NCAD/IADT/DIT/LSAD portfolios?

Forart14

Just wondering is there anyone on here applying to art colleges? I'm just kind of starting my portfolio at the moment and wanted to know where people are applying and how there finding the portfolio? Also if you'v applied previously to art courses with a portfolio/in art college now?
Any response would be great!

Rhyme

Forart14 wrote: »

Just wondering is there anyone on here applying to art colleges? I'm just kind of starting my portfolio at the moment and wanted to know where people are applying and how there finding the portfolio? Also if you'v applied previously to art courses with a portfolio/in art college now?
Any response would be great!

I didn't find it particularly difficult but my circumstances at the time allowed for that. I was in a computers MSc for a few years before getting out mid-year and pretty much fell into a Portfolio Preparation course (found out about it 2 days before the closing date) and pulled everything I had together, put the best stuff into some semblance of order and went to the submittal/interview. I don't know if I would have gotten in without the interview to be honest as I was able to let them know that my way of thinking, processes etc that wasn't represented particularly well in the portfolio.

The course was designed to help you find your strengths, diversify, refine and then build a portfolio. The fact that I was applying for a Fine Art degree in IADT helped as my portfolio was a mix of photographs, drawings, paintings. All very experimental, no real pattern running through it except for my own aesthetic. They seemed to like it as they let me in. Over the four years of the course, I asked different tutors and lecturers about the process of selection and got very different answers but a few things came through from all.

Show that you have some skill, show that you can do more than one thing, show that you don't mind taking risks, show that you can improve and, if things progress to an interview, show that you want to keep improving. How you do this depends on who you are and what you're applying for. Just as you might change a CV for different jobs, you can also change your portfolio for different courses.

Animation portfolios could have paintings and drawings, life-drawing and character sketches, facial tests, storyboards, videos of stop-motion experiments. Photography might have portraits and photo-stories, projects that you've developed over time and technical proficiency in utilising different aspects of photography (film camera, studio lighting, medium format etc). Fine Art could have experimental projects where you sculpt or draw to figure out an idea, paintings where you're improving skills and trying out techniques and even videos and photographs where you've had an idea and are trying to work it through to completion by using a camera.

A portfolio CAN contain these things (and perhaps should contain a few of them) but as I said before, it depends on how you work, who you are, what you like making etc.

I've said a lot here and some of it may or may not be jibberish. If you've any questions, put them in the discussion.

Forart14

Rhyme wrote: »

I didn't find it particularly difficult but my circumstances at the time allowed for that. I was in a computers MSc for a few years before getting out mid-year and pretty much fell into a Portfolio Preparation course (found out about it 2 days before the closing date) and pulled everything I had together, put the best stuff into some semblance of order and went to the submittal/interview. I don't know if I would have gotten in without the interview to be honest as I was able to let them know that my way of thinking, processes etc that wasn't represented particularly well in the portfolio.

The course was designed to help you find your strengths, diversify, refine and then build a portfolio. The fact that I was applying for a Fine Art degree in IADT helped as my portfolio was a mix of photographs, drawings, paintings. All very experimental, no real pattern running through it except for my own aesthetic. They seemed to like it as they let me in. Over the four years of the course, I asked different tutors and lecturers about the process of selection and got very different answers but a few things came through from all.

Show that you have some skill, show that you can do more than one thing, show that you don't mind taking risks, show that you can improve and, if things progress to an interview, show that you want to keep improving. How you do this depends on who you are and what you're applying for. Just as you might change a CV for different jobs, you can also change your portfolio for different courses.

Animation portfolios could have paintings and drawings, life-drawing and character sketches, facial tests, storyboards, videos of stop-motion experiments. Photography might have portraits and photo-stories, projects that you've developed over time and technical proficiency in utilising different aspects of photography (film camera, studio lighting, medium format etc). Fine Art could have experimental projects where you sculpt or draw to figure out an idea, paintings where you're improving skills and trying out techniques and even videos and photographs where you've had an idea and are trying to work it through to completion by using a camera.

A portfolio CAN contain these things (and perhaps should contain a few of them) but as I said before, it depends on how you work, who you are, what you like making etc.

I've said a lot here and some of it may or may not be jibberish. If you've any questions, put them in the discussion.

Thank you so so much for your reply! I'm really interested in a Visual communications course, either in iadt or dit but there entry requirements are a little broad. I'm not sure do they want to see some graphic pieces like adverts or typography pieces? And if they do how much or how much should I include?
Or would they rather see observational drawings? How varied should a vis com portfolio be!? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Rhyme

Forart14 wrote: »

Thank you so so much for your reply! I'm really interested in a Visual communications course, either in iadt or dit but there entry requirements are a little broad. I'm not sure do they want to see some graphic pieces like adverts or typography pieces? And if they do how much or how much should I include?
Or would they rather see observational drawings? How varied should a vis com portfolio be!? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I really don't know what you would include for a portfolio for that course, I think what you mentioned around advertising and typography might be helpful as well as a broader sweep on marketing such as doing a mock-up for a full logo, ad campaign etc for a product (real or imagined) might be good. Web design would be useful too so any HTML or CSS that you know could be good to display through mock-up websites.

If there are images from the VisCom graduate shows you'll get a taste for the finer points of peoples practices, what skills and approaches they've developed and refined during their time on the course. An example might be someone who is marketing for a water safety campaign, they would do examples of branding and website layout, how they want the product to be seen and by what demographics, materials tests around how to physically show the product (large weather-proof posters, natural materials in business cards, colours to use that would tie in with water safety etc). Basically to do a whole project to show that you have a lot of scope in your work, not just one graphic skill, that if you have an idea, you can explain it in a multitude of ways.

There might be people floating around the forum that could give you better answers than I have.