“This year, within the framework of the“Professional Skills”module of the second year of MARSH, students came to a completely new result. Usually, the year ended with project PDF portfolios, in which it is impossible to place videos, animations, gifs and sound files. But this time the work was adaptive and not constrained by the format framework. All portfolios were created in Tilda online designer with an emphasis on illustrative and drawing graphics, animation and online layout. It is important to note that these are not project portfolios - I asked students to create rubrics based on their programming skills.
At the end of the year, when it was time for students to take up summer internships, I sent the 18 best portfolios to my friends and colleagues from several architecture studios and asked to rate the work. Many noted the serious level of the authors' training, some paid more attention to information content, others noted the ease of navigation and minimalism, the third was the atmosphere and general history.
Below are the views of the architects on the relative interactive format of the portfolio, and the illustrations for the material are taken from works that have been noted by most of the experts. You can view the entire portfolio on this page."
Mikhail Beilin, GOROZHANE / CITIZENSTUDIO
I consider the very principle of preparing a portfolio site to be extremely successful. He conveys the job seeker's message to the employer in an easy and understandable manner. And it accurately shows the technical level of the applicant. There is nothing superfluous: pastel drawings, heaps of mock-ups from the department of physical training and other things. I can say one thing for sure: there was not a single portfolio that could be called average, and even more so weak. All works are very strong and bright. Studying them is a pleasure.
I must admit that the technical level of an architect is of primary importance to us: he must be able to do a lot and at the very beginning of work become an extension of our hands. And then, of course, get more independence.
The idea of showing not projects, but skills is very useful in itself. Sometimes, when we receive a portfolio with projects, we do not understand what exactly the person was doing, what part of the work. Often, a portfolio consists of projects made in the framework of workshops, collectively. It is important for us to understand personal technical tools and personal preferences, since sometimes not only the style of presentation depends on the choice of a bunch of programs, but even the way of thinking or, conversely, the individual way of creative thinking dictates the choice of software. Here we just see exactly what interests us in the first place. So any potential employer immediately understands how a person can fit into the structure of the office's work.
If you are sending your portfolio for the purpose of employment, then you should not get too carried away with special effects and complicate the structure. The main thing is that everything should be clear and work. With a huge range of options, the main thing is to remain in moderation. In general, the web has many advantages over more traditional formats that can easily turn out to be disadvantages when it lacks aesthetics and sense of proportion.
The online presentation format is great, especially for students. The problem I see is that the format is hard to cope with if there are a lot of projects and pictures. A bureau's portfolio with hundreds of projects is not so abundant. But as a tool for the presentation of two or three projects, it's the opposite, super! Although the standard pdf is a "dumb" tool, it is, of course, very convenient for its prevalence and simplicity. In what format to receive a portfolio - in principle, it is not important for me, the main thing is that there are good works and text.
Online portfolio is a convenient format for submission. Unlike pdf, it allows you to more fully reveal the skills and abilities of students. PDF, Behance, Issuu remain static - it's just transfer of traditional architectural presentation from tablet to digital environment. The web version allows you to make your portfolio interactive.
On the other hand, the general enthusiasm for collages seems strange to me personally. And not only in student work, but also in the work of the bureau. Visually, this is a pop technique, it no longer intrigues and does not give an accurate idea of the architecture. Technically, it's a double job: first modeling and rendering in one program, then applying textures in Photoshop. It is difficult to say what the benefits of this approach are. The question immediately arises: can an architect technically do something different, and why this particular format was chosen.
The quality of the work is good. Many portfolios show interest in modeling in Rhino, and some clearly demonstrate the benefits of working with Rhino + Grasshopper.
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zooming 1/9 Collages and Photoshop Alexandra Kazandzhyan
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zooming 2/9 Collages and Photoshop Alexandra Kazandzhyan
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zooming 3/9 Photoshop Vadim Galichyan
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zooming 4/9 Sofia Balykina
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zooming 5/9 Illustration, courtyard of a residential building near the Sukharevskaya metro station Denisova Victoria
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zooming 6/9 Plan of a recreational center on the ground Autocad + Adobe Illustrator + Adobe Photoshop Denisova Victoria
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zooming 7/9 Sketchup, Photoshop Daria Sheverda
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zooming 8/9 Rhino render + Photoshop Anastasia Slavina
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zooming 9/9 Rhino, Photoshop Daria Sheverda
For us, as employers, the format for submitting a portfolio in the form of a website seems more suitable. Sometimes you want to return to a candidate, look at his portfolio, but you realize that a person could grow up during the time while you were thinking, to master new skills. And the site grows together with the architect, and you can reorient it at any time. In our opinion, the web format has great potential in terms of portfolio personalization and thus provides more tools to demonstrate its capabilities.
The online format allows you not only to get acquainted with the applied skills of the author, to feel the style and way of his thinking, which is difficult to achieve in static formats. This method of submission gives applicants a competitive advantage: we always pay attention to the possession of skills that allow us to demonstrate their ideas and capabilities in the most effective way.
The first impression is cool, unusual approach and representativeness, quite convenient. On the other hand, when you flip through a lot of similar works, the uniqueness goes away. Sculpting is almost random everywhere. But some of the works differed significantly and stood out from the rest. The general impression of most of the works is an attempt to hide the not-strong works behind a fashionable layout. And yet, some of the guys managed not only to show their skills, but also to do it meaningfully.
The combination of demonstrating digital skills and web design seems so natural that it's amazing how it never came before. In terms of convenience and individuality, the personal site is far superior to the ISSUE and Behance platforms, because we watch everything on the phone. But pdf, in my opinion, is on a par, it's just from a different universe, the one where books are still created and printed, where there are still booklets of projects.
Which leads to a logical conclusion about the trend of transferring the method of project presentation from a linear to a more diverse one, inherent in web applications, and a completely different way of interacting with content, in which the abilities and skills shown in the portfolio will be fully revealed.
It is more interesting to get those jobs in which the ability is best visible, and the more possible tools, the better. Web opens new pages.
You can find more information about unusual tools, filing formats “and all kinds of game” on Andrey Kiselev's telegram channel: illustrations are reviewed there every week, free streams are held on rendering, modeling and filing tools.
