Layout

Layout refers to the presentation and organization of your content. The layout will also be related to what medium you will be using.

There are many things you can do to start ideating and developing various layouts that you might want (somewhat) independent of your content.

As with developing products, benchmarking can be a useful step in figuring out what is best for your portfolio. In the end, your design should be something uniquely yours, but a first step (and a good exercise in practicing graphic design) is to mimic the styles of examples that you think are good.

As your start moving into your own design and layout, use pen and paper to sketch out various options for layouts.

Exercises for developing your layout

    • find a portfolio you like (or any graphic design artifact), print it out, and lay a piece of tracing paper over it to discover the underlying hierarchy
    • design something in the style (for instance, a poster or advertisement) in the style of something you've found
    • start with the overall structure and sketch out possible layouts
      • add detail as you start thinking about the actual content
      • get feedback from others
      • move to the usage of quick-digital tools (Powerpoint or Keynote) if you need a little more fidelity in the mockups

Places to find existing portfolios:

http://media.mit.edu/people/students

http://www.coroflot.com/public/people_home.asp

http://www.indexhibit.org/

Portfolios of Friends of Ideation Lab:

Ideation Lab Portfolio Resources - Examples