FS297 Portfolio I

Course Description:

This course prepares students for the transition to the professional world. This course will prepare students for job interviews by helping them compile a portfolio. Students will demonstrate their conceptual, design, craftsmanship, and other skills as they assemble and refine their portfolio pieces. Working individually with an instructor, each student will select representative pieces, showcasing work that reflects a unique style. Particular emphasis is placed on identifying short- and long-term professional employment goals, as well as related strategies and resources.

Punctuality is expected. Points are deducted for excessive (more than 3) tardies. You can track your grades by your name and student id on my Gradekeeper page. Grades are updated once a week, usually Sunday morning.

Course Competencies:
Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to:

  1. Review with instructor and advisor the direction in which the student has decided to specialize the portfolio.
  2. Produce professional-level productions.
  3. Demonstrate ability to make a presentation of work.
  4. Complete personal letterhead and business cards.
  5. Attend and professionally present your completed portfolio at the portfolio showing if you are an Associate level graduate.

Besides the above competencies, please note (per your class syllabus) the following:

Grading is based on meeting all competencies, portfolio requirements, creativity, professionalism, and individual and class participation. You must maintain a minimum of a C to pass this course. Less will result in your having to repeat the course.

You must attend all reviews by faculty and outside guests. You must turn in your projects on time. (See calendar week one.) A printed and PDF resume and portfolio package must be given to Career Services for their assistance in getting you a job. You must present yourself and your completed portfolio in a professional manner at a public portfolio review. You will lose a grade for each element missed.

open book icon for lecture informationList of lectures and labs

 

Students are responsible to check this at least one day prior to class. Email me at sharon@casabasa.com if you have any questions. Tutoring is available on Mondays at noon, rm. 309.

Week 1: Wednesday January 11, 2012

Cori Miller Miyaki will be in at 10:30 a.m. to meet with our graduating student(s) in particular, and to touch base with all students in general.

Complete the student survey.

Lecture: Review of requirements for completing portfolio for graduation. Look at the work to date.

What should be included in your portfolio? What does your site say about you?

Lab:

Collect what you have but weed it down to your best 15 to 25 pieces. List what you know you want to create for anything that is missing. To be discussed next class. Students create calendar.

Last quarter's portfolios:

Federico Clasing
Roman Diaz
Anna Guerrero

Sandeep Malireddy* Graduating

 

Portfolio I requirements: Download checklist (.pdf)

This is a list of your requirements to pass Portfolio I. Your grade is dependent on this as well as other factors including the overall quality of your portfolio, design ability, reasoning and articulation, technical abilities and documentation skills.

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Portfolio I Requirements

  • 4 web sites, group and/or individually created. Students are encouraged to have at least one demonstration site in html 5/css 3. All sites will follow the guidelines of the w3c.
  • 2 interactive media (.swf, sound files, movies, interfaces, games)
  • @print cascading stylesheet
  • Accessible and usable in Firefox, Safari, IE6 and above, Chrome, and via a smartphone (flexible layout, javascript or css).
  • Be associated with a Google Analytics or equivalent monitoring system to track users.
  • Takes full use of semantic markup, metadata tags, and clean code (progressive enhancement and graceful degradation) to maximize search engine optimization.
  • All images and links use the title attribute; all images must use the alt attribute.
  • One complete process book, based on your best web site, linked from your portfolio site in .pdf format. If you are graduating, this should be professionally printed and presented as part of your overall presentation at the Portfolio show. The book presentation online must be high quality.
  • Business cards, giveaway prototype, resume and cover letter on personal stationery.
  • MLA-formatted research on career-related subject. Highly suggested is research on a company that you wish to work for, but you may also interview a professional in the web/interactive media field. 3 resources are cited.
  • All code should be commented, including css and html.
  • No grammar or spelling errors.
  • Purchased domain name.

 

 

Homework:

Collect all potential portfolio pieces and organize. Create asset list so you know what you have. Prioritize them from the ones that are near-ready down to the ones needing major work. Then create a timeline, including any time you may need on logo, branding, business card, resume, marketing statement, informational interview and job research.

I also want a link due week 1 where you will post a weekly status using the checklist above. Your post will be due the day before the next class to receive full credit.

Week 2:

Focus: Be prepared. Class exercise in focusing on what you want to achieve.

Lecture: Creating a process book.
Lab: Finalize portfolio projects using your asset list. Fill in any holes to meet requirements. Choose best project to begin a design document targeting your role and skills.

Those wishing to speak at graduation should submit first drafts of speeches to Career Services.


