The professional association for design. Boston Chapter

Annual Student Portfolio Review

Saturday, April 26, 2008 9:30am - 3:30pm Trustees Room, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Tower Building, 11th Floor,
621 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115

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Act fast--space is limited and this event will sell out!

The AIGA Student Portfolio Event is a day-long event designed to give you--a graduating senior or graduate-level student about to embark on a career in the design industry--advice, insight, and useful information about how to present yourself and your work. Here is your chance to have a professional look at your portfolio in a no-risk, non-competitive environment. You can practice your interview skills and get honest feedback about your portfolio and resume.

Why you should attend...

You will receive thoughtful, constructive, one-on-one evaluation of your work by an array of design professionals--art directors, media producers, educators, and hiring managers--from the metro-Boston area. Their goal is to offer candid advice about your portfolio based on their creative perspective and experience. While this event is not a job fair, some reviewers may be looking for potential employees or interns. This event is a great way to network and become aware of who’s who in the Boston design community.

Who should attend...
The AIGA Student Portfolio Event is open to design students at the senior undergraduate level and MFA candidates. Space is limited to less than 75 students. Sign-up is on a first come, first served basis. Each college can register up to 15 students, ensuring that a single college does not "fill up" an entire review session. This allows students from various design programs throughout New England have a presence at the event. We usually pack a full house, so please register early!

What you should expect...
Soon after registering for the event, you will be assigned a review session time. On the day of the event please arrive at least 15 minutes before your review time to insure that you have ample time to find table space and set up your work.

Reviewers will rotate around the room, and every effort will be made to maximize the number of reviewers who will sit with you and discuss your work. Keep in mind that reviewers will be asked to limit their critique time to 15 minutes, so be prepared to present your portfolio and get feedback within this time constraint. The AIGA Student Portfolio Event is designed to prepare you for the actual interview process. Be on time, be dressed accordingly, and be mindful of how you present yourself and your work.

What you should bring...
Come with 8 to 12 of your best portfolio pieces. Additionally, it is a smart idea to bring 10–15 copies of your resume with 3 or 4 photocopies or printouts of your best work attached so interested reviewers can take your information away with them. If you plan on showing interactive or dynamic work, come prepared with a fully charged laptop--we cannot guarantee that power will be available to every table in the room--and bring along an extension cord just in case. Wireless Internet is installed in the space, but we cannot vouch for its reliability or latency, so we advise against relying upon it. Play it safe. If you have no access to a laptop, we suggest you present your multi-media projects as screen shots mounted on boards.

Ready to sign up? Register Now.

Review Schedule
After registering, we will email you an assigned review session time. The review session times are as follows:

9:30pm - 11:30pm: Portfolio review for Group 1
11:30am - 1:30pm: Portfolio review for Group 2
1:30pm - 3:30pm: Portfolio review for Group 3

This is a sell-out event, and we ask that you do not request to be scheduled for a specific session time. Should you need a specific session in the event of an unusual circumstance, we will do our best to accommodate you.

Location
Massachusetts College of Art
Trustees Room, Tower Building, 11th Floor,
621 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115

We are working to arrange free parking for the event. We will keep you posted!

Questions? Contact Heather Shaw at education@boston.aiga.org

We're also seeking volunteer reviewers for this event! We're looking for a group of passionate, dedicated, and candid volunteers to serve as portfolio critics. This is a wonderful opportunity to help support and shape New England’s next generation of professional designers. Please contact Kristin Ellison, Director of Volunteers at volunteers@boston.aiga.org, and specify which session(s) you would like to review. AIGA thanks you for supporting design education initiatives.

Comments (5)

If my memory serves me well, in the earlier days of the AIGA portfolio reviews, there was time for students to at least get a quick look at each others' portfolios. At more recent events, however, students are ushered into and out of their review sessions without time to see what their peers are showing. The reviews themselves are most important, of course, but there is also a value in being able to connect with the accomplishments of other students at other schools. I'm wondering if there might be a way to include this dimension.

Posted by: Theresa Couture on March 19, 2008

Like Theresa was saying, I too would like to have the ability to look at other students' work if time permits.

Posted by: Dan Peters on March 27, 2008

There is a informal seating area outside the trustees room. Students are welcome to hang out either before or after their session to review each other's portfolios. We also scatter students from different schools throughout the three review sessions to encourage them to view each other's work. The overall goal, though, is for the students to get back what they pay for--a thoughtful and inclusive review from a design professional.

Posted by: Heather Shaw on March 27, 2008

yeah - I tried signing up for the portfolio review but your system doesn't recognize my account. What's the deal? I just double checked to make sure I was all paid up and it looks like I'm good until Feb, 09. called about the problem and got no response. ??

Posted by: brian durk on April 18, 2008

I was a first-time, apprehensive reviewer during last week's 2008 AIGA Student Portfolio Review and was unexpectedly and pleasantly surprised. If you haven't been involved with this event, I encourage you to check it out. It is a vibrant and chaotic time, capably hosted by the dedicated and unnecessarily grateful Heather Shaw. Students representing schools from across New England were involved, including some reviewers who themselves were once students in the review. I only hope that the students I saw got as much out of it as I did. The student portfolios I reviewed were, in general, better than I expected. Students were energetic and eager, not unlike students in my graduating class so many years ago. I was impressed by very good thinking behind some portfolios and secretly happy to see some fine art rebels testing the design waters. I think this is a great event, and sadly, as essential to this graduating class as it would have been to mine. As an industry, we still do an inadequate job of preparing young designers for a career. Events like this are a great way of bringing a real world view into an academic design setting that has always needed more exposure to the profession. I would wish for more participation from both sides, to the benefit of all. Sign me up for next year.

Posted by: Michael Persons on April 29, 2008

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