Please critique my graphic design portfolio

Cafe Society
1

Could ya spare some feedback, whether you’re a pro or somebody who just likes this stuff? I’m an amateur graphic designer working on improving my skills.
My work: Dropbox - Error - Simplify your life

I’m mostly self-taught and I work on a volunteer/very low pay basis, so my clients don’t really demand much of me and it’s hard to know whether I’m doing a good job. I’m not trying go full-time pro or anything, but it would be nice to be able to list graphic design as a bonus job skill – if I’m good enough. Am I? Should I even bother?

And although I can’t afford to go to formal art school for this, I’d love any tips or advice for things I can learn and work on on my own. What should I work on? Which elements are good, which aren’t? Any particularly glaring faults? Anything you really like? Any books I should read? (I’ve gone through a few but could always use more)

And yes, I know it’s lame to have a portfolio on Dropbox. I will make a real website for it someday if I keep doing this.

Thanks!

2

I am an amateur just like yourself, and in my opinion you’re doing fantastic work! I can’t really see anything wrong with any of it.

Your sense of colour, composition, font choices, white space, and use of imagery is excellent, just as good or better than anything I hope to attain. You don’t overdo or underdo anything, showing restraint with Photoshop filters, and have an excellent eye for clarity and readability.

I’m sure professionals might find some specific things to critique, but I suspect they will be minor and few.

3

Hi there, I’m not going to critique every piece as that would take a while, but rather make a general comment.

Amateurs always make the same mistake, which is trying to do much. Too many different font styles, too many angles, different images of different styles… it all ends up being a jumble. You need to exercise control and add a hierarchy to the information – what is the main focus? As an example, your most successful flyer is the ‘seeds of change’ one – one strong image which draws you in with controlled typographic treatment.

Your work would improve dramatically by learning some of the basic principles of using grid systems. All decent design uses underlying grids to position elements, otherwise your work just looks like you’ve dropped text and images randomly on the page, like emptying the contents of a bag onto the floor.

You could also use some knowledge of working with type. It would be worth investing in some books by eminent designers, such as “Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works” by Erik Spiekerman, a much admired German designer (Germans are really good with type). Another good book on grids: “Grid Systems in Graphic Design: A Handbook for Graphic Artists, Typographers, and Exhibition Designers” by Josef Muller-Brockmann.

As for online portfolios, you can set up a free one on the Behance website. This is also a good place to see the competition.

SanVito, graphic designer of c.25 years standing.

4

I humbly disagree. The OP has much to learn.

5

I guess that, rather than judging him against award winning typographical design, I’m comparing his work with the shite that comes through my letterbox most days. Compared to them he’s doing genius level work.

6

I would agree pretty much exactly with SanVito.

7

I taught in the Graphics Department of a college for several years.

The good news is that you are starting to learn how to use some of the basic tools. I can see some attempt at Photoshop (or a variation of that program) and some experimentation of text and fonts. You would be a new student that I would gladly have in my class, as I can see you are highly motivated. I wouldn’t have to worry about you not doing assignments, and you would jump into new software and technology, as well as design elements and technique, like a duck to water.

However, there are many things that you could learn in a class, or even going through some textbooks on your own. Much of your work is kind of sloppy - for instance, placement of text does not even line up! Some layouts are far too busy and cluttered - and it doesn’t help to add multiple fonts and colors without any concept or plan. There needs to be room to breathe on a page. These are “newbie” errors that can be fixed, but you need to learn attention to detail.

I can see you have learned most of this on your own, and good for you! This is a good start - but you need to learn how to use other features of whatever software you have available and discover how to use this knowledge in design layout.

