PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE - PORTFOLIO

Portfolios are used by working professionals, companies and students to showcase collection of their best work and display achievements, skills and development. Each piece of work is an authentic representation of your learning and is meant to show your current knowledges and skills. Different from resume, portfolios display example of works that has been done originally by you. The Director of University of Maryland, Dr. Greg Williams, says that "An individual with a well-designed and well-developed portfolio will stand out when competing for career. (Snow, Sarah, 2017)

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Professional Career and Future Pathway

Future Pathway

Graduating as a Digital Media students. I had covered subjects like computer programming, digital photography, computer animation, film studies, website design, communications, and graphic design. Digital media is a wide term that encompasses jobs at the intersection of technology and content creation. There are quite a number of career pathway available for a digital media student such as video editor, multimedia artist, videographer, web developer, motion graphic artist and more.

It is about designing the future. With the rapid growth of technology, the tools used are always advancing. You might get a chance to shape the next technological evolution as a digital media expert. Besides having job opportunities in entertainment and content publishing, digital media skills are beneficial in dozens of other industries too. The knowledge of digital media is very helpful in sharing information and audience engagement. In fact, digital media career path could possibly guide you to career that does not even exist yet. (McLaughlin, M., 2020)

For a designer, there are also plenty of future career pathways available. To ensure effective working habits, the individual's life at work plays an important role. No matter what position or title a person is holding, the life at work is the one that affects the mood. It also depends on the kind of employer you have, the level of company's flexibility, the salaries and benefits, and the co-workers. (Cantuni, R., 2020) Every company are varies from each other, some with crazy working hours but some allowed employees to even work from home. It all depends on finding the right employment modes that suits you best.

1. Agency
Advertising, consulting, branding, design are the few kinds of agencies, usually work business to business (B2B). Usually only provide services to other companies instead of private individual. In short, agencies do not do their own projects. Agencies do projects that has been commissioned by another companies. In agencies, you get to work with different clients from different industries. With that, you can also enhance your portfolio. Besides, with the amount of work and rushing deadlines in agency, you get to train yourself to work under pressure. However, due to rushed works, the outcome sometimes does not end up to be as best as you wish. It is common to hear people who works in agencies to work overtime without paid. (Cantuni, R., 2020)

2. Startup
People who chose startup company are said to be risking or taking a gamble. They offers a lot but at the same time, they might disappear almost overnight too. Startup are more flexible compared to agencies. First, you get to work on own products and the deadlines are not strictly fixed. The working schedule and time off are pretty flexible too. In startup, they usually have a small team of people where you work closely with to complete the project. (Cantuni, R., 2020)

3. Big company
Usually on a more relaxed pace. You get to work with a bigger team and most of the time, things have been planned wisely. Hence, you have enough time to produce good work for the projects. However it is harder to emerge yourself from crowd as the company has too many workers. Another plus point is the salaries in big company are rather higher. Working in big companies will make your resume looks good too. In some of the multinational companies, employees get to travel overseas as well. (Cantuni, R., 2020)

4. Freelance
As for freelance, the main benefit is you have your own freedom in time management as it is all up to own decision. Moreover, you get to work on various projects for different kind of companies in multiple industries. It also helps to skill up your project and time management. There is no specific places to work as well, you can work anywhere up to your liking, even at home. Furthermore, there is no bosses above you, you are your own boss. However, as a freelancer, you need to work extra hard t build up your name in order to hunt for client. Dealing with client is not an easy things, especially when it comes to charges. It is all about self-disciplined when it comes to freelancing. (Cantuni, R., 2020)

Who I Want To Be in the Future?

An interaction designer. A person working on the design, development, creative or marketing team that helps produce and organize a design planning, identify key interactions of the product, create mockups and prototypes to test ideas and stay up on technology and trends that will influence users. (Pck, 2017) To be an interaction designer, the most complicated issues are the understanding of where the line between user experience and interaction design falls. A lot of time needed to spend to develop various interaction patterns, and to figure out how to let people interact with the products. I am always inspired by designers with full passions. Like how Christian Sabyan, a UX architect loves his work. “I can make up people’s day a little. I can produce experiences that are convenient and actually make them feel better about themselves and world around them.” (Lisa, D., 2017)

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Portfolio

Portfolio Concept

As for my portfolio, it will be an online portfolio as it certainly expand your visibility and presence compared to traditional portfolio. It is also a more polished way to share your expertise with others. (Huhman, H., 2019) Besides, online portfolio are more flexible. With just few clicks of button, employers get to view every content uploaded including images, videos and description. There are plenty of portfolio website resources available for use. Hence, I have decided to use Wix as a guide for this assignment.

