Consider the plebeian portfolio: Every design school grad has one, and every employer looking to add staff has to plow through them by the hundreds. In fact, the image of the art school grad with black pasteboard box stowed under arm is more than iconic—it’s a cliché. Now, contrast that image with the polished presentations of graduating students at the Academy of Art University: Each of them is required to create a portfolio in the form of a book that encompasses both a running narrative and an identity/promotional system.

The appeal is timeless. “Designers have a taste for beautiful artifacts,” says Mary Scott, executive director of the Graphic Design program at this fast-growing San Francisco school. She’s a tireless advocate for the academy’s program and the portfolio-as-book concept. “There isn’t a designer out there worth his salt that doesn’t love books.”

Scott’s notion to alter the conventional portfolio had its genesis when Kay Stout, then with Landor Associates, came to the Academy to review student portfolios. Stout remarked that while it was nice to see the finished products, she really wanted to see how the ideas were developed. “It would give me more of a sense about how the student thinks and approaches problems,” she suggested.

Scott’s imagination was fired. “I could see it was time to make this more about the process of designing, of thinking and problem-solving,” she says. In many cases, she explains, students have to drop their portfolios off with potential employers, denying them the opportunity to explain what they were trying to accomplish in their samples.

TELLING STORIES
The book portfolios produced today address this shortcoming by allowing students to extend their visual ideas into stories. According to Phil Hamlett, who directs the graduate Graphic Design program at the academy, “One of the things we expect from students is the ability to build and sustain narrative structures. When our students go out in the world for interviews, they leave indelible impressions as to who they are and what they’re about.” The academy’s approach helps distinguish these students from the mass of candidates in two ways, he says. “The strong thematic elements they build into their books set them apart to begin with. And the fit and finish they achieve with their books give employers confidence they can do the job.” The result, he says, is that “the employment conversation can start at a much more elevated place.”

Hamlett, who worked at well-known design firms before taking over the graduate program, says, “I used to see a lot of portfolios from the other side of the table. With some students from some institutions, I’d see what I have to call exercises—they didn’t reveal the students’ thought processes. Then I’d also see concepts that were too ethereal and abstract. We’re trying to hit the sweet spot that shows our students are prepared to function at the highest level.”

Context is crucial, agrees Brian Breth, creative recruiter for American Greetings, where more than 450 are employed in the company’s Creative Studios. The academy’s approach, he says, “contributes to getting to know the students better. It’s very professional, because it articulates their creative process. And the kids not only have this great book for you to hold and look at, but they also have very polished takeaway pieces.

“We get many, many submissions every month,” Breth notes. “Anything that sets a student apart is a plus.”

SPREADING THE WORD
And yet it’s an advantage that Scott seems more than willing to share. Candice Lopez, who heads the Graphic Design department at San Diego City College, first met Scott at an AIGA leadership retreat. “When I saw the book portfolios the first time, I was speechless,” she recalls. “The sophistication of presentation, the quality of the work itself coupled with the writing, was an approach we had never seen.”

Scott agreed to give a classroom talk about the portfolio-as- book concept and wound up establishing a relationship with the school, one that has now led it to adopt the format. “That first year in 2005, we blew the professional design community away with the quality and originality of our books,” says Lopez of an AIGA city-wide portfolio review. “The following year, the local four-year design schools and private design programs started to use the book format, and now it is the only one you see at our review.”

Lopez explains that San Diego City College mostly serves an inner-city community “a hop, skip and a jump from Mexico, so our classrooms have incredible diversity.” Besides students from Mexico, her pupils include Vietnamese, Cambodians and many other nationalities. “Many are refugees with amazing stories to tell.” The book format, she says, provides an ideal format for allowing both the talents and the personalities of students to shine through.

BUILDING CONFIDENCE
Combining the thematic device of the book format with the cohesive execution it demands is powerful—and instructive for students, Scott maintains. That in turns translates into employability. “When a student can say to a recruiter, ‘Yes, I shot the photos of my work, had the dies made, supervised the binding,’ it instills confidence in employers, who think, ‘If she can do this, she can do a 36-page brochure.’”

www.academyart.edu/graphic-design-school