Pascal Campion:

1. If you are images tell a story, you are more than halfway there.

2. if your story is crystal clear, you are ninety nine percent of the way there.

3. if your stories are clear and personal, you just broke the house.
You’ll notice that neither in 1 or 2 is there any mention of technique… and, oddly enough, there is still no mention of it in number 3 either. You know why? BECAUSE IT DOESN’T MATTER!!!
Let me make this clear. When you are showing your portfolios to people, you are selling ideas and personalities. Not how you handle Photoshop, or perspective. Not how you mix your colors, or how many different variations on a tree you can create. These are exercises you do in school to develop your skills that are used to create stories..which is what I look for.

Nailed it.

I have heard that artsts that come out of places like India or China have work that looks and feels similar. It is not a good sign that artists in the USA are having the same problem. Most of my job is problem solving. Only after I have thought about the problem and solved it can I push the right buttons.

I cannot blame the schools thou, most employers that are looking for insert application here want to make sure you know where the buttons are and when to use them. They are not looking for problem solvers. As a side effect they get non-starters that just give up when they run out of buttons to push. This kind of artisty also drives down rates as the thought is we are not knowledge workers anymore, we are just button pushers.

That is bad for all of us, incuding the owners of comapnies that make great art.