The Texas A&M-Commerce Department of Art's upper-level Visual Communication courses in Art Direction, Design, and New Media are reserved for students who have participated in the portfolio entry process. The entry process is a tool for the VisCom faculty to evaluate a students' mastery of their foundations. The portfolio pieces requested are varied to give each student an opportunity to show their strengths, whether visual, conceptual, writing, etc. The goal of the portfolio is for a student to convey potential and passion.
The application process for the portfolio entry review is open to any undergraduate student who meets the following criteria:
· Students should have completed at least 18 hours of art foundation courses* as described in the undergraduate catalog and the University studies** requirements of Texas A&M-Commerce. Students transferring from other institutions may refer to the course equivalencies chart on the art department website for these requirements.
· The student must have an overall GPA of at least 2.5 and an art foundations GPA of at least 3.0.
*Other visual foundation courses may be substituted for the art foundation courses on an individual basis with the completion of 18 hours being preferred.
**Minor extensions may be granted for the completion of University requirements, but exceptions must be granted by the Director of VisCom.
The Spring 2024 Entry Review portfolio will consist of the following items in the order listed below. All portfolio elements should be contained in a single, multi-page pdf.
The ability to follow and execute instructions is an element of the review.
I. Cover Page: Should contain your name, cwid and area of emphasis. If you haven't decided, please choose your top choice. Choices: art direction, design, and new media.
II. Application for Portfolio Entry Review: A current unofficial copy of your university transcript with art foundation courses highlighted should be scanned or incorporated from a digital file and entered after your application.
This information can be found in MyLeo—Degreeworks
III. Creative Pieces
1. Visual Narrative: Write a narrative describing one of the three choices: A-motion, B-poster or C-ad located on the entry review page of the website or the program blog. You may download the information.
1. Continued: The narrative should be at least 250 words and no more than 300 words. Students answer the narrative by providing a descriptive perspective, who the piece was addressing and what their chosen piece is trying to say to the audience with the purpose of incorporating visual vocabulary into their writing. The page should be titled with your name and student id centered at the top of the page with Visual Narrative of A, B or C, (depending on your selection) directly underneath it. Using spell-check is not only encouraged but required.
2. Perspective Drawing: Choose or produce a drawing that exhibits an understanding of one or two point perspective. This drawing can be from a course or created for the portfolio. .
3. Photograph: Black and white or color. This photo should show an understanding of composition.
4. Self-Portrait with Container:Produce a self-portrait with container. The definition of container is visually defined by you. You may use the medium of your choice. This piece is an opportunity to exhibit conceptual thinking, craft and originality
5. Field Trip: Go to a paint or hardware store and pick out five paint color chips. You may use individual colors from different strips, but you must use five colors. Scan your chips. Apply one color chip to represent the purpose of a room in your college home, you must use five rooms. Rename the colors to describe your room choices. A room can be defined as anything with a door, for example, a closet or a porch. Write two complete sentences about why you applied that color to the room. You can only use a color once. Layout all color scans, their new names and their two sentence rationale on one page.
6. Software Application: Please provide a piece showing your understanding and application of computer software. For example: a poster design, a character, your final project in Visual Communication 1 or an illustration produced on the computer.
7. Free Choices: Please provide two pieces that show areas of personal visual and /or conceptual strength that may not be recognized in the previous pieces. If the chosen piece is 3-dimensional, please provide a photograph. Up to 4 different views of a 3-dimensional piece may be provided.
All items listed should be organized in the order shown above and included in a single, multi-page pdf. Each of the six creative pieces should have the number it's fulfilling and at least one sentence about the piece in the lower right-hand corner of each page .5” from the bottom and .5” from the right side of the pdf in a readable font, no larger than 10 pt.
This large document must be uploaded to google drive using the following link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vIeyubcZK4NKNnLCiTVje1oZYV11CJlc
Make a folder on the drive titled with your name and 2023. Example: Janie Doe 2023
The folder should contain:
Please email the program director upon completion of your upload. lee.hackett@tamuc.edu
The Visual Communication faculty will use your eight creative pieces to evaluate:
Each student is required to have two faculty recommendations. The faculty members can be a current or former University or Community College instructor you have had a course with. If you are from A&M-Commerce, one recommendation has to come from your 2313 Intro to VisCom class instructor. If you are a transfer student, choose one teacher that taught your software application course. The second recommendation can come from the instructor of your choice but must be from the art/design department.
The VisCom Recommendation file should be emailed to faculty for their response. Their file should be named with your first and last name followed VisCom Rec as the title. Example: JohnDoeVisComRec.pdf
Selected instructors will email their recommendations directly to Lee Hackett. Recommendations received from students from their instructors will not be accepted.
The recommendation email must be received by Sunday, November 26 at noon for the student portfolio to be considered complete.
Sunday, November 26 at midnight.
Notification and acceptance is a two-part process.
1. All students will be notified of the review outcome via the applicant's e-mail address. Notification will happen as soon as possible after the review.>
2. Students invited into the program must reply by e-mail with an acceptance/decline for their seat in the VisCom program for the Spring of 2024 within three days of the notification.
No faculty member may help a student build their portfolio through critique or piece selection. Part of the portfolio evaluation is based on the choices made by the student.
All portfolio elements should be contained in a single, multi-page pdf. The ability to follow and execute instructions is an element of the review.