Nice work. Former graphic designer myself.y only advice would be to change up the header, possibly ditching the drop shadows.

Hi Chuck, I've been reading some of the critiques on here. Some are pretty good and for the most-part, spot on, others are either not critiquing from a place of experience within the business or are sugar coating just a bit. I am going to "try" to give you an honest and accurate assessment of your portfolio as well as what you are up against in this business. First let me qualify my critique as legit. I have worked for the entirety of my professional career in the field of advertising almost exclusively on the agency side and all on the creative side. 28 years to be exact as an art director/creative director. I have worked on national brands like Pepsi, Allsport, Lipton Brisk Iced Tea, used to do the Walmart Smiley Face commercials, (I know...shoot me) worked on million dollar production campaigns with some of the best production houses in Santa Monica area in my past on other fun pet product accounts that required extensive CGI to pull off the concepts at a very high level. I am currently unemployed (going on a year now without any real prospects in sight)

Your work is competent but nothing jumps out as extraordinary that as a hiring manager tells me that I'd need to have this guy on my team. Most of your work seems like one offs and does not show width and breadth of your thinking. Your work is also graphic design centric vs conceptual. Craftsmanship is pretty basic vs anything feeling unique in it's design approach. Someone's comments I read were very accurate in that they said that your collective portfolio doesn't have a primary focus... are you an art director, web designer, graphic designer, illustrator, photographer, videographer, editor? Being a jack of all trades won't get you noticed despite the fact that pretty much every job post out there wants you to be able to do it all and at an expert level all with 3-5 years experience.

Design firms want hard core designers with the ability to design lights out in unique and surprising ways uses with color, typography, texture, dimension etc. Advertising agency want conceptual thinkers. Back when I got into this business your portfolio was (and still is) your resume. There was no way to fake a good portfolio like a person can sugar coat the hell out of a resume). Not only did the work have to be great but the presentation of the work had to be equally as creative and well organized. I know you stated that you used a free site and not to judge your website design but unfortunately it reflects on your work. Your portfolio template link was a visual mess. The navigation was unfriendly and the reward when I clicked on your work was somewhat unrewarding as well which made me not want to fully explore your other work. Sorry but that is the unvarnished truth and I know it sounds mean. Just being honest. Try another free website service that allows you a better visual platform to present your work in. More advice...focus your work into categories. My work for example is compartmentalized into categories for ease of viewing. PRINT. BROADCAST. COLLATERAL. LOGOS. OUTDOOR. DIGITAL. etc. You may also consider having two websites. 1 for design houses. 1 for ad agencies. They are both very different monsters. Both want candidates that understand their differences. For instance, I would have a very difficult time showing my work at a design firm. I can design and understand the surface premises of good design and can appreciate good design vs bad but I am unapologetically not a good designer. My brain does not work like a designers brain does. I have done very basic brand standards in the past but would rather scrub our prison latrines than design brand standards which you will need to show you can do if you want to work at a design firm.On the flip side, most people that consider themselves designers are typically NOT good ad people. They are not good at concepting and have a very hard time designing an ad. They seem to lose all sense of their design skills and revert back to some basic advertising class they had and create the most stereotyped looking ad ever seen. Your work and website combined with some well thought out rationals that accompany your work is essential. Your sight needs to sell your thought process/results behind your work, even if it's student work, potential employers want to know how you arrived at what they are looking at. They also want to to know you are not a one trick pony and can expand your ideas into campaigns with multiple touch points. They also want to see this with a variety of different clients, each with a unique look and feel which means your portfolio needs to show visual variation and relevent styles.

Your biggest hurdle: Your age. I think you stated somewhere that you are in your 40's. I am 51. I have a portfolio that may not be straight out of a one show or CA annual but it is well crafted work that shows a range of thinking and conceptualization that I feel pretty good about...not great but good. I cannot buy a job with my experience due to my age. Potential employers like my work. They just don't like my age or my experience level. Your biggest issue is having someone take a chance on a 40-something with a beginner level book. Your direct competition are 23 and 24 year olds that have killer books coming straight out of school. At my last job I saw these weekly and have to admit I was blow away by some of the talent out there. Then again there is a sea of mediocre candidates as well. If your book is just OK then the nod is going to go the way of the youngster. It just is. Period. It's a young business and sadly nothing is going to change that. It's also a very unforgiving and grueling business filled with late nights, weekends, backstabbing opinionated account executives that offer nothing on the front end strategy wise and usually only serve as another level of client (junior AE's included), bipolar clients that don't know what they want other than they want it tomorrow, want it for noting and won't know what they want until they see it. And lets not forget the plethora of narcissistic creatives that actually think they are making the world a better place by doing what they do. I like to think I was never one of them but I used to think what I did was cool and somehow glamorous. I don't anymore which maybe is why I am unemployed. Please don't get me wrong here. I don't think my work is great either. Most of my work is forgettable. I have won some awards over those 28 years and they got me nothing of value in return. I have forsaken my time with my children when they were younger while I worked 60-80 hour weeks trying to please unappeasable people. If I had to wager a guess I'd have to say close to 80% of what I have created in these 28 years has been killed for one reason or another and the 20% that has been produced has been changed and monkeyed with to the point of me not even recognizing the original concept. There is very little in my portfolio that I think is the best work I could have done. I second guess just about all of it and wish I'd have done something differently. BTW...my website is a free blog site. It sucks and I know it does as well. I am in the beginning stages of taking my own advice and redoing it so the site doesn't drag the work down like an anchor headed straight to Davey Jones locker.

As your current work stands right now, your best bet is to try getting an in-house corporate design job. The work will be uninspiring but the work life balance will be good and they benefits will be better that design firms or ad agencies. You will get some experience and then can decide if you like it or still want a taste of agency life. The other option is to go back to school and do a very deep dive into design, polish that book until it shines like the sun and see if the level of work supersedes the age hurdle.

Good luck Chuck!

You told me not to critique your site, but I can't help it. I don't know what you do from your site. Are you a graphic designer? Are you an illustrator? Are you a web designer? No idea.

As for the content, I thought you had alot of professional looking stuff. There were a couple that didn't seem up to par with the rest though, like the trumpet and the illustration of the bird. The picture of the macintosh is a bit confusing as well. Are you showing it because you took the photo? Are you showing it because you're a web developer? Either way, it doesn't seem to fit with the others.

Chuck, your work is great! I'm in the same boat, so I don't have any suggestions. I'm considering purchasing a domain name and/or creating a portfolio on dribbble and Behance. Increase your visibility and keep on creating!

Hey Chuck, did you check out the feedback that you got on your other post? Let me know!