No matter what your major is, no matter what stage your portfolio has reached, the composition of your portfolio is one of the most concerned issues. If you want to do a good job in the typesetting of art works of studying abroad, there are two very important words - logic. In order to follow the logic and allow the collection to achieve independent typesetting, we should first clarify: what kind of collection can be considered as a "mature collection"? How can mature collections of works achieve independent typesetting?

What kind of works can be considered as "mature works"?

First, literally, maturity means "integrity", Collection of Art Studied Abroad The integrity of is mainly reflected in the following directions:

Complete ideas and content

I don't need to explain this point more. It's the literal meaning. First of all, you need to ensure that your collection of works can fully and completely reflect your creative ideas and ideas. Even the colleges and universities that are allowed to submit unfinished works, what they say is "unfinished" is not the kind of "work in the middle, stop before it's too late"!

Multidimensional capabilities and presentation forms

A collection of works needs to be comprehensive and outstanding, whether it is creativity or skill highlights. Collection of works should not only be a medium to show the ability of a certain dimension, but more often it should reflect the comprehensive professional quality of the applicant students. This quality includes but is not limited to: design ability, scheme formulation ability, thinking divergence ability, aesthetic quality, language organization ability, idea derivation ability, learning potential, etc.

Possibility of potential

Although a collection of works with a single style may show your height in a certain field, it is usually not highly competitive, because for art schools, they often prefer to see personal stylized awareness and ideas, and whether you have the potential to bring more possibilities.

Fully meet the application requirements

The art study abroad collection is used to apply for overseas art colleges. It is completely different from the postgraduate entrance examination collection, job search collection and graduation collection. Although these types are "collection of works" and have a strong purpose, their ultimate goal orientation is different.

To sum up, a mature collection of works does not investigate/demonstrate students' ability in a single dimension. On the premise of meeting the basic format requirements of colleges, it also needs to show students' comprehensive ability in multiple fields and professional dimensions through different works. It is "complete" in content and form, and "complete" in thinking and creativity.

How to achieve independent typesetting of mature works?

As we mentioned earlier, mature collections must follow "logic" if they want to achieve "independent typesetting". Some students may question whether overseas art education pays special attention to students' creative thinking and idea diffusion? It is true, but focusing on creative thinking does not mean only focusing on creative thinking. It can coexist with logic. A logical creative process does not limit the spread of thinking and creativity, but will help sort out creative thinking and ensure that it always develops around the main direction of core concepts. Logic is mainly reflected in two directions in the works: the creation logic in the project and the overall layout/layout logic.

Creative logic

No matter what major you apply for, whether it is a problem solving design project or a conscious project that needs to express the creators' ideas, we should make it clear that the composition and creation process of art works collection must follow a high degree of logic and always revolve around the core theme.

On the whole, the creation process of a mature collection of works is more like an hourglass style:

The original picture is the work of Ambro Giolo Lorenzetti

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First of all, constantly refine, sift through, and finally complete your own theme. Later, in the upper part of the hourglass, it is a process of gradually becoming "narrow": the early background should be wide, and more attention should be paid to the extension of the theme; Then gradually screen and classify, and refine the topics you want to study.

Next came the second half of the hourglass. Under the determined theme, we conducted extensive research and collected data and materials, extended our inspiration and ideas, and conducted full experiments and attempts; The combination of primary materials and second-hand materials makes them become ideas and research results within the same scope; After continuous screening and judgment, it finally becomes the sand of new content.

Many students in the creative stage, especially in the early stage of the collection, are particularly prone to a situation: "There are many ideas, but they do not know how to 'handle' these ideas". These ideas are often captured by students when they collect materials, accumulate inspiration, or brainstorm. Most ideas can be classified as "flash of light". Maybe when I think about it, I will feel "great!", "This is what I want!". But when we really think about the feasibility, we will find that only some of them are really suitable for the current project; Try to put it into practice, and you will find that only a small part of it can be put into practice. In fact, this process of screening ideas requires us to use a high degree of logic to judge, and "limit" ideas and ideas in a general direction that leads to the theme concept.

The reason for this "many ideas, low practicality" is actually due to the different art teaching modes at home and abroad. In daily learning, domestic students are accustomed to the creation process of writing project task books according to the theme, collecting materials according to the requirements of the task books, finding relevant cases, and obtaining project development direction and inspiration, Then finish your project. Overseas art creation is biased towards students' independent proposal of topic selection, conducting multi-directional comprehensive research according to the topic selection, finding problems in the research and further thinking divergence, deducing specific directions with logic, and carrying out relevant discussion and design.

Students may have heard this sentence when they learned about the art overseas works collection: "The works collection needs to show a complete and development conscious creative process". How can the complete creative process be reflected? In fact, it is displayed through the logical layout of the collection of works. A lot of careless content we see in the work collection is actually the result of the continuous refinement and gradual progress of the big logic. They are not put into the work collection at will, but are screened with emphasis and emphasis.

Layout logic

The layout logic, that is, the layout of the overall collection of art works, means how to optimize the layout works, so that the enrollment reviewers can not only see your comprehensive ability, but also feel the gap and difference between different works.

If every project in your portfolio reflects the same presentation dimension, then projects are duplicate and similar. Many students will mistake "repetition" for a strong personal style. In fact, it is not. A single project will make the admissions officer feel that your own possibilities and development potential are not enough.

For college admissions officers, they know that they are facing students who want to enter Dream School. These students have not had too much learning experience and practical experience, which is why they apply. This is why the school needs to see the potential of students through the collection of works. Only with the potential that can be deeply tapped, can the school see your future value.

The layout of the overall collection of art works should also be logical. What works should be put first, what works should be put second and third, and how works can be put last as the ending, in fact, all need "logic" to run through.

Natural Light once interviewed Jennifer, RISD enrollment consultant of Rhode Island School of Design. Jennifer once said that a good collection of works is like a novel. Each project is like a chapter in a book. They are independent of each other, but they affect each other's reading experience.

Many people will ignore the cover of a collection of works and think that the cover only needs to write their own name, application profession, and some basic introductions. But in fact, the collection of works needs careful arrangement from the cover, to the content directory, to the specific project and the final ending.

In terms of content, the project needs to be balanced with the project. We have all had the experience of watching a movie or television play or a novel half way through, or being unable to watch it at the end. In fact, the reason why we can't watch it is because the content has become boring and less attractive than the beginning, which will lead to "abandonment" and "rotten tail".

A set of works that maintain "balance" is not only visually aesthetic, but also logically driven in the overall layout. Not a single page of content, the next page will be rich; One page is beautiful, one page is ugly, and one page will not pop out of nowhere. The collection should be coherent from beginning to end, comfortable and smooth.

Secondly, the preparation period of the collection of works is often quite long, usually between 4-12 months, which leads many students to review their first project after completing the collection of works after a long time, and find that the first project is "full of holes" and has many immature places.

Therefore, on the whole, the visual sense should first maintain consistency and unity. As we said before, the unity of style is not the unity of the form of the creation project and the way to solve design problems, but the overall visual display, which makes people feel connected.

The collection of works should give people a consistent reading experience from beginning to end. Each page has its own content and each project has its own emphasis. At the same time, it will not bring people a feeling of "roller coaster".

Finally, to realize the layout of art works collection, we should pay attention to two dimensions: one is the creation logic of individual works; Another point is the sense of logical balance in the overall direction of the collection. Logic is the guide to better give the overall direction of creation and typesetting, so as to ensure that creative thinking is carried out around the theme and collection of works.

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