also secure the USB using the manufacturer's directions.
There are many options to preparing the actual digital presentation of your portfolio. Many types of software are available to help the candidate include animation, voice‐overs, and music to make it even more personalized. In addition, you control the timing, sequence, and pace of the information in your presentation.
These presentations can also be programmed into a personal Web site or posted to a Web site hosting interior design portfolios. Two sites that host interior design portfolios are www.slideshare.net and www.carbonmade.com, among others. Note that these are mentioned for reference and the author does not specifically endorse either. Other sites also allow portfolio postings.
TABLE 6‐3. Items commonly included in a portfolio
| Examples of these items should be included and organized to show your skills in relationship to the job for which you are applying. Be sure you only show work YOU did. If projects were done by teams, bring the parts you were responsible for, not what someone else did. |
| Students |
| • At least one complete project with all required documents |
| • Sketches that show the decision‐making process |
| • Freehand sketches and thumbnails |
| • Programming sketches or documents (i.e., bubble diagrams and adjacency diagrams) |
| • Furniture floor plans |
| • Working drawings |
| Dimensioned plans |
| Mechanical plans |
| Elevations, sections, and details |
| Millwork designs |
| • CAD drawings |
| • Manual drafting |
| • Color boards |
| • Exhibits of hand lettering skills |
| • Perspectives and/or isometric drawings |
| • Technical renderings in any media in which you are competent |
| Professionals |
| • Project photos or slides |
| • Publication reprints |
| • Articles you wrote |
| • Specifications |
You may be able to link your Web site with one of the job search sites. A caution for Web site portfolios is that you must be careful about image file size and the number of images you include. Employers may become impatient waiting for a complex portfolio to download. If the portfolio is sent as a large e‐mail or e‐mail attachment, the recipient's system may interpret it as spam.
Maureen Mitton's book, Portfolios for Interior Designers, is an excellent resource for preparing a digital portfolio. There are others that can be found via an Internet search and review of the general references at the end of the text.
Non‐Digital Portfolio Tips
Even though you will likely have the portfolio on a digital format, it is beneficial to comment on a few tips related to a non‐digital version of a portfolio. In part this is needed as a backup in case anything goes wrong with your DVD or USB. Some of these suggestions will be the same or similar to what was discussed above.
Begin with a high‐quality piece or a project that showcases a whole project.
Provide brief written descriptions of each item.
Present all the examples consistently in either a vertical or a horizontal manner.
Include a sample of hand lettering. This lost art is still important to some employers.
Do not include poor‐quality work. Only include your best items.
Include one or two clean copies of your resume and references in a plastic sleeve.
It should end with another quality piece to serve as a “last impression” of what you can do.
Store projects, drawings, models, and so on, carefully so that they do not become damaged.
HOW EMPLOYERS REVIEW RESUMES AND COVER LETTERS
Between posted and mailed resumes, business owners receive dozens if not hundreds of resumes and letters every week. Today, most resumes arrive via e‐mail or other online postings. Most often these come to the office without any job posting or announcement of any kind. Since those in charge of hiring are very busy, it is going to take some luck to get them to notice your inquiry. Today the reality is that with so many people applying via the Internet, it gets even harder to be noticed by the right people.
What is likely to catch their attention is something that is said in your e‐mail message or cover letter.