  1. Go to Amazon or eBay or wherever and buy some (used) textbooks in the software you have available (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc.)
  2. Most of these textbooks are step-by-step and will teach you the basic tools. You can do this on your own.
  3. Start doing some research - Google is your friend - for graphic artwork and design. See what is out there and compare your work to what is winning prizes or awards for design. Study those for layout, color, fonts, design and concepts.
  4. Practice, practice and practice some more. Whenever you do something, do at least three variations of the same project. This gives your client some choices, but more importantly, it forces you to re-design your project three times - and I can guarantee you this will open your eyes to what works and what doesn’t work!
  5. Save everything. Then save it again. You never know when you might want to take some element from some past project and fix it, or re-use it, or compare to what you are doing now. Plus, every Graphic Designer can give you horror stories about their best work getting lost or accidentally deleted. Have multiple back ups of everything you do and learn to love that “Save” button!

So, short answer is that you are off to a good start, but you need to work more on learning the basic tools and design elements. It might sound strange, but I can see “joy” in your work - you like doing this and are not afraid to try new things. This is good. As you progress, you will discover the curse/blessing of every Graphic Designer; the “critical eye”. That is when you have days when you think everything you do is crap, and other days when you think everything you do is wonderful. The trick is to know which is which - and that only comes with time, practice and experience.

8

I’m not a professional or even an amateur graphic designer.

I thought the websites were very good. Nice colors, easy to read, lots of “air”.

I thought some of the flyers were too busy, and San Vito’s comments come into play there. I liked the May Day flyer because it had a lot of open space. The graphic in the upper right catches my eye and the headline immediately tells me what it’s about.

A poster warrants a millisecond of attention as I walk by. The color and layout are important, they draw my eye there. But I also need to discern what it’s advertising before I turn my eye away. I didn’t like the Seeds of Change flyer because the text was in a busy place and there wasn’t enough contrast between the photo and text. Rather than the V of green drawing my eye down, it went to the lighter and more open area of the girl’s face. For me, the message would have worked better as a banner above the photo. But none of the flyers are below average.

There were two graphics that I thought were amateurish. The two Play With Mud flyers. How can Adam balance himself like that with only one leg? If I engage in this adventure, will I end up with a stump too? I assume that Adam actually has two legs and that he’s holding a garden hose and not a green sword. “Chop like Max” is somewhat better, but what’s he chopping? Probably a log laid sideways, but on first glance it looked like a large rock. I might have moved the text over to the right a bit to balance out the white space too, but would have to experiment to see how it looked. Or maybe moved the “power aura” text to the white space so it doesn’t look like he crapped it out. Again, I’d have to play with the elements of that section to decide what works.

The stuff in the Graphics folder is beyond me to criticize. The subject matter poisoned my thoughts from the get-go. Again, they seemed a little busy but better than some of the flyers. The Applied Anatomy one bugs me because the angles for the top and bottom of the hedge are different and I would want to angle the text like you did. No matter which line you choose, it always looks mis-aligned.

9

I am bombarded by flyers and advertising all of the time. I live here.

I think some of the messaging could be clearer. The flyers that start with “PLAY WITH MUD”. . . I think they’re a little cluttered but I like the horizontal stripes. . . but, I had to study it to determine that it was promoting Volunteer Fridays.

I think the strongest one is “The Seed of Change ain’t gonna grow themselves” one. It’s very simple, symmetrical, and to the point.

Did you write all of the text as well?

10

What software do you use?

11

Hey all,

Thank you all for the comments so far :slight_smile: It’s interesting to note the difference in opinion between the laypeople and the pros.

First, a general response:

  1. I definitely see that much of the work is overdone and cluttered. My own favorites are the “Seeds of Change” flyer and the “Sweetheart Yoga” graphic precisely because they’re so simple. I will keep working on de-cluttering and simplifying. Less is more, right?

@GuanoLad: Thank you for the kind words of encouragement.

@SanVito: Thank you for the detailed feedback. Visual hierarchy is one of the biggest things I’m working on learning. Likewise with typography. I try to keep fonts down to 2-3 per item. Is that still too much?

