CCA Confidential

The CCA has set out some new portfolio requirements its first year students. They seem fairly straight forward, but I have a few concerns. You can download the official PDF document here: CCA First Year Portfolio Guidelines.

Here are the requirements in full:

It is the goal of the First Year Program to have all students who are enrolled in Core Studio courses be prepared to keep a well-organized and properly formatted digital portfolio of their Core Studio work. In addition to this portfolio requirement all Core Studio students from Fall 2007 and/or Spring 2008 will be expected to attend a First Year Portfolio Review during finals week of Spring 2008. This will be an opportunity for students to communicate with CCA faculty about their direction and progress at the college.

Portfolio Guidelines
Important NOTE: It is essential for consistency that you follow these guidelines exactly. If images, sound files and video files are not formatted and named as requested here, your work may not be completely and properly reviewed.

1. Document each project in each studio course with a digital camera and save onto a recordable CD-R (700MB). An exception to this will be in 4D, where you will have video projects that are saved on a DVD.
2. Create a folder for each Core Studio course that you are taking: Drawing1, 2D Visual Dynamics, 3D Visual Dynamics, 4D Visual Dynamics and or 2D/3D Visual Dynamics. (It is recommended, but optional to also keep folders for your Introduction to Studio courses such as Painting 1 or Writing/Literature workshops.)
3. Create a folder within each studio course for each project. For example, you will have several projects in your Drawing 1 folder that might include Gesture, Project Book, Final Project, etc…
4. Submit only one good image of each completed project, or 5-10 images of a series or collection within a project. For example: 5 gesture drawings, 5 pages of your project book, an installation that requires multiple images.
5. Formatting Still Images: We ask that you create 2 different size images for each image.
   Save the images in two different folders, mark one folder 72DPI and another 300DPI.
6. We are asking for one high resolution image that is print ready and one low resolution for web presentation. Creating both presentations of images gives you more possibility for using your images for your professional practice.
   Low resolution
   72 DPI
   600 x 800 or 800 x 600
   JPG or PNG
   High resolution
   300 DPI
   at least 1600 pixels on the longest side
   TIFF
7. Your files should be labeled as follows use this naming format exactly: image number_artist’s first initial and last name_project name_dpi resolution.Example: 01_jsmith_gesture_72 or 01_jsmith_gesture_30072DPI folder:
   01_jsmith_gesture_72
   02_jsmith_gesture_72300DPI folder:
   01_jsmith_gesture_300
   02_jsmith_gesture_300
8. When formatting time based assignments. Video projects will be burned on a DVD. Audio and Web projects may be burned on a 700MB CD.Video projects should be formatted for Standard Definition 720 x 640, NTSC. They should be exported as best quality Quick Time (QT) files with either .mov or .dv file extensions. Video files less than 5 minutes in length should be burned as data files on a DVD. Videos longer than 5 minutes in length should be mastered as a DVD.Your video file and projects should be labeled as follows: 01jsmith_videoproject>titleofyourvideo.dvSound Projects should be formatted as either MP3 with a high bitrate (192kbps) and a sample rate of 44.1khz, or as AIFF files using 16 bit 48khz resolution.Your sound file and projects should be labeled as follows: 01jsmith_soundproject>siterecording.aiff (name of project)
9. Web Project:
   Make a copy of your site folder in your home directory onto a CD.
   Rename your site folder. Example: jsmith_webprojectYou must have an index.html page that is working at the top of your list of files in your folder. Your index page must not be inside a folder. Audio files embedded in your website should by MP3 files. Video files embedded in your website should be QT files ~320×240 .Your web file should be labeled as follows: 01jsmith_webproject>02jsmith_webproject (if you have a 2nd web project)

As a graphic design student these instructions are fairly simple. What concerns me are the other majors, and there are a lot of them. How many people know how to change the DPI on a photo? I mean really, not ‘ya I think I can,’ but ya I can do it and it won’t take forever.

The CCA has setup weekend classes to teach students how to do work on their digital portfolios, but the class sizes are limited to 15 students, and their are hundreds of freshman.

I know their aren’t many readers right now, but if any of you think it would be a good idea for me to post how to do some of this stuff. Just leave a comment.