Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
can distract you from your original intent. You constantly have to limit yourself
because it is so easy to overdo it.”
Content
Exhibit, product, industrial, and architectural designers run up against an obvi-
ous limitation with their first professional portfolio. Few of their ideas have been
built. In decades past, concept designs were obvious as such. In some portfolios, they-
still are. Emmanuel's work is so clean, crisp, and detailed that many of his concept
pieces can be easily mistaken for photos, a fact that was brought home by the many
people who contacted him wanting to buy his “huit
sofa”—a loveseat concept based on the figure 8. Many
of these people found the project through blog arti-
cles—a natural result of having so many possible
points of entry to an intriguing project.
As it's difficult to get the sense of a 3D object
with one photo, Laffon presents his images from multi-
ple views, and distances, at a size that makes their
materials and scale apparent. Objects whose size might
not be obvious are put in photographic context. In addition, Laffon's site contains his
video walkthrough, which is available in three resolutions—two viewable online, one
downloadable in high resolution.
Laffon's website concentrates on finished, modeled projects that can speak for
themselves with little context. His laptop presentation, however, contains process work
that allows him to discuss how he arrives at and develops his ideas.
Refreshing a physical portfolio is
more difficult. You need to lay out
a new page, and print it in large
format. Honestly, I haven't shown
my physical portfolio in a while.
No one ever asks for it!
—Emmanuel Laffon de Mazières
Future plans
Laffon is particularly interested in consumer electronics and furniture, two
areas that do not have much overlap. A few years down the road, he'll probably have
to make a choice, but for now he continues to add examples of both when he updates
his site. He also goes back and reworks older designs as
he sees better, more workable ways to build them,
while weeding out older projects to make room.
However, he intends to maintain his basic portfolio
design for the foreseeable future because it works so
well for him. Changing the background images to
refresh his content and allowing the backgrounds to
interact with his projects has kept his ideas fresh.
My website is like a display
window, so I am trying to keep on
the website only the projects that
reflect the best of my abilities. I
remove everything that's not to
my standards.
—Emmanuel Laffon de Mazières
