Developing a personal, documented, repeatable process is a crucial part of learning in design school. I often say that a potential employer will not necessarily hire you for the good work you’ve done. They’ll hire you for the good work you’ll do for them — and the best way for you to show them that you can do this is to show them your process work. After all, when you look at a portfolio, how can you be sure how much of the work came from the student... versus classmates, the instructor, or even the internet*? In most every class we teach, we have students keep a process/sketchbook — and in some classes elevate this to a more annotated version worthy of a place in a portfolio itself.
Each week during critique, we generally quickly thumb through the books and move on to the work. We refer to it if something comes up — but otherwise, we just want to know it's developing nicely. However, distance learning has made reviewing process work a bit harder. I wanted to formalize it a bit more and add examples.
... A potential employer will not necessarily hire you for the good work you’ve done. They’ll hire you for the good work you’ll do for them — and the best way for you to show them that you can do this is to show them your process work.
(*tip: good process is also the best antidote for a plagiarism charge)
