In our usual impression, if we want the collection of works to stand out from thousands of troops and let the admissions officer fall in love at first sight, it seems that we can only rely on strength and appearance? However, with the increasingly fierce competition in the application of art schools, our understanding of "thousands of troops crossing the single wooden bridge" is refreshed every year in the application season. It is also increasingly difficult to be picked by the admissions officer. Today, we will combine the examples of students' production and design works to analyze the highlights of those works that can make the admissions officer look bright.

What is the finishing touch of making a collection of design works for the admissions officer?

1. Unique topic entry point

The students' portfolio projects should have more or less such experience when they started the early topic selection and research work, right? Either the field in which he is particularly interested has been noticed and studied by many peers, or it seems that he can't find a topic that can make people see at a glance.

It is said that a good start is half the battle, but we often see many students spend a lot of time in the early research, entanglement, fear of choice, and even delay the progress of the entire collection. In fact, not only the students, but also many mature artists and designers, "early topic selection" is a very troublesome part.

So how can you choose a topic that is suitable for you, interesting and unique? In fact, we would like to suggest that instead of spending a lot of time in the early research on topic selection that has little to do with the creation of later works, we should change our thinking and refine the entanglement point from the "false big empty" framework of topic selection to the "entry point of topic selection".

Because in fact, although the final essence of our creation must be to return to the topic itself, a unique entry point can often heighten the tone of the entire research results and make people see it at the beginning.

Take down Royal College of Art Collected works of Cai, the natural light student of the offer

For example, the environmental protection topic that students love and hate, on the one hand, is so "vulgar" that even the chess masters and neighborhood committee aunts can talk a few words; On the other hand, there is an increasing "paternal" preference of top art schools year after year. At this time, a special entry point becomes the finishing touch of the "public topic" of environmental protection.

This entry point can be aimed at a specific group of people, a specific custom, or even an abstract custom. The more subtle but true the entry point, the easier it will resonate.

It is such a "knife" that strikes the heart of the audience, making the topic of the students' work collection from an abstract and remote concept to a concrete thing and experience.

Even if it is a common and popular topic, as long as it can find a vicious and special entry point, it can also make the whole work break away from the "aesthetic fatigue" of public topics and make people "fall in love at first sight".

Collected works of Cai, a student of natural light who won Huangyi's offer

2. Personal visual style

I believe many students have deeply realized this, although the portfolio projects are relatively independent of each other. But a collection of works is actually a comprehensive understanding and judgment of individual students for admissions officers. So although each project is independent, it also needs to be able to make people feel the personal style and characteristics of the creator as a whole, and show its advantages in a more comprehensive way.

A collection of works by Zhang, a student of natural light with unique personal style

So in fact, although we all know that the collection of works needs to have the personal visual style of the creator, what style should be presented? How to present? And how to grasp the degree between "style unification" and "style similarity"? Many students are relatively vague about these problems.

First, what style should be presented? This should be determined by the intersection between the fields that students like personally, the fields they are good at, and the styles favored by colleges and universities. If any of these three are a little less, or the proportion is wrong, it is likely to lead to "partial discipline" in the visual style of the collection.

The second is how to present the visual style of our collection. The best suggestion that natural light can give is to capitalize the selected style! Bold!! Tattooed on your drawing hand.

Tattoos are just a joke, but we have really seen too many students who have made complete preparations at the beginning and selected the super gorgeous and magnificent style, but in the process of project creation, the more they draw, the more they will be more beautiful... With the continuous improvement of personal realm, the style of the final collection completely deviated, and by the time of discovery, the work was almost finished. Finally... As if nothing had happened!

A collection of works by Zhang, a student of natural light with unique personal style

Setting the style is like setting the flag. When setting the flag, you are ambitious, but when setting the flag, you are silent. Master level artists and designers often have developed the style inertia of "having a ruler in mind" after a long time of accumulation, but for students who are still working hard on the road to become masters, they should honestly put the set visual style in the position that can be seen at a glance when creating, and always remind themselves not to deviate!

The degree between "style unification" and "style similarity" is also a puzzle that puzzles many students. If you follow the unified style too rigidly, it seems that you will worry about the visual fatigue of the admissions officer, or think that you only know this skill.

As a matter of fact, the style of painting is unified, and the color scheme can be varied; If the color scheme is unified, you can work hard on typesetting; If the layout style is unified, new ideas can be given in the presentation mode.

When we say that the style of the portfolio is unified, we do not mean that students should be consistent with all the above points in the portfolio, but choose one or several of them to impress the admissions officer. The changeability of other elements is the key for students to divide the scale between "unified style" and "similar style"!

3. Interdisciplinary presentation

Quietly tell the students that we learned the "eye-catching secret" of interdisciplinary research and presentation projects from the top art schools!

Yes, "interdisciplinary" is not just the caution of the admissions officer Pick, who got the students' works. The competition of academic research among colleges and universities is mostly won by interdisciplinary, multi field and all-round exploration! It can be seen that the portfolio project used for professional application in a single field, if it can be included in interdisciplinary research and presentation, will definitely be like a tiger for the application of colleges and universities.

Because in fact, just like we have seen many beautiful female troupes produced by assembly lines, the admissions officers will also have aesthetic fatigue when they create thousands of collections of works for the same profession.

Just imagine that a collection of works jumps to the admissions officer and says, "You see, I can not only dance, but also draw while dancing!" Even if her paintings are not as good as those of professionals, they will certainly make people feel that the little girl is interesting.

Painting while dancing is just a metaphor, but there are really too many successful cases of interdisciplinary work collection projects in natural light. At the beginning, the students more or less muttered or complained in their hearts. Although there was only one subject's workload, now they have to start from scratch in a field that they didn't even know about. It seems really troublesome.

Cross disciplinary presentation Graphic Design Study Abroad Natural light student Li's collection of works

But the final result made every student really call Zhenxiang! What's more, the knowledge of interdisciplinary science can also broaden the vision and provide more inspiration for students to study abroad in the future.

Recommended articles for more professional design works:

What if there are too many inspirations for works collection? How to screen efficiently?

What should be paid attention to when making overseas works? How to improve your overseas works?

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