The online event brought together 100 employers and nearly 500 grad and undergrad students.
RISD Students Forge Professional Connections at Design Portfolio Review ’24
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“As a RISD alum and trustee, I’m biased, but what I see in the work of current RISD students that’s truly unique is a passion, a hunger for creative solutions that go beyond the brief,” says Coforma COO Ashleigh Axios 08 GD. “The spirit of entrepreneurship is so strong at RISD. Students aren’t just looking to check a box; they want to build a community, a brand, a business!”
Axios is discussing her recent participation in RISD’s Design Portfolio Review, an annual event organized by the Career Center. Nearly 500 juniors, seniors and grad students participated this year, meeting for 15 minutes with representatives from design-oriented businesses across the country, many of them led by RISD alums.
This year’s event was once again virtual, which allowed reviewers to participate more easily and to conduct focused and intimate interviews with each student. The new platform selected by Senior Career Advisor and Data Systems Manager Jason Arnone provided stress-free student registration and made sharing portfolios, PDFs, resumes and other documents seamless.
“What I see in the work of current RISD students... is a passion, a hunger for creative solutions that go beyond the brief.”
“This event absolutely would not happen without the technical brilliance of Jason Arnone and the exceptional vision, leadership and management of Associate Director Susan Andersen,” says Career Center Director Kevin Jankowski 88 IL. “RISD students are well prepared through the critiques they get in studio,” he adds, “but those first critiques they get from creative professionals outside of RISD can be life changing.”
For senior Graciela Batista 24 IL, the decision to participate came down to making professional connections and boosting her sense of confidence. “I’m comfortable speaking about myself and presenting my work, but it’s really encouraging to get positive feedback and practical advice from someone who is seeing your work for the first time,” she says. “We can be so hard on ourselves as artists. I’ve been meeting with Susan Andersen since sophomore year, and she has given me so much advice and support. It’s so important to have people in your life who really believe in you.”
Batista is looking for opportunities to bring visual arts and design into community spaces in the nonprofit realm after she graduates. One of the organizations she met with is Brooklyn-based design studio Morcos Key, which collaborates with arts and cultural institutions, nonprofits and commercial enterprises throughout North America and in the Middle East. The firm is led by RISD alums Wael Morcos MFA 13 GD and Jon Key 13 GD, who represented the team at Design Portfolio Review.
“As an artist of color, I desperately searched for people in this field who looked like me when I graduated.”
Key says he was recruited, in a manner of speaking, by the Career Center’s Karen Harris 86 IL at a Black Alumni Advisory Committee get-together in NYC last fall. “She explained how important it is for RISD students to see Black alumni in this space,” he recalls, “and that really spoke to me. As an artist of color, I desperately searched for people in this field who looked like me when I graduated. I wanted to go back to RISD and tell current students that yes, there are Black designers out there who are eager to serve as mentors.”
Key provided students with straightforward advice at the event: beef up the About section of your website, curate the works you’re including, post a video clip that shows how to navigate the flips and folds of your artist book. But he was also interested in the ideas that inform the work and curious about what students are reading.
As fellow portfolio reviewer and alum Theo Richardson 06 FD puts it, “RISD’s portfolio reviews are a great blend of the pragmatic and the theoretical. Conversations move from the 30,000-foot view—the purpose and beliefs behind the work—to the very practical.”
Richardson is Chief Design Officer at upstate New York lighting studio RBW, which he cofounded in 2007 with fellow alums Charles Brill 26 FD and Alex Williams 06 FD. “When we were nearing graduation, getting that external feedback was really validating,” he recalls, “and also a chance to start making connections and meeting new people.”
Graduating seniors Ian Gadt 24 IL and Seunghyun Cho 24 GD are both looking to do just that. “I’m in Illustration but interested in storyboarding and film production as well,” says Gadt. “I got lots of good feedback on organizing my website, which serves as my portfolio, and I’m planning to move to LA after Commencement. One of the reviewers I met with recommended that I get an agent for storyboarding work and even suggested an agency.”
Cho is hoping to launch her career on the East Coast and was looking for advice about how to navigate the different kinds of opportunities that fall under the umbrella of graphic design. “I got a lot of helpful feedback on the way I present my work and pace my presentation,” she says. “I would definitely recommend Design Portfolio Review to younger students. It’s good to talk to people outside of the RISD bubble, and you learn a lot from the experience.”
Simone Solondz / top image: Turbulence by Seunghyun Cho
April 4, 2024
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Juniors, seniors and grad students meet with representatives from 126 companies from across the globe at annual Design Portfolio Review.