Our portfolio show was a success! Adrian Shaughnessy, author of How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing your Soul, was our guest speaker. He spoke about three important qualities a young designer must cultivate: Cultural Awareness, Communication, and Integrity. Our program, Visual Communication, includes design and illustration, and in past years the speaker has not been as relevant to illustration as to graphic design, but Shaughnessy's words were applicable to many fields, even those not in the arts. Several parents were heard after the show saying how much they got out of the event. Many parents who didn't 'get' graphic design and weren't entirely convinced of the validity of their child's degree were feeling much better about it.
As far as feedback on our portfolios, I received a lot of positive feedback from mothers, grandmothers, and people who knew something about children's books, or at least appreciated them. I think my portfolio will change a good deal in the next year or so, but I'd certainly like for children's book illustration to be... something I do.
I'll post some portfolio pieces later. Right now Blogger is having an upload problem.
