Portfolio Challenge

[TheDataAreClean]

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[TheDataAreClean]

Pick your projects

• 3-4 projects

Some Prompts

• Which projects are you most proud of? Everyone has favourites. Start by picking yours out - and reflect on why you like them so much.
• Which projects had the most impact? Portfolio browsers love to see real-world impact. Do you have any projects that proved particularly effective, and do you have the numbers to back that up?
• Which projects are the most visually or technically impressive? Ultimately, people reading a portfolio want to be wowed. If you've got a piece of work that's particularly stunning - either visually or technically, then it's worth featuring - even if it has some flaws.
• Which projects did you learn from? Showing off a project that grew your skills is a great way to communicate to a client that you're flexible and like to learn new things. It also gives you plenty to write about in the notes alongside it.
• Which projects showcase an unusual skill? An ideal situation to be in with a client is one where you're the only real choice - that way you can charge more, and demand better terms. If you've got an unusual talent that many information designers don't have, then try to get a project that features it into your portfolio. Examples might include illustration, subject-specific knowledge, working across cultures, or a second language.
• Which projects do you have good behind-the-scenes material for? In the next step, you'll be putting together a little case study of each project, and it's easier to do that if you can go back and look at the notes you made, or photos that you took, during its creation. You might even want to share some of it.
• Which projects resemble the kind of work you want to do? Most of all, think about the projects that you've done which align most with your goals for your future work. If your portfolio is effective, you'll likely get people wanting you to do more of the kinds of things that are in it.

[TheDataAreClean]

Detailing out the Projects

The goal for the blurbs you'll be writing today is not to say everything there is to say about a project, but only to communicate what your audience needs to see to convince them to shortlist you for the job or assignment in question.

• 50 words for each project. That's about 3-5 short paragraphs

The SCQA Formula
Barbara Mento has an alternative approach to writing up a blurb for a visualization, called the "SCQA Formula", which stands for Situation, Complication, Question and Answer.

For each visualization, write a sentence about what the situation was and then the complication that arose that necessitated a visualization. And then a question or a series of questions that led to the eventual answer, which is the viz and any tangible/measurable value that came from it.