faux projects for summer

[baishunhu]

I don't know if this is allowed here, or if you think it is better suited at another community please direct me. I am going into my senior year of college finishing up my BFA next year. I want to make great use of my time and strengthen my portfolio. So I have been thinking of assignments and ideas to set myself to work on. I feel like I may be in

Comments

[mlleglass]

Assignments I have given myself: greeting cards; book of my own poetry; fake wedding invitations; a good old fashioned zine; fake Gap ads; brochure for a fake clothing company; a calendar; self promotional postcards; desktop wallpapers to give away; redesign typographical posters/flyers for club nights I like that have bad flyers.

[continues]

it looks good making desktop wallpapers to match a theme of a project you created.

[indifferenthues]

Find a struggling, impoverished "worthy cause" group that you believe in and set to work for them as though it were a serious high-powered commercial paying job.

Having to deal with a variety of people and situations you'll get absolute "real-world" experience of what works and what doesn't, how to "make do" with what you can get, how to change things on the fly to suit a group and lots of other stuff (like how to somehow deal with the annoying person on a client approval committee who only wants things in baby blue and pink, etc.)

I realize this goes against the "No Free Lunch!" ethos of this Community, but in my experience if you pick the right group to go with, you can end up immersed in a totally different culture (for me inner city hip-hop kids, for someone else perhaps it would be something for suburban moms) that makes you learn to see, create and communicate in an entirely different visual "vocabulary". I mean, who knew that "rappers" were merely the "bush poets" of their time and place?

[thatonewinter]

I don't know where you're from, but I'm from a small town with lots of personally owned businesses. Most of them have nothing...no logo, no creatively designed sign for their shop, no website, nothing.

So I'm starting with a local train shop and designing a logo.

It's fun cuz it's from scratch, it's not redesigning something they have.

[monotonia]

It sort of depends upon what sort of job you're looking for, but ...
I think that while it may be cool to have something that's actually been printed or being used by some local company or non profit, it's really a pain in the ass to get anything good working with those sorts of clients. It's easiest to really show off your skills in a variety of areas without dealing with local yokels.
So that said, I really look for a well-rounded portfolio that includes some of the following:
Text heavy posters or editorial spreads
Charts, diagrams, and any sort of financial or statistical list involving lots of tabs and crazy organization skills
Something in which a photo has been edited immaculately (like a book jacket or ...?)
An Identity package - logo, letterhead, business card, envelope, etc.
Something with beautifully done typography. Where a font has been manipulated to be unique, or created from scratch

[shegetsby]

have you started a portfolio website?