The Importance Of An Online Portfolio For Your Media Arts Projects

A brief overview of avoiding online portfolio functionality pitfalls.


Even if you attended the same school and graduated in the same year, your talents for certain areas of your media arts degree would vary depending on the individual. One student may love making web pages and developing media rich web content while another student despises web page making and would rather focus their energy on making short documentary films. Whatever your area of strength might be a crucial part of your career will land on your portfolio.

Rather than your traditional portfolio with laminated pages that you might give to a perspective employer at interview we have to rely exclusively on a digital portfolio that can be pulled up at any given moment. It might seem clear that having a digital format of your portfolio readily accessible with any employer with internet access would be very convenient on your end, but there are other factors to consider. During a traditional interview, you might get a chance to explain why and how you created your work, but in an online portfolio it’s either there or its not.
One of the most costly mistakes that I have made regarding designing an online portfolio was what medium I used. Instead of traditional HTML code, I decided to make my entire web page from Flash. Now, I am very cautious when I use Flash because I know that waiting for 10 seconds of a Flash animation before I get the final score on a game is downright annoying. The reason I ended up going with a full Flash based webpage was because I thought as a web and flash designer that it would even more enhance my skill.

Making this site took a lot longer that I had originally anticipated. When I finished, I was incredibly proud of myself and was eager to see what those around me would think. I received tons of accolades from friends and family members. Soon, I would discover that my choice for an all Flash sight was a mistake.

Perhaps the first step I should have taken was to find out what employers were looking for. I reasoned they wanted to be wowed and just plain blown away by flash graphics and slick animation. Interviews with employers in my field had a very consistent view. That view said that they were really busy people and did not want to wait an extra 10 seconds for anything to load or to watch animation. They were just like I was with my football scores.
At any rate, I no longer have an online portfolio because I pretty much kind of put a job in my field on the back burner. Now that it’s on the front burner, I’m going to take the time to explore different design ideas and functionality ideas in future posts.

Ok, I got my degree - now what?

Life After My B.A. in Media Arts and a Story of Revitalization

By the sea of purple gowns and white tassels at the NMHU gym it finally started to feel like I was officially graduating. As we filed into our rows of seats, a spark of excitement seemed to charge the air. There was nothing extraordinary about what this graduation. Our campus was never graced with keynote speakers like Bill Gates, Oprah, or someone else who has struck it big off of some very life lesson. I had been through so many graduations through a storm of ceremonies that happened to strike together between my cousins and brothers that this one seemed almost routine. Routine except for the fact that I was about to get my degree. I finished my degree in December of 2006 and anticipated my name being called to get my glorious prize. I more than happily took my diploma and smiled for the professional photographer for pictures that I had no intention on purchasing. Now, it was time to stop surviving off of microwavable noodles, fast food dollar menus, and the almost-food at the college cafeteria…it was time to get a job and put my degree to work.

The degree I had dedicated so much time and money was in a field I got plenty of guff for during college. It was a B.A. in Media Arts. The program was actually named Mass Communication until the year I graduated. NMHU puts it a little more elegantly than I could, “The divisions that once existed between graphic design and communication arts have disappeared, creating a merged field that we call media arts.” Basically it is a wide variety of digital and print mediums. These included video production, editing, special effects, modeling, animation, website design, multimedia design, audio production, layout, photography, prints…it really was a vast field.

Excited and ready to start producing works of my own professionally, I purchased a domain name and posted my best work. I really spent weeks getting the interface to my website perfect and putting some extra touches on my previous works. The online portfolio in Media Arts jobs is way more important than a perfect resume because it displays your skills in plain sight. My online portfolio was really a work of art in itself. My main focus was getting a job as a Flash Animator and Developer, although I would ideally like to help in the production of major films. Objective in hand, it was just whirlwind of applications and postings. I spent days straight just working on any job I could, I put forth my best effort to tailor my skills to each job.

It began to get extremely frustrating after a few months of applying for every possible job I could in my field and getting next to no reply. As a matter of fact, out of the tons of jobs I applied for I only got two rejection letters and not a single interview. Now I started to doubt my decision for not just deciding to be a teacher or a doctor. I remember the first few times I told new friends what my major was, they would literally have a half dozen horror stories about someone they knew who graduated with my degree and now was a physical trainer. I remember these stories when I first started to get into my field but I had loved Media Arts before I even knew what it was.

I remember making a sports montage by rigging two VCRs together just to edit some sports clips when I was in the 5^th grade. I had started recording music when I was in Jr. High, crude and basic but it has always been in my life. So, when these stories of extremely competitive jobs and a beginning of a bad economy came at me , I always remembered what I loved to do and to follow my passion was what I needed to do.

My friend Jarrett graduated with same degree and was able to get a job as a video editor. I was extremely happy for him, and he was creating some extremely well edited productions. I heard a few other classmates that had gotten jobs similar to our field, but I heard way more stories of people not working at all or at dead-end jobs. I could hear all the naysayers comments echoing in my head. The excitement of being able to use my degree was starting to dwindle just like the balance in my bank account. I decided to start applying for jobs outside my field and within a couple weeks, I had a job scoring state proficiency exams at Pearson. The money was the best I had ever earned, the work was dull and temporary, and at least they required a Bachelor’s Degree in any subject to apply for the job. Working at this job and the slew of jobs that were mostly customer service call centers really started to kill my steam for a brighter future. I made few decisions to try to better myself in other areas of my life but I never could kill the dream of getting a job I trained and educated myself for. It quickly became 2009 and seemed like I had made little progress but I have not thrown in the towel.

That’s what this blog is going to be about – the story of my transmission of coming back in a competitive field within a slumped economy and getting a job in what I love to do. It’s not a matter of money now; it’s a matter of doing it for myself.

I really do appreciate any comments you may have. I know there are plenty of people in position and probably worse considering how I do not have a wife or kids. It would be great to hear from someone who has been here and emerged successfully. Thank You.