AIGA Portfolio One on One

Graduating from design school and looking for a job is a nerve-wracking time for anyone. We wanted to turn the theme of “exposure” into a message that would inspire students as they entered one of the first major portfolio critiques of their careers.

AIGA’s Portfolio 1 on 1 is a yearly event that offers student designers the opportunity to receive constructive feedback from industry creatives. This year, they asked Zeus Jones to design the print materials for the event, giving us the chance to openly interpret the theme of “Exposure.” The assignment was to dwell on exposure and its relation to graduates joining the industry and becoming comfortable with showing their work. With the belief that a portfolio is a firsthand look into the mind and beliefs of a designer, we decided to riff on the overdone image of a designer holding up their work by turning that work into an X-ray image of the designer themselves. To develop our aesthetic, we looked to the spirit of mid-century America, when space travel and technological progress represented the zeitgeist of societal growth. Resisting the urge to take ourselves too seriously, we built in a sense of whimsy and humor by representing information in a tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top manner. With respect to environmental concerns, the final job used only two spot colors and was printed on 100% recycled, chlorine-free French newsprint.