I’m currently reading “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” and it covers basic design and type principles, and after that I will consider picking up the type one you suggested. Thanks :slight_smile:

Something I don’t understand is the “grid system”. That’s the first time I’ve heard of it… is it a particular aesthetic style or a basic element of composition that everyone should know about? To my untrained eye, that grid system website and all the sample pages of the book look, well, absolutely hideous. That website especially looks like something out of a different era and its rigid structure makes it hard for me to follow along. I don’t know what’s important and what’s not. So what am I missing? What makes this concept so important?

PS - The Behance website wasn’t working last night when I tried to look. I’ll try again later. It would be lovely to see how others do it – some of them are so job-droppingly beautiful.

@DMark: Your comment intrigues me. I know I have a lot of learning to do in regards to design principles and concepts, but I thought I already knew how to use the Adobe tools well enough. Is there something in my work that specifically says, “this tool wasn’t used right”?

I’ve actually tried to find good Photoshop books (as opposed to design books), but I haven’t had much luck. Of the half dozen or so I’ve looked through, all were too basic – even the official advanced Adobe ones. Can you recommend any particular titles?

I hear ya about the practice, practice, practice and the variations. Good advice :slight_smile:

@Nunzio Tavulari: Whitespace, gotcha. Keep the message prominent. Will work on it!

As for the Play with Mud flyer, that was my first real design. Adam was actually kneeling, but it does look like he was dismembered :slight_smile:

@tullsterx: Yes, I wrote the text as well. Thoughts on that?

@Tarwater: Mostly Photoshop, with some Illustrator and VectorMagic thrown in when necessary. For the website stuff, I use a mix of Dreamweaver, WordPress, and plain HTML/CSS/PHP.

12

Yeah, lots of comments I agree with here (SanVito’s in particular), but the trapped white space jumped out at me immediately. The alignment of the fonts also look off to me. Like in “Play With Mud” the “Play” looks like it should be a bit more right to me. I know that technically the edge of the “y” in “Play” is aligned with the edge of the “h” in “with” and the “d” in “mud,” but it looks to me like it should be farther to the right.

I’m not a graphic designer, though. I do photography professionally, and have a keen interest in graphic design, typography, and visual art in general. That’s what leaped out at me immediately. Also, the very busy layouts.

13

Stubbornly I still think it’s not all that cluttered. If there’s a lot of information to impart, inevitably it’s going to fill the space up. “Cluttered” means unreadable, with poor colour choices, tiny fonts, and close lettering. I’ve seen that a lot in other work, some of it purportedly professional, but I don’t see anything that bad here. Sure, some could be tweaked, but without a complete 100% change I can’t see that it’s all that bad.

The modern style is to have more whitespace, and you’re not adhering to that, so maybe you’re coming up short. But it wasn’t that long ago when your kind of style was more commonly seen.

Oh well. It depends on what you’re trying to achieve by your OP, and who you’re trying to please with your work, I guess. If I was a consumer of your flyers I’d be happy with what I saw. Apart from the fact that I’m not interested in going to Yoga classes.

14

I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Maybe ten or twenty years ago (or possibly more), sure. But I don’t get the sense minimalist beaucoup-de-whitespace graphic styles are particularly hot these days. I would actually say the opposite. I see a lot more “video-game/Gen Y” style (as I like to call it), with mounds of information crammed into little spaces.

15

To remark on a few of these:

Grid systems (there are multiple systems, as defined by multiple people and organizations) are a fundamental element of composition. Even if you’re not consciously familiar with grids as a formal unit – and I’m assuming you’re not, from the above comment – you have an innate sense of them, or your flyers would’ve been uniformly awful, when in fact the opposite is true. Many of them appear to be organized hierarchically and they looks quite nice, especially your “Seeds of Change” example.