Homework: Compose calendar plan. Homework week 2 .pdf

 

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What should be included as a process book?

  1. Client Objectives
  2. Marketing Plan
  3. Implementation Plan
  4. Target Audience
  5. Persona
  6. Process Page
  7. Flowchart
  8. Wireframe
  9. Competitive Analysis
  10. Resume
  11. Business Card
  12. Services Page

 

 

 

Week 3:

Focus: Job fair, 10 UN. 11:45-1 pm. If you don't already have a job, be prepared by dressing accordingly with resume ready. Schedule career consultation and have ready first draft of resume to CSA. Cori Miller will be in at 10:30 a.m. We will have a guest, Dana Sheikholeslami from Western Digital.

Lecture: Individual design of portfolios discussed. Review of how the work may be included to meet Portfolio I requirements.
Lab: All print or originals should be ready to scan or shoot photos of. There may be one or two projects you still need to add. Shoot photos or scan. Prepare all images for CMYK for print and RGB for digital portion. Begin organization and layout of final portfolio pieces including Business Card and Stationery.
Homework: Continue work on unfinished portions of portfolio as homework. Bring hard copy of print for spelling/grammar check prior to submission for review. Homework week 3 .pdf

Interesting sites:

 

Week 4:

Lecture: Review of portfolio to date. Business cards and resume and demo cover letter on stationery. Marketing statements due week 6 is discussed.
Lab: Continue work on portfolio. Finalize work on Business Cards and Stationery.
Homework: Collect all potential portfolio pieces and organize. Begin thinking of your marketing statements. Examples of past WDIM graduates marketing statements. Homework week 4 .pdf

 

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Week 5:

 

Focus: Portfolio review (master rubric) and portfolio review (shortlist) Please send your url in the next two weeks to an outside person to review. Ask them to critique and tell you what they liked, didn't like, and wanted more or less of. And ask if there were any technical difficulties. Please send a summary of your critique and your planned actions via email. Internship 12-1 10 U.N. room 501. Listed at the AI Jobs Board.

Lecture: Give away mini-portfolios and Business Cards and Resume on Stationery due for critique. In-class demo on making Acrobat PDF’s.
Lab: Resume due to Career Services or me. Creating PDF resume and portfolio representation. Your career services representative, Cori Miller, will be in class at 10:30 a.m.
Homework: Print portfolio should be underway and prepared for a first printing by Week 6 when we have a review of your portfolios by outside designers. Business cards should be ordered now if graduating. Complete marketing statements, due next week. Career Services Powerpoint. Match Talent Sample Marketing Blurbs.

Graduation Clearance Form (.pdf)
Key Dates for Career Services and Graduation (.pdf)

http://www.aicasfjobs.com/

 

Week 6:

Focus: Marketing statements due. Please continue working on all material. Those who plan on graduating need to set their meetings for final proofing. This can only occur after you have made all corrections.

All Students: Cori Miller will be in class at around 9:30 or 10 a.m. Next week research of employers you may wish to contact for employment is due.

Important documentation: Graduation clearance form, Graduation packet, phonetic spelling (for registrar). You would have already received these forms. These are just listed for backup. Newly added: Outline of what you need in writing your content (Word document)

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Checklist for Portfolio Proofing

Content:
Prioritize analysis: describe your work in order to analyze how and why you created it.

Consistency of Form and Layout:
Use consistent sentence/phrase constructions for descriptions, labels, headings, and other texts. Keep incomplete constructions parallel. In the example below, “Design” will always be described in a noun phrase and “Purpose” in an infinitive (“to ---”) phrase.

            #1 Design: Logo for Starbucks Coffee    (noun phrase)
Purpose: To give “green” connotations to this familiar brand
(infinitive phrase)
Concept: The Starbucks logo has long been identified with…
(analytical paragraph of complete sentences)

            #2 Design: Sign for The Independent, an alternative music club   (noun phrase)
Purpose: To modernize the outdated “homemade” sign while retaining                                                   the club’s grassroots identity      (infinitive phrase)
Concept: Before this renovation the sign for The Independent depicted hand-                                       drawn arrows….      (analytical paragraph of complete sentences)

Use consistent capitalization, italics, boldface, and punctuation (see example above).
Check for consistent, logical verb tense.
Coordinate font sizes, headings, spacing, and other typographical choices.

Style:
Minimize repetition of the same word/s (“design,” “piece,” “modern”).
Cut out unnecessary or empty words (“There is…,” “It is…”).
Use action verbs (“The fabric has the feel of…” > “The fabric feels like...”).

