Assignment 00
Portfolio

Your final portfolio is a requirement to pass your sophomore year at SVA. This review is a departmental requirement that all sophomore students must pass for admission into the third year. The department is conducting its Annual BFA Advertising/BFA Design Sophomore Portfolio Review on Monday, April 23, 2018.
Your portfolio is meant to display your work completed throughout the year. My suggestions: Keep it simple, display the work in the best possible manner, and don’t let the design of the book overshadow the work itself. You have the luxury of working on this book in class with myself and your peers. Take it seriously, and plan ahead of time.
Your portfolio design will work in tandem with other projects in this class. Plan your time wisely. Make sure you know the amount of time it will take to produce your book in order to be ready for your final. If you’re sending out your book to be printed, factor in production time and shipping (as well as any other possible scenarios that could arise). If you’re printing it yourself, consider materials, production time, and your level of craft.
Crits during class will be crucial to your portfolio improvement. Just because we’re not talking about your work does not mean you wont learn about organizing your book from others.
Portfolios are a point of pride of the SVA student and community. These book represent all you’ve learned this year, and you’ll be able to look back on these volumes from year to year. Slacking is not allowed. Richard, the department chair, will be personally grading your books one by one. You have an opportunity to receive scholarships and other merit based delegations. Work hard on this, it’s incredibly important to your year.

Week 5, 2.11.19
Design & Typographic System
Bring in two different directions for your portfolio. First, define an idea, overarching theme or visual system that will supplement and organize your work. These directions should be totally different from one another both visually and conceptually.
What are the sizes and dimensions you’ll be designing towards? Should this be a large book, or smaller? Should you print it yourself, use an on-demand print service or a local print shop? Think about binding options: Perfect binding, saddle stitching, screw post, coptic, japanese stab, etc.
Design one whole project to show us the typographic system you’re developing. Make a project opener and three spreads for each direction (8 pages total). Begin working on your folios (page numbers) and headers. The goal is to begin defining your books system in this first round.

Deliverables, 2.11.19
Two directions
—Opener and three spreads (direction 01)
—Opener and three spreads (direction 02)

Week 10, 3.18.19
Organization & Presentation
Start laying out your entire book, from beginning to end. Begin organizing your work and pacing the book. What does one project look like next to another? What are your strongest projects? Bring in your flatplan (which you can download an example here). Have a book dummy printed out black and white (this can be half scale of your book is large). Bring in your computer so we can discuss your workflow. This must be done in InDesign, no exceptions.
Decide how you will present your work. Should you use Live Surface or another strategy to make digital mock-ups? Should you photograph your work yourself? Start this production process.
Watch this video which goes over the basics of planning your book.

Deliverables, 3.11.19
Flat Plan
Book dummy (black & white)
Computer with InDesign file

Week 15, 4.22.19
Final
Bring in your book. I can help put out any fires or other issues you're having. You're getting down to the wire with only two weeks left. If your book is not produced yet bring your InDesign file as close to finished as possible. We will make small tweaks and get everything dialed in perfectly one-on-one.

Deliverables, 3.18.19
Book progress or final
or computer with InDesign file

Resources—Paper & Printing

Epson Printer
For printing at home, worth investing for your studies at SVA.

Paper Presentation
Great place to buy nice paper in bulk. This can be brought to printers or printed on yourself to elevate your book. Also lots of binding materials and other general supplies. I would go here to get my book blocks cut down too.

Talas
Anything you need for bookbinding. Their online catalog will let you know if they have what you need in the store. Great to check for screw posts, headbands, bookbinding thread, really anything related to bookmaking.

Village Copier
This printshop was my go-to whenever printing larger books. At the time it was under the radar, so it was easy to drop in, print my stuff, and leave quickly.

Canal Plastics
If you want something made out of plastic this is the place to do it. range of options, quick, and they can custom fabricate complex ideas.

Resources—On Demand

Blurb
Printing on demand, good quality and fairly priced. Lack of options, but easy to figure out.

Lulu
Printing on demand and fairly quickly. Quality is not stellar, but an easy option.

Duggal
Local photo printer than can make you a magazine style perfect bound book. Their waitlist fills up the closer to portfolio deadline.

Comp Zone
Similar to Duggal, Comp Zone can make you a magazine style perfect bound book quickly that a lot of SVA students utilize. Keep in mind your deadline with them as well.