Do you use Photoshop for your composition work, also? I assume that is the case. A lot of your work bears the hallmark of somebody who uses Photoshop for the entire design process. You’ll do yourself a huge favor by migrating the bulk of your design work, especially when it comes to anything having to do with composition, to InDesign. The ways this program will improve your graphic design are numberless, so I’m not going to list them. But you can tell it’s a good program because it has ‘design’ in its name. Tutorials for InDesign are myriad. I’m sure there are excellent free tutorials on the web, and maybe somebody here could recommend one, but I’ve known several people who’ve learned the ropes using Lynda, which is a site that charges a monthly payment for access to software tutorials.

Additionally, in terms of typography, you need to pick up Elements of Typographic Style by Bringhurst. It’s basically indispensable.

16

As an aside, I just like it because they’re events for HSU and Arcata, CA!

Cool!

17

I imagine the flyer up on the bulletin board at the grocery or student hall, maybe a phone pole. There are a lot of other posters and notices all around, over and under. It’s likely that this notices board is posted in a high-traffic area and dozens of people are walking past it on their way to somewhere else. Most are not stopping to read the board, and you’re using bright colors and striking graphics to catch their attention.

The figurative you is walking by. You have other things to do. Some element of the flyer attracts your attention and you glance over. That poster has to give you the message quickly enough to draw you away from your immediate goal. Maybe you did stop intentionally to read the message board. There are eight or nine different flyers up, and each has lots of text; most of it in crazy fonts that can’t easily be read from the opposite side of the board. There’s lots of competition for the eye. You may read two or three flyers but probably not all of them. The typical response is to read the flyers that are easiest to read.

As I said, I am not a professional designer. However I have created “album covers” for about four hundred homemade mp3 compilations. I’m familiar with the concept of selecting the right background, choosing an font and arraying text in a fashion that’s easy to read, attractive, relevant and visually stimulating. To my eye, about a quarter of my work is masterful and a quarter is horrible. The rest is serviceable; good but not great. For me, choosing colors, photos and an intriguing layout is easy. Finding a new way to lay out text is excruciating.

18

Grid systems are a basic component of graphic design, used across all media including print and digital. Behind every layout will be a grid - you just can’t see it because it isn’t printed/displayed to the end viewer.

The website and sample pages of the book are showing you the grids systems that sit behind the graphic elements. Grids are a system of horizontal and verticle lines that you use to align elements on the page. They are invisible to the viewer, but they provide structure to the page.

Every magazine, newspaper, website, flyer, brochure, e-newsletter you ever see uses a grid system. It’s essential.

To reinforce the importance – pick up a magazine, open a spread (here’s one you could use, or another) and, with a ruler, draw horizontal and vertical lines against the items of the page that align, such as the columns and picture boxes. This will reveal the underlining grid to you. Not every item on the page with align with the grid – the headline may break it, for eg, but most elements will fit snugly to some predefined, invisible lines.

19

Agree wholly with this. Designers mostly use 3 Adobe design programmes together. There are additional specialist programmes to this, such as Dreamweaver for web building, but these 3 are the basics that everyone should have and use:

Photoshop, for manipulating and retouching photographs (hey, clue’s in the name).
Illustrator, for drawing vector illustrations, such as logos or icons
InDesign, for page layout and typesetting, importing images from Photoshop (.psd files) and Illustrator (.ai).

Amateurs often make the mistake of using Photoshop for page and text layout, which is inappropriate for a number of reasons, not least that Photoshop is pixel rather than vector based so has a poor effect on print quality of text, but that it also lacks the ability to create things such as grids. I have all 3 programmes open at once and flip between them constantly, using InDesign as the final layout programme for print items, or Illustrator for initial digital layouts before coding in Dreamweaver or handing the file over to a coding geek.

20

I guess that depends on what you mean by grid, but isn’t that overstating it a bit? What about the graphic design movements in the 80s onward that pushed away from grids? I mean, I love grids, that’s how my eye and mind best organizes and makes sense of things, but there seems to be a lot of contemporary design that is not grid-based.