Building Design Portfolios

Most graduating design students create print

portfolios; they typically spend the last part of

their senior year assembling all their best proj-

ects into a presentation box of some kind. Often,

students will polish or rework old pieces and add

some extra promotional work. Boxes are made or

purchased to fit the material, both physically and

stylistically. Frequently, the portfolio has a theme,

as in the case of Rhode Island School of Design

student Michelle Kim’s white case with red string

(124–125). She titled it “Being Green” to signal

her newness in the field. Increasingly, student

portfolios take the form of printed books, organ-

ized around a central ...