"Rant" Has the internet created a bunch of fakers?

[jinny]

I read alot of very popular graphic design blogs, these people have a huge reader list and preach about design, tell people about how they design, write tutorials on design and general have a say on everything design realted.

But click on their portfolio link and they have like 6 mediocre design pieces in their portfolio. Do they really design? Are they professional designers or just the unemployed that read stuff on the net and then relay it on their blogs.

They have the time to be full time bloggers writing at least 1 post a day but their portfolio remains the same, how do we believe these people are actually pro designers sharing their knowledge and not just unemployed wanna be's who if they put as much time into working for paying clients than telling others how to do it we might consider them professionals?

Discuss!

[L[Design]]

Jinny, great discussion! I have wondered the same thing. They are the self promoted greats of design and on top of all that, they are very critical of others. Now, i do not profess to be the best designer, I can certainly take a well structured crit, but they rip, rip, rip and then like you said, they themselves have a few mediocre pieces in their folios. Hmmm!

[PR Design]

Well, I entered this one about 18 months back and I was given a pretty good answer. If they are working to the scale they claim, they probably won't get much chance to physically update their portfolios. I mean think how long it takes anyone to get round to updating their folio - it took me about 6 months to get round to it and I work on nothing like the scale of the guys you're talking about. Just one theory anyway ;)

[Fatbat]

If you are busy you neither have the time nor need to update your online portfolio.

[L[Design]]

Good points! But if your that busy, how then do you have time to Blog?

[Fatbat]

One might wonder how we all have time to visit this forum too. I guess it depends on where your priorities lie.

[L[Design]]

I believe that blogging takes a bit more time than stopping in here and seeing what's going on. Hey, whatever, it all really makes no difference to me.

[Toon]

You should always take time to update your portfolio, I agree alot of designers portfolios can look very empty. The only thing that's worse than a designer's portfolio with no work, is when the only work they have is all free work for friends/family. It's ok being 16-20 and starting out that way but it doesn't make an impact if you haven't got any paid corporate work to prove that you can really hack it in the industry.

[Mute]

To me there are 2 sorts of professional portfolios, a public one, and a private one. Public portfolios should only serve to give potential clients an idea of what you're capable of, whereas the private one (which you keep updated by adding something every week or so) you show a client that contacts you. This is what I have been doing for years and It's worked for me.

Then again I have several design sites, and several portfolios, one of which is in the form of a blog, there's a design section, a portfolio section that I rarely update but the blog section (main part really) i keep up to date with my doings, design work, projects, thoughts and so on. So in truth what I blog should tell clients something about what i'm capable of doing. Then again I'm not really a hardcore designer, i work as an SEO and marketing specialist, try cooking up a portfolio for those lol

Meh, if they have such a huge fan base, all the more power to them regardless of there shite portfolio i say ;)