What to put in a College industrial design portfolio 2021

In this video, I go over the best industrial design portfolio strategies that I've learned in my past few years at design school. 2021 is a great year for industrial design because of what technology has allowed the creative industry and because of how accessible it is. It's crazy how we can get our product concepts 3D printed so cheap and so quickly. We also have free modeling programs at our fingertips that are capable of producing ridiculous quality renders. I share all of the best practices about how to use modern technology to our advantage as well as portfolio organization techniques that I've learned from my professors.. (who are actually professional designers)!
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[@jimenaroldan549]

I've been doing my portfolio for a couple of weeks now and the more time i spent doing it the more doubtful I became. This is so very helpful, thank you so much!

[@nicholomo]

Glad it was a helpful video!

[@cyber4sheep]

About prototyping: if 3d printing is too expensive for you and you have a 3d model, you can make it from paper (by using pepakura or special command in most of cad programmes to create drawing, which you can print, cut out and clue). Another way of creating a prototype is cutting it from form. This way is harder, but looks more professional. 3d printing is faster and didn’t require any special skills, but it could cost at least 80 dollars per tiny model and for normal ones you could pay 500 dollars and more. *sorry, my English is terrible :(

[@nicholomo]

3D printing is ironically very slow and expensive if you don't have your own printers. I think you'd be ahead of the game if you make physical prototypes before you get into a design program. Good point!

[@kayagorzan]

I agree with you. Paper and foam modes are really fun when you get the hang of it

[@hjkjhrs]

Thank you Nicholas, It was very helpful and informative for me. 🙂

[@brenan6]

Hey Nicolas! This was super helpful! I about to turn in my ID portfolio for my college application. Would you possibly be willing to take a look at it and give me any advice??

[@nicholomo]

I'd be happy to if it's not too late! Can you send me a public google drive link?

[@brenan6]

@@nicholomo I cant send you a link. KZbin wont let me. KZbin also got rid of the ability to send direct messages... so I have no idea how I'd send you a link. I've tried 3 times now and they keep deleting it. Any ideas?

[@nicholomo]

@@brenan6 try adding your file or link to this folder drive.google.com/drive/folders/10HgZNw4EqxcN4x_EYxHA1SxWmaKTzMwd?usp=sharing

[@brenan6]

@@nicholomo Done!

[@nicholomo]

@@brenan6 I can see why you were accepted! Overall I'd say it's a great start and you'll definitely be able build on it during school. I remade mine a ton while I was in school, and even now that I'm working, I'm still going back to it. Some feedback for the future - lengthen your best projects with more sketching and process imagery. Feel free to check mine out for inspo. It's not the best out there, but it got me my first ID job! www.nicholaspd.com/html/index.html

[@lucasbarnes7783]

Hey, Nicholas. I plan to apply to Pratt Institute near the end of this year and their portfolio instructions are a little confusing compared to your advice. They say that I should submit 12-20 "pieces of your best and most recent work." I understood that to mean 12-20 individual images with short descriptions for each for different products or something like that. How would you suggest I interpret their instruction?

[@nicholomo]

Hey Barn! I'm really glad you asked that. Since every school is different, the requirements an instructions will differ as well. I go to the University of Oregon in the design department, and Pratt is more of an art school so our portfolios will most likely be very different. If there is any way that you could talk to an alumni in the major you're applying for, that would help a lot. I take '12-20 pieces' as individual projects. I wouldn't think of them as images with short descriptions, but projects that have short stories of your process. Depending on their maximum file size for portfolios, I would take each of your best works of art, product designs or graphic designs and have them one after another with a few process pages. I would have the first page as a hero image and title, the second with some process photos and a little bit of text, and if it's a product design then I would include a page of simple cardboard models or form development. Again, I only know my own experience at a different school so this might not be the correct advice, but I really hope that gives you more direction!

[@tag2726]

Thanks this will help me ton 😭

[@nicholomo]

Glad to hear. Unfortunately I don't have my college admissions portfolio anymore but I do update my current one quite often and I was thinking about making a video to review it. Also I hope that crying emoji turns into a smiling face very soon 😄

[@tag2726]

@@nicholomo I was thinking of Studying industrial design in the US. I'm still highschool studying under the uk Cambridge curriculum and I'm quite confused on what school subjects i should focus on and im about do AS-A level next year which I think is the senior years in the US . AS-A u have to choose a minimum 3 subjects and I was thinking doing A lvl math , A lvl design & tech and A or AS level physics . Im really confused especially me considering taking A level physics which is pretty advanced stuff which I feel like I won't need for design . There isn't many info or resources online regarding subject choice for industrial design. You probably won't be able to help . I was thinking of perhaps contacting colleges in the US or local university's to help me .

[@nicholomo]

Really taking me back there haha. I don't know what the school system is like in the Uk but if you're thinking about going to a US college for industrial design then the classes you should take heavily depend on where you want go to school because they all have different recommendations. I don't think physics and math classes would help with getting into a design school, rather just makes you well rounded. My advice would be to research the schools you're interested in and see what the design programs are like and application requirements. I could tell you a lot about what the University of Oregon Product Design major is like though! Especially because you're in high school, MOST colleges don't expect you to have any experience yet. I wouldn't worry too much about the classes your taking and to focus more on personal projects and self learning. That way you can present your skills to the school that aren't just from homework. All of the industrial design work that I did for my college application was from personal projects.

[@tag2726]

@@nicholomo thank you for your help looking forward to your future videos

[@yasseenyoussef]

I’m going into Industrial design this semester. I’m wondering whether to get a MacBook with a graphics card in it or a pc. Which would benefit me more in the long run? Because my school uses SolidWorks which is a windows software. I would want to get ID students input on it. Thanks in advance :)

[@nicholomo]

100% MacBook. Apple is the way to go if you're in a creative industry, especially since all of their products are seamlessly integrated with airdrop:) I don't know much about graphics cards, but have a MacBook Pro (radion gc maybe?) and I wouldn't need anything more... I put it through HEAVY stuff and it's fine.

[@nicholomo]

Also, my school uses Solidworks too so I downloaded boot camp!

[@yasseenyoussef]

@@nicholomo amazing thanks for the input! What’s boot camp though?

[@nicholomo]

@@yasseenyoussef Haha bootcamp is an integrated Mac app that lets you download windows software.. that's how I managed to get through my Solidworks classes at UO!

[@GReyn]

Creative Industry, apple products are the best go to imo, even though myself use a windows..

[@nicholomo]

Which side are you on.. digital or traditional sketching? cg or CAD?

[@michaljanovsky8966]

I know some Rhino...don't know where that falls. Currently learning Blender and I must say that it is a real pleasure to use! In the future I want to get into CAD and generative design/topology optimization. Maybe that could also be an interesting video :)

[@nicholomo]

@@michaljanovsky8966 I've never used Rhino but Blender is super helpful and quick to learn. I'm actually planning a video about CAD vs CG in Industrial Design cause there are some huge discrepancies between the two. Topology optimization is really important when doing photorealistic renderings.

[@michaljanovsky8966]

@@nicholomo Great! That will be one interesting comparison.