Monday was the third KC Ad Club Career Day I’ve participated in. The first two years I sat on the interactive marketing panel and that was pretty awesome. I obviously was in a comfort zone and could easily go on all day about the subject. However, to keep things fresh for the students the Career Day board mixes up the panels every few years.

This year they asked me to be on the Portfolio Development panel. I thought this was a welcome change — a change that I could bring a unique perspective to. You see, I know jack crap about portfolio development as it is formally taught (although my years in the business have let me catch up). This was explicitly reflected in our panel introductions. After the other two talked about the art schools they attended, I rounded the intros out with:

After going through five majors in college and finally landing on a philosophy major, I decided at the last minute that advertising looked like fun so I faked up a whole bunch of work and the rest is history.

The point is that being self-taught obviously caused me to craft a portfolio/demo reel that was not conventional but was ultimately successful. My introduction always gets a laugh when I speak to students and generally when I have the whole time to myself I qualify that statement with the fact that had I realized earlier that advertising was the industry for me I would have certainly taken the right classes for it instead of just teaching myself. However, at Career Day I only get ten minutes. In the interest of time I left that qualifier off and went into my content, which dealt specifically with demo reels and the importance of having an online portfolio to supplement (or in some cases replace) your physical book.

I think that my flippant introduction mixed with the fact that I de-emphasized the importance of a traditional portfolio made an enemy out of one my fellow panelists (an owner of a design boutique).

When Q&A time came around, the questions overwhelmingly involved interactive portfolios. Most specifically, “How do you create a good one if you’re not interactively inclined?” I mentioned Indexhibit and perhaps some books one might pick up that covers basic web design. However, about 5 questions into the interactive line, my “adversary” barged in at the end and said that “not enough people were asking questions about the physical portfolio book, and that’s what’s important, so let’s talk about that.”

A question came about rules of thumb using copyrighted music came up, which is a topic I’ve had a lot of experience debating over the years. Adversary quickly suggested to “just find a stock sound to use” and while I agree that stock music is a safe bet, I have suggested over the years that if you have the means for you or a talented friend to compose original music for the reel, all the better. I mentioned that I have composed the music for most all of my reels, and was met with “well, that’s fine for you but most people won’t do that.” Had I not been absolutely floored by how catty this woman was being toward me I would have mentioned that anyone with a Mac can throw together some loops in GarageBand and make something good.

I definitely hit a nerve there. For her and her design business, I won’t deny that the physical portfolio book is very important. But for agency types, I also truly believe that an online portfolio has possibly surpassed a traditional portfolio especially for purposes of securing an interview.

What do you think? Am I full of crap when it comes to demo reels and interactive portfolios? Let me know in the comments.

Ultimately, I had fun and I think I really helped a lot of students during the panel, but I don’t think it’s the place for me next year… or is it?

Tags: Anecdotes, Creativity, Design, Discussions, Interweb, Kansas City, KC Ad Club, Lectures, Philosophy, Ranting, Self-Promotion, Technology