Documentation

Documentation refers to gathering information about the projects you've worked on. If you're currently working on a project, start documenting now so that everything you could want will be available to you when you create your portfolio. It's better to spend a extra few minutes to document concurrently, than spend hours searching for that lost prototype that might have been thrown out.

In short, we encourage you to view this as an exercise in habit building. Even if you are "far away" from having to create and use a portfolio, start building habits now of documenting so that it becomes natural in all the work that you do.

Photography

Photography is important to various aspects of the design process, especially in conveying the work you have done in the past. There are some basic tips you can learn that will help improve photos of your process. More intricate setups can be used to get the "perfect" product shot, but often this is done when the product is finished.

Quick tips:

    • change to Macro (flower) focus mode
    • mount on a tripod
      • if you don't have tripod, rest the camera on a stationary surface or make sure your elbows are as steady as possible
    • change to Manual mode and set to a long exposure time
      • if your subject (prototype/product/etc.) is not moving, this will help the photo look better
    • using the basic on-camera flash usually make the photo too bright
      • consider using a diffusing material, like waxpaper or some translucent material

Things you might want to photograph:

    • observations
    • prototypes
    • machining fixtures
    • testing
    • interacting with users
    • you and your teammates
    • the product disassembled
    • the product assembled

Design Notebook/Logbook/Journal

Using a design notebook will help in many ways. If your ideas ever become intellectual property, the design notebook is an important artifact in supporting your ideas as your own.

At a process level, keeping a notebook can help to:

    • set goals and deadlines: seeing how you are keeping up with the deadlines you've set
    • quickly show someone else—in a clear way—what you've been working on
    • make frequent (e.g. daily) summaries about the most recent work

A design notebook may collect the following elements which might be useful in your portfolio:

    • sketches
    • goals
    • storyboards
    • diagrams
    • CAD
    • analysis
    • product specs
    • testing
    • prototypes