No Additional Work Required for Final
Rather than requiring additional work for the day of your final, I want to use the final class period to highlight best practices from our semester and to make some summary recommendations. Additionally, I will hand you specific feedback and recommendations on your portfolio(s). For those with print portfolios, I [...]

I will have your print portfolios available in the comm lab on Friday afternoon. You may pick them up then, in preparation for your mock interview next week!

SCHEDULE UPDATES:
Tuesday, April 14

Receive your Job Strategy Report back from me
Sign up for mock interview time slots
Review what’s coming

DUE Thursday, April 16, by 5:00 p.m.

Hard copy of improved Resume and Cover Letter: Please leave it on the center desk.
ELECTRONIC copy of Resume and Cover Letter files: Name files clearly WITH YOUR NAME IN THE FILE [...]

Today all print portfolios or their alternatives will be submitted. Print portfolios should be supplemented with a PDF version as well.
I will be taking a bit of time with each individual to receive these.
PLEASE RESPOND IN A COMMENT TO THIS MESSAGE with a link to your online portfolio. If you are submitting a PDF portfolio, [...]

Due by class time Thursday, March 26:
For those of you who will benefit from a print portfolio, please respond to the following message in our project log with your answers to the questions found there:
I WILL be creating a print portfolio, and here is my plan.
For those of you pursuing occupations that DO NOT require [...]

As I have been reviewing your cover letters, I found it easiest to compose one that does a few key things that most of you need to do:

formatting and phrasing the top and bottom
opening
declaring the reason for your interest
highlighting the specific benefits of your education (and perhaps your internship experience?!)
highlighting specific things about the company [...]

In class on Feb. 19, 2009, we will:

View a web hosting administration panel, including its process for installing wordpress.
Set up your own wordpress website, located at: http://thinking.creative.com/firstnamelastname
Login to your wordpress, update the profile password, and add me as a user.
View the import options, in case you should want to import information from another blog.
Practice downloading, [...]

Those of you whom I missed today …
Domain Names
If you would like at some point to register your own domain name, here are a couple of good options:

NameCheap.com
GoDaddy.com

Hosting
If you would ever like to establish your own web hosting account to set up and host your own web sites, with tons of options and tons of [...]

Using one of the following resources, find two WordPress themes whose design, layout, or both could be useful in meeting the goals laid out in your Communication Brief for your online portolio.

WordPress.org Themes Page
Nattywp.com
TopWPthemes.com
WordPress Themes Base
WP Theme Spot
Or Google Search under “WordPress Themes”

Once you’ve found two good free possible themes, post each theme name, a [...]

Due Thursday, Feb. 12
Utilizing ideas and perspective gained from our Tuesday class meeting, complete a communication brief for your online portfolio.
Use one of these templates, which provides a basic format and the questions you need to address:

Microsoft Office for Windows
Microsoft Word for Mac
Pages for Mac

Print, staple, and submit this at the first of class.

Reply to this message in our project log with your top-three favorite online porfolios relevant to your career interests. These should be online portfolios or projects where a specific person in your career of interest displays his or her talents, knowledge, ability, reflection, and/or expertise.
The point of this assignment is for you to pull together [...]

Here is a sample résumé whose layout and content provide a good example of the kinds of look and substance you should seek to convey in your résumé. (PDF)
For other letter and résumé layout ideas, see the images in this online folder. Clean, simple, straightforward.

NEW DUE-DATE: Thursday, Feb. 5
Hand in a paper-clipped packet including the following items in this order:

A print-out of a job advertisement for a full-time position in which you would be interested and for which you could apply after graduation. This advertisement could be obtained from a service such as Monster.com or from some other resource. [...]

For Tuesday, January 27, please post as a comment to this message in our project log:
A title, link, and short description for EACH of the following:

a page or article of advice for preparing a great cover letter and/or résumé
a page or article of advice for preparing a great online and/or print portfolio
an [...]

Due Date
By class time on Tuesday, January 20
Submission
Upload as a comment to the appropriate post in our class Project Log as a Word document or PDF document.
Format
Prepare a 7-10 page document (total), 1-inch margins, single-spaced, 10pt font, with larger headings, divided into two major sections, one for each of two career options. Each section should [...]

Check out our career resources page. We’ll be developing it during the semester.

Using the job categories you found from Monster.com, find the relevant information in the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) for each of those job categories.
In a *comment* responding to the relevant post in our course project log, post:

the job category name,
a link to the most relevant OOH page,
a roughly 10-sentence summary of the [...]

Consult Monster.com to find 2-3 job categories that you would be interested in and a job description under each category.
List the job categories and relevant job description on a typed sheet of paper.
Include your name, course, and date at the top of the sheet.

I’m collecting a list of useful articles on the topic of portfolio building (including for beginning designers) and business startup tips.
Here are direct links to those I’ve collected as of today:

What Goes In Graphic Design Portfolios
What Goes in a *Beginner’s* Design Portfolio
The Benefits of a Graphic Design Blog
Tips for a Graphic Design Business
Using Word-of-Mouth to [...]