Grammar:
Check verb-subject agreement (singular: “the ad depicts..” plural: “the ads depict..”).

Punctuation:
Check comma usage. Always use commas with:
--words/phrases in a series (“one, two, and three …”).
--introductory dependent clause or verb phrase (“If …, then …”).
--introductory conjunctive adverb or phrase (“However, …” “Fortunately, …” ).
--non-restrictive phrase or clause (“…my final piece, Brand New, expresses…” )
Avoid the “thought-provoking” semi-colon in commercial design text.

Spelling:
Check corporate names (“Starbucks” or “Starbuck’s”?).
Check compound adjectives, such as “homemade button” or “hand-sewn gown.”

Proofreading Suggestions for Students

  1. Read the text out loud, or better yet have someone else read it to you. Sometimes it’s easier to hear mistakes than to see them, particularly in cases of wrong word choice. If you have a Mac, you can use the built-in text to speech option for this purpose.
  2. Read the text backwards. This will enable you to focus on individual words rather than their meaning.
  3. Spell check! Run a spell check and, if available, grammar check on everything you write. Almost every modern program that handles text will have some sort of spell check function; if you’re using one of the few programs that doesn’t, copy and paste the text into Microsoft Word or another word processor.

 

 

Lab: Continuing students only. Reviews of sites (checklist). As for your documentation, a process book usually will include the following items: Overview, Research, Target Audience, Competitors, Design Sketches, Usability and Technology, Flow chart, Prototype, and Final. A media kit might be used to package your resume, sample of work (screenshots of interface, coding, mind-mapping, sketches, assets, etc. can be included), business card, marketing statement and to emphasize your skills and what makes you unique. It's an abridged form of who you are.

Homework (Both groups): Collect all potential portfolio pieces and organize. Research on industry specific companies to include contact names, address, web site information and synopsis of company's goal, objectives and target industry is due next week for discussion. This is will provide you information to conduct an informational interview with the company of your choice. This project will be due week 9.

Interesting sites and valuable information:

What to include in your design contracts

Week 7:

Focus: Industry portfolio review. Industry professionals, academic director and csa will review your work.

Graduates only: Industry portfolio critiques, tbd. As long as each student has a live site, there will be a laptop and projector in the conference room to display your work. This quarter is Mochi Media.

Continuing students: This week, we will be conducting our own mock interviews. Using each other we will review, critique, rehearse and clarify our portfolios and presentations.

Lecture: Individual Portfolio advisement.

Lab: Clean up and improve any areas designated by critique. Rubric/Critique pdf

Homework: keep working, buy or make case. Completed linked .pdf due next week. Appointment from content approval must be made by week 9 AFTER I have proofed it myself. Get it to me asap.

Proofreading schedule (TBD):

Monday  1-5pm, Todd Robinson, 1170 605 (todrobinson@aii.edu)

            1-3pm, Annie Fisher, 10UN 515 (anfisher@aii.edu or 415-276-4023)

Friday   12-1pm, Kathleen Jones, Library, 2nd Floor 10UN (kjones@aii.edu)

Week 8:

 

Focus: Linked print portfolio (the .pdf online version) is due. If you are not graduating, this does not need to be printed. Graduates need final version.

Lecture: Guest lecturer. Individual Portfolio advisement, print emphasis.

Lab: Bachelor students will continue portfolio/soft skill/critiques, presentations of your work in the best light possible. What kind of questions are you asking in your informational interviews?


Homework: Informational interviews for continuing students due next week. Complete leave behind piece, due week 10. All work - everything - is due week 10.

 

 

Week 9:

Focus: Graduates: Required career services media is uploaded to AI portfolio site. Email 20 professionals of upcoming portfolio show. Loan exit meeting. Web site should be technically completed. Print/Media kit or process book should be completed. .pdf version of process book is linked within site. All work is due.

Lecture: Informational Interviews are due in written version. Please include who you contacted, why you chose them, and the questions you asked.


Lab: Ongoing critiques. Final sign off of content due today.


Homework: Complete all print portfolio pieces and assemble into high-quality .pdf format (graduates). Class presentations of your final portfolio next week.

Week 10:

Focus: No hassle for the tassel for the graduates. Web sites are submitted for critique. Please send your link of your final portfolio to your instructor, director, and one outside industry professional for review.

Lecture: Public presentation preparation with examples. Complete Portfolios Due for Faculty Review in classroom, and “Best Portfolio” judging at portfolio show.

