Admission Portfolio for the
Digital Art & Design Program
Preparing your portfolio
As part of your application to the Digital Art & Design Program you are required to submit a portfolio, which is a collection of your recent creative work. Select pieces for your portfolio that will tell us the following things about you:
- How you express or communicate your ideas and impressions of the world around you;
- The scope or depth of creative activity in which you have been engaged;
- How you solve problems, think creatively, and present the solutions.
These are important issues to student success in the field, and in the Digital Art and Design program.
Submit at least 10, but no more than 15 samples of your work. These may be works you have completed as assignments in school, but we also strongly encourage you to include projects you did on your own or for clients as well. Each work should be accompanied by a brief explanation outlining the problem or assignment and indicate your solution or approach. Technical skills are an advantage to designers; however, they are not the primary purpose of the portfolio review. Do not worry if the work you present is not directly related to Digital Art & Design. We want to see your best work and your potential.
Examples of the type of work that might be included in a portfolio are the following:
- A notebook or sketchbook (this would count as one piece)
- drawings of all kinds
- photographs of sculpture
- painting
- graphics or typography
- photography
- printmaking
- websites
- desktop publishing
- multimedia
Do not send any of the following: copies of any other's work, cartoon or comic material copied from other sources, or anything that you have not created yourself.
Tips
- Protect charcoal drawings or pastels with tissue paper.
- If you submit digital work on a diskette, ZIP, CD-ROM, (Mac or PC formatted), website URL, include all software and fonts and information about the operating system. Include print output of your work.
- Include diverse media showing your ability and willingness to explore different means of creative expression.
- Include work that shows how you developed an idea into a finished piece. Show your research, preliminary sketches, works in progress, contact sheets, storyboards or write about the development of your work. You may wish to include this as part of your notebook or sketchbook submission.
- Include works that make a political or social comment, tell a story, or show how you have developed a theme or idea in your work.
- Include drawings from observation, imagination and/or memory (rather than only from photographs); preparatory drawings for a design or art project; documentation of preparatory models for a 3D project or a storyboard for a film, video or animation.
- Include work that shows you understand basic principles of 2 and 3 dimensional composition, such as e.g. positive and negative space, contrast, balance and/or shape, the frame. Show work that reflects your understanding and use of colour.
Try to include pieces that would demonstrate some of the following principles:
- classical lighting (cast shadow, value describing edge, reflected light, dark core, highlight)
- control of three dimensional space (perspective, value, line weights etc.)
- control of two dimensional space (compositional shape relationships)
- two point perspective (architecture - interior and/or exterior)
- representational (accurate) figure drawing
- figure in environment
- expressive (gestural) figure drawing
- figure with drapery
- value control (could be included in classical lighting)
- still life (revealing elliptical forms ie. bottles, cups, saucers, etc.)
- drawing or design skills
- balance
- contrast
- rhythm
- emphasis unity/harmony