Yesterday I decided to upload all work for the promotional portfolio module. I have an extention for this module and it is not due for another week but I had finished all of my documents early so I could focus on my FMP. I also felt like if I was to continue tampering with this module I could over do it and complicate my minimalistic design. I learnt the importance of knowing when to stop during this module as I often had to rein in designs to make sure they reflect my personality and potential job applications.

For a few months now I have been questioning whether or not to buy a website domain. When designing my CV, business card and postcard I found it offputting to put a Wix adress in the contact infomation. Today I decided to purchase a basic plan on Wix which gives me my personal domain (freyacasserly.com). When I saw that my full name was avaliable I thought it made sense to purchase to make my digital portfolio look more professional.

 

Today I finalised the designs for my CV, business card and post card. I have been putting this off because I felt my designs were too simlple but today I realised that is exactly the style I am going for. I also realised that with every job application in the future I will be adapting my submissions so I am not going to get too hung up on the ‘final’ designs now as they will change.

It is important to note that the final designs do not truely represent the direction I wanted. I wish to have each of these printed on textured paper with my name and other small detailed embossed. This will elevate the simple design making it more sophisticated.

I have been putting off this task until I had enough work to form a consistant looking Instrgam feed with hopes to make it look themed. From my research I found that the best Instagrams were those whos posts matched and created an aethetic profile page.

Today I bit the bullet and started to upload my work to ensure I have enough to showcase for the portfolio hand in. I have been imputting my visuals into a app which helps you plan your feed as you can mock up designs and move them around. Again, as informed by my research I will post 3 times a day with the addition of stories as and when appropirate. This ensures my page is up to date and allows me to upload enough to create a stong body of work.

Today I finished my archive for submission, this meant gathering all my work together and revisiting old projects. It made me realise that my first year work is not fit for purpose in my professional portfolio. I have made the decision to only include my second and third year projects as I feel they represent my skills best and relate to my progression into working life. This will also help my portfolio be concice, being attractive to busy employers.

Today I had a catch up tutorial with Steph where we discussed where I am up to and how to move forward. I came to the conclusion that I am overthinking my design and self branding. Because I want to work for a brand I have to be careful not to overbrand myself. Steph said it was important to come across natural and make my social and webpages personal.

Therefore my next steps will be to look at others social content who work in the PR industry and analyse what works well. We established that I need to collate work for my ‘printed portfolio’ so our next tutorial can be based around presenting and writing about my projects.

I decided it was necessary to investigate current job roles in my ideal industry. I looked at current PR related job roles to assess whether I meet the entry requirements or if I need to build up any specific areas that could be missing.

This investigation taught me to tailor each of my applications so I meet the criteria each employer asks for. This means I will prioritise my portfolio to highlight areas specifically mentioned to ensure employers see what they are looking for.

For the purposes of this project I will be prioritising my CV and portfolio in a more general sense to ensure I have a strong base to build and adapt for each company.

As I start to reconsider my brand identity for my digital portfolio, spreading across a website and Instagram, I feel it is important to analyse others. To become attractive to employers I will analyse each of my ideal company’s websites and social media. After doing so I will construct a list of what works well and how I can use this information to build my own website and Instagram. I think this will help each brand/ employer see how I relate to their business and how I can benefit/ fit in with their team.

I am taking consideration to not directly copy content, colour and type themes but instead be selective, using one or two successful strategies to build my profiles. I am aware that I cannot be fully attractive to multiple different brands so as I apply to each individual job I will tailor my content to suit. For the purpose of this project I will include appealing features from all brands on my database to show how I can appeal to many. I am hoping this technique will be successful as I have gathered tried and tested strategies from multiple brands to use in conjunction with each other.

I received some feedback for my business card logo and cv design from tutors which made me reconsider the relevance of my design. I realised that the coloured shapes were random and did not relate to my work. The tutors told me it might be a better outcome if I was to relate the logo to my work and really think about why I am using it.

Instantly this sparked visual inspiration for me as I started to consider using some patterns from my bleach work and shapes made from my scan experiments. I have always embraced imperfect imagery and have never invested in totally neat put together outcomes. Therefore using these interesting shapes instead of my previous random ones will add character to my portfolio.

To move forward with this idea I will test if my previous experiments will be fitting for this type of design or whether I need to do more.

Yesterday I started to design my CV to suit my brand identity and portfolio. Luckily I had the content up to date from when I was applying for internships in my placement year. The CV was a word document with a very basic template and no consideration into fonts or design.

I transferred the content into InDesign where I had more freedom to be creative and play with different layout styles. I knew that I wanted the document to be landscape because I think this orientation is more screen friendly and stands out against typical portrait CV’s. It means the viewer does not have to scroll to read the full page and all the information is clearly in front of them.

It was important for the content to be very clear and easy to read so that there are no distractions. With this in mind I started with a white background and split the page into three columns to create easily readable sections. My name and contact details were inserted into the first column with plenty of space surrounding them to make them stand out. I decided to add my profile and skills on the first page as an introduction to me and listed my employment, education and references on the second page as these relate to each other. My name and contact details were added to the second page too so that the reader does not have to navigate to the first page and therefore is more convenient.

Overall, I am happy with the design and layout, I have managed to construct a clear layout which has simple designs to not take away from the content. The landscape orientation complements the content and is a simple considered design technique to stand out without trying too hard.