ENTRANCE PORTFOLIO EXAMPLE
Adding to my PREVIOUS POST, here is an Admissions Portfolio from a fellow Archi Student friend of mine:
This portfolio was submitted by Rachael Dippel. Rachaelwas accepted into the University of South Florida School of Architecture + Community Design for the Fall of 2014.Â
LETâS TALK ADMISSIONS PORTFOLIO
Many of you ask about how to do a portfolio, what to put in it, where to go for inspiration, ect. I have added a tag on my blog for portfolio tips HERE, but I think what most people donât grasp is that you donât have to have some crazy extravagant graphic design to your theme to make it into a program.Â
Your portfolio is like a stationary gallery of your work. The pages should start blank, and be used as a canvas. Your projects are the artwork, and you are the artist putting the work on the page. If you look at the way Rachael set up her portfolio, you will see how simple the design can be. Talking less about her physical work, and more about the design of the portfolio itself, here are a few of my observations about her admissions portfolio:
The layout is so clean that you literally just look at the work on display and nothing else. The pages have very few images on them so you can focus on one thing at a time. With that being said, this kind of layout leaves no room for hiding. So your work, no matter what it is, should be high quality. It is important to have high quality images of your work, both physical and digital.
I think keeping a theme is important in a portfolio because it gives you some guidelines when putting your work together.  You can tell in Rachaelâs portfolio that she has a certain way she lays out images. She has Big Single Images on one side, and Small Supporting Images hugging an opposite edge. Sometimes there are more supporting images than others, but if you look, across the board she uses a similar style and ratio/proportion.
It is easy to put images on a page, but then lining them up is where the real magic happens. Align the images with SOMETHING! You donât have to use a grid, but make everything on the page relate to one another. You should almost see invisible lines between images and text.Â
This portfolio has a good range of skill-sets shown. From this portfolio you can tell that Rachael can build models with a wide range of materials, create hand sketches and drafted drawings of her work, use computer programs like photoshop (& possibly Indesign), and is also an artist with a wide range of graphic utensils.Â
Some portfolios are are greyscale, other use A LOT of color, but whatever you decide to do, be consistent. You can see here that color was used sparingly, and when it was used, it was important.
As you move forward and begin getting your feet wet towards getting into Architecture School, make sure you are keeping your portfolio in mind. I hate when people work on something they think is a âthrow awayâ project when it could be an amazing work to put in your portfolio.
Hopefully this also gives you a little more perspective on what an Introductory Portfolio looks like for applying to Architecture School.
If this post gets enough notes, I will consider doing an interview with Rachael about her process from High School to Acceptance into the program. I think it will be super helpful, but I want to make sure there is enough interest.
Thanks for reading! I hope this helps some of you on your journey.
Mark, tipsforarchitectureschool
A special thanks goes out to my friend Rachael Dippel. Thank you for letting us use your awesome portfolio as an example. I think it will help some people get a better idea of what to do preparing for college.
Thanks Homegirl !!!  :)
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