I'm fairly sure no potential employer will have strong feelings on what format you show your work. Although from personal experience, if you just load up your website, (we have probably already been through that), what's new to present?
So what options are there? Well, you could show a PDF on your iPad or laptop. Then there is the good old fashioned portfolio with plastic selves and printed sheets. I still quite like that method as I can get up close and interact with it rather than sit through a glorified slide show.
But what else could you do?
I was chatting to Brand and Design Manager at the British Council the other day and he told me about an agency that build a wooden box for every creative pitch they have. Inside there are items and ephemera that influenced their ideas, as well as the creative work itself. They print the client's name on the box and leave it with them after the pitch (paid pitch I hope). That's a lot of effort and I hope it works for them.
I'm not suggesting you do that. Or, maybe I am. I am suggesting you do something that is a little different and shows you have made an effort. If that effort is personalised to the company you are being interviewed by, then all the better.
So, what do we know? Well, we want to see a range of work. We (we means potential bosses) want to be able to interact in some way, hold the work, feel the mock up for instance. We want it to be different from what you sent in with your application. Although of course it is OK to show that work and talk through it as well. We want to be able to remember you, and you want us to remember you above all the other applicants.
Before you go mad and tattoo your portfolio on your chest. You will need some work to be shown reasonably traditionally, i.e printed.
Here are a few ideas:
- Print a one off book, personalised for each job interview. You can leave it with them.
- Build an interactive portfolio, embed video and your blog etc.
- Hand make your portfolio.
- Take in your preliminary sketches and the final printed piece. Even if you have to pint one yourself.
- Record a video presentation, but you will need to do some face to face as well.
- Print each piece on a tee shirt and wear them all on top of each other, so that when you arrive, you are huge. As you go through your presentation, you get thinner and thinner. Revealing each piece of work like a human pass the parcel. Not really.
I hope you get the idea?