Apply Component 3 — Charlotte Chan

The Future

March 2026
AX6001 Component 3
Word count: 753

Future Skills, Planning, Industry, Career

Welcome to my portfolio!

One