AIGA Portfolio Day

The AIGA Portfolio Day at Woodbury University last saturday was a wonderful experience. Below are some works I brought. I met with four reviewers – John Coy, Milka Broukhim, Anthony, and Rebeca Mendez, and got a lot critics, suggestions and inspiration.

Those reviewers I met are great, almost all of them has a keen eye. During the 20 minutes review time, which I think is a very short time to know a person, they can see more deeply into the works, they can see the personality, the ability and weakness that you have behind the works.

John Coy gave me very positive feedback. He is very knowledgeable, and encouraged me to keep doing what I really want to do, and keep myself on the right path.

Milka was very critical, and is even more perfectionistic than I am... she criticized all my layouts, the font size, the placement of text, the trimming, the presentation of works, the writing, almost everything... but I appreciated that she pointed them out, I won't notice the problems until she pointed out – for example, some body text is a little bit too small for reader, some titles are a little bit too big that it should be, its better to show the scale of the poster when present it because the scale matters font size... It's good to be picky on works. Milka also suggested that as designer and a grad student, I need to write more about the works. Also the writing could be more deep in the books I did. Try to collaborate with other people who has a writing style that matches the design. "If you are not good at something, try collaborate with those who are good at it, that's what designers do."

Rebeca is brilliant, and very energetic. She gave an inspiring lecture as a guest speaker and showed a lot projects that she have done. She is more as an artist that has skills to work in multiple media, but not just a "designer". During the review, she gave me very encouraging suggestions. She suggested me to see Werner Herzog, Catherine Opie, and Sharon Lockhart's art works, go to museums more often; she also provided the syllabus and some reading of her photography class.

All their critics, suggestions, encouragements will strongly push me forward. I definitely need more passion to keep doing more stuff. They also help me notice my weakness, that's what I should working on in future.