How to Make a Portfolio: A Guide to Designing Your NID, CEED Portfolio
The portfolio is the representation of you. This means who you are, your passion, your skills, your dreams, and most important, it shows how you see the world around you. Hence, NID, IDC-IIT or NIFT, or any other design school from all over the world wants to see your portfolio, to evaluate you for admission. In the first 10 mins of the interview, be it online or in person, as you open your portfolio, all the eyes of the interviewer are on your work, what you talk about it, how you handle your sheets, and how you present it. They observe if your skills and all your work match or not. They try connecting you and your work in their heads and then ask related questions. In this article, we will understand how we should work on our portfolio so that the first 10 mins will confirm your seat in any of the prestigious design schools in India.
How to Make a Portfolio for NID or CEED or NIFT
​ Select the best sketches and drawings |
Add sheets showcasing your chosen design field |
Put Images of your art and design experiments |
Showcase your extraordinary skill set |
Never copy; reproduce your idea in the same style |
Personalize your portfolio |
Practice talking about it |
​ Select the best sketches and drawings
The most important part of your collection will be your drawings and sketches. You need to sketch well for whatever you want to be: product designer, fashion designer, graphic designer, animation, game designer, textile, or interior designer. Sketch and draw daily, select the best work from it and add it to your portfolio. They can be human figure sketches, idea sketches, memory drawings, or illustrations. Sketches can be done with pencils or pens or colored pencils. Colored pencil hatchings are also the best way to showcase your rendering skills.
Add sheets showcasing your chosen design field.
Your portfolio must contain works related to Your chosen field. If you don't know which design field you want to opt for, it's okay; try to accommodate your liking for the interviewer to understand what you are capable of. New product ideas, new cloth draping drawings, any illustration to a comic character drawing, whatever you like and can draw, should be a part of your portfolio. Try to show what new you are thinking about your chosen field.
Put Images of your art and design experiments.
The portfolio should also show some of your favorite experiments with art and design. It can be a wall painting in your house or some jugad you created to solve a problem or an abstract 3D model; document your experiments and present them in images or drawings in your portfolio. You can also add pictures from your mobile photography. Prints of your digital drawings and clay modeling can also be a part of your collection.
Showcase your extraordinary skill set
You might be doing something extraordinary; showcase it. Try to find what about you amazes your family or friends and try to showcase it in any form. It can be mimicry, acting, problem-solving attitude, joke telling, soap carving, or collecting things; something makes you unique; try to find it and make it a part of your portfolio.
Never copy; reproduce your idea in the same style.
When we show copy work, it only indicates or displays our skills. So try to avoid showcasing it in your portfolio. We learn from copying things, we get needed skills when we copy something, but we don't need to showcase only that; we can put a few reproduced works to show our specific skills, like a copy of master painters. Also, you can paint in the same style with your own composition. For example, paint your room in a Vincent van gauge style or paint thoughts like Salvador Dali.
Personalize your portfolio
Everyone is unique; bring that uniqueness to your portfolio. Make it as personalized as possible; all your characters, your likings about color, philosophies, and hobbies should be a part of it. From the Portfolio case to the sheet colors to the arrangements of different sheets, find your original idea to design and present it.
Practice talking about it
Most important and the last thing is that you should be able to talk about it. As every artwork in your portfolio is yours, you should be aware of every detail, like the concept, the process, or how you made it. Practice talking about it with your family members or friends, show them each sheet, and make sure you talk about it. This practice of talking will relax you for the interview. By any chance, you fumble or cannot remember anything in the discussion; no problem, your portfolio is already talking about you.
Summary
Your portfolio is your story; write it well!
In another article, we will discuss how to arrange portfolio sheets.