D&AD Portfolio Workshop

I recently went to D&AD portfolio workshop held at Liverpool John Moores. I had two portfolio crits whilst I was there. I had both cirts with people who work at Elmwood in Leeds. I realised by recognition that Elmwood is the biggest agencies in the whole of England, with offices all over the world including New York.

My first crit was with Simon Morrow. I soon got talking to him; he was a really cool guy. Really down to earth which was good because I was nervous. I showed him my whole portfolio talking over a few pieces of my work explaining some of the ideas. `He really like the way I presented my work as he said some students sit down and just hand the portfolio and not talking throughout the whole crit. He gave me a few pointers, such as taking out my page numbers; this is because he said you could change your portfolio around showing work in different order. Also it not that necessary in a portfolio. Simon also pointed to my New York identity, saying it a really sweet idea, but I could push it a lot further applying it to different mediums. This was the same for my Chronicles typeface. He said why not show it advertising some event or stationary. Simon also gave me some advice on my ‘Leave behind’, Simon seemed really impressed with the fact I went a bit further to create something to remember me by. He gave me in what order the book should start, with what piece and end with what piece. All in all the crit went really well. Simon told me to keep on emailing him my work in progress. Also I am going to email him a finished ‘Leave Behind’.

My second crit was with ……. A really nice person. With a very serious approach to design. He immediately commented on the simple clean layout. He said it was very well considered. He said the typography was really nice but spotted a widow on one of my sheets in my portfolio. He was really impressed with the NYC Bowling Championships logo. He was very keen to hear about the thought process behind the piece. Also he talked about my Manchester Literature Festival Poster. He said the use of hierarchy work really well. But he mentions my Gotham Magazine spread. He thought it was a nice piece of design but he could see the main body of text just working in two simple columns. He gave me his business card and told me t keep in touch.