Content Draft

Before designing the portfolio website,I planned and categorize my works that I have chose to publish. It is important to choose the work wisely, showing the best work you have as it might affect the employers choice of hiring. Thus, I have listed down what needed to be placed in my portfolio website.

List of Works :
1. 1997 (advanced interactive project)
2. Time Machine (advanced interactive project)

3. Anne's Fried Rice (motion graphic)

4. Clickjoy (ui/ux project)

5. Om Nom (interactive project)

6. Musa (brand identity)

7. Breakthrough (illustration)

8. Vans Collab (photography)

Fig 1 Information Architecture

Portfolio Layout

After drafting, I started proceeding to wireframes to create a clearer vision of layout design for my website.

Fig 2 Wireframe 1

Fig 3 Wireframe 2

Fig 4 Wireframe 3

Fig 5 Wireframe 4

Portfolio Reference

After done with the layout of design, I did some research on the reference for portfolio website. I want my website design to be as minimal as possible so that the works will stand out more. An image gallery will be used to showcase my works on the Project page.

Fig 6 Portfolio Reference

Portfolio Progress

With the layout and concept I have, I move on to designing each layout for my work on screen.

Fig 7 Layout 1

Fig 8 Layout 2

Fig 9 Layout 3

Fig 10 Layout 4

Fig 11 Layout 5

Fig 12 Layout 6

Fig 13 Layout 7

Fig 14 Layout 8

I started executing my design on Wix and show my progress to lecturer. However, there are few issues that I faced during progression. As there are different sizes of laptop screen used, the size of my laptop screen is bigger than lecturer's. The size of images and design might look fine from my laptop view, whereas from my lecturer, everything seems to be bigger. Some parts of my works have been cropped and affect some readings. The tab name for my website are to be taken care of too so that it looks more professional that using some random names. It is best to have your own name to let people know whose portfolio are they viewing at. Besides. previous and next button are to be included to ease audience's interaction while viewing the website. They do not have to go all the way back to the project page in order to view other works. This is to improve the user-friendliness of the website. 

Final Outcome of Portfolio

Here is the final outcome look of my portfolio website.

Fig 15 Home Page

Fig 16 Project Page

Fig 17 About Page

Link to Portfolio Website

This is the link to my portfolio website.

portfolio website

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References :

Snow, Sarah. 2017. What Is the Purpose of a Portfolio? Career Trend. Available at: <careertrend.com/what-is-the-purpose-of-a-portfolio-13638150.html> [Accessed 9 May 2020].
Pck. 2017. Visual Designer to Interactive Designer. Medium, Prototyp. Available at: <blog.prototypr.io/visual-designer-to-interactive-designer-c32485797edc> [Accessed 9 May 2020].

Lisa, Dare.2017. Four Traits You Need to Own the Interaction Design Realm. Four Traits You Need to Own the Interaction Design Realm. Available at: <www.teksystems.com/en/insights/article/interaction-design-careers> [Accessed 9 May 2020].

McLaughlin, M. 2020. Careers of the Future: Digital Media. Insider Guides. Available at: <insiderguides.com.au/careers-future-digital-media/> [Accessed 9 May 2020].

Huhman, H. 2019. 5 Benefits Of Creating An Online Portfolio. Work It Daily | Where Careers Go To Grow, Work It Daily | Where Careers Go To Grow. Available at: <www.workitdaily.com/creating-online-portfolio> [Accessed 9 May 2020].

Cantuni, R. 2020. Should I be a designer in agencies, startups, big companies, or freelance? Medium. Available at: <https://uxdesign.cc/designer-in-agency-startup-big-company-or-freelance-8df1f2c8e5d9> [Accessed 9 May 2020].