Process book is due today, at beginning of class. Students should have this linked online in .pdf format, and should be of professional quality. In general, included are the following items. This is separate from the graduates print presentation, which is more of a visual presentation of some of the items listed below, along with screenshots demonstrating their design skills.

  1. Client Objectives
  2. Marketing Plan
  3. Implementation Plan
  4. Target Audience
  5. Persona
  6. Process Page
  7. Flowchart
  8. Wireframe
  9. Competitive Analysis
  10. Resume
  11. Business Card
  12. Services Page


Lab: Work on public portfolio shows presentation. Space design will be examined and discussed. All exit interviews and signature sheets should be completed by this time.
Homework: Prepare presentation signage

Week 11:

Portfolio I requirements: Download checklist (.pdf)

Focus: Portfolio show. Thursday of week 11 at the Hotel Whitcomb, San Francisco. Set up at 1, show from 4-8 p.m.

Lecture: Final presentations. Grades Online have been updated, with the assumption that you will present your portfolio in class today. Only graduates are excused today.

Lab: Presentations of portfolios. Public Portfolio Presentation for Associate degrees, SHOW TIME!

Grading is based on meeting all competencies, portfolio requirements, creativity, professionalism, and individual and class participation. You must maintain a minimum of a C to pass this course. Less will result in your having to repeat the course.

You must attend all reviews by faculty and outside guest. You must turn in your projects on time. (See calendar week one.) A printed and PDF resume and portfolio packages must be given to Career Services for their assistance in getting you a job. You must present yourself and your completed portfolio in a professional manor at a public portfolio review. You will loose a grade for each element missed.

For your booth:

  • 8.5" x 11" mounted sign with your name, degree and logo for your space. This must match your stationery and business cards.
  • At least 20 professional resumes that have been approved by your instructor and at least 20 business cards with logo
  • Business card holder for your cards

For your career advisor and your job search:

  • Prior to graduation, you must meet with your career advisor and have a planning session to assist you in your job search.
  • An electronic PDF and Word version of your resume for emailing to potential employers.
  • 3 DVDs of digital portfolio and cover art files
  • An active website
  • Practice interviews, scheduled with Career Advisor at your request.

For the Registrar: Graduation Clearance Form

From Cori: Portfolio Checklist

TIMELINE

  1. Arrive at Hotel Whitcomb at 1:00pm.You will set up your space and can leave once you are done.  Career services will be there the whole time to watch your stuff.  1231 Market St, by Starbucks.
  2. Parking Suggestions: Behind Hotel Whitcomb (8th cross Market there are two parking lots on right @ $9) or park across street at Trinity Plaza.
  3. Come back to the Hotel at 3:00pm sharp for a meeting and to get organized. 
  4. 4:00-8:00pm the doors open and the fun begins!!

 

PORTFOLIO SHOW CHECKLIST

  1. You will be sharing a 6 ft table with one of your classmates.  You get 3 ft of space to work with.
  2. Please bring an extension cord.
  3. Portfolio, don’t forget it. (Prepare for the worst in case internet is not working, have your work saved as screen shots or etc…)
  4. 25-30 copies of your resume.
  5. Tons of business cards.
  6. Your giveaway.
  7. Signage with your Name and Major (at least 11 x 17 in size). The best way to hang material and etc…on the wall behind you is tape.

 

WHAT TO WEAR

  1. Dress to impress, business casual. We typically have 125-150 Employers in attendance.
  2. Button down shirt.
  3. Nice slacks, ironed!
  4. Nice shoes.

4.    Ladies don’t forget to wear comfy shoes, you will be on your feet for 4 hours straight. You might consider bringing another pair of shoes.

5.    Ladies business casual, you do not have to wear a dress.

6.    EVERYONE, no JEANS.

 

One last note:

TO PROTECT PORTFOLIOS

·         No FOOD!!!

·         No outside food or drink (that includes alcohol) will be allowed in the Ballroom or the Mezzanine and all refreshments from the Networking area must stay on the Mezzanine.

If you need to drink Starbucks, do it before the show. Only water will be allowed behind the tables.


Interesting sites and readings

http://sizzlejs.com/

http://www.modernizr.com/

http://validator.nu/

http://tantek.com/favelets/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/01/how-to-respond-effectively-to-design-criticism/

Statistics to keep in mind

Testing your site. https://browserlab.adobe.com/index.htm

  • ~ peace, polka and piwo

 

Calendar Winter 2012

Syllabus
Lectures & homework
Student websites
Helpful links

Word document - syllabusDownload syllabus

Weeks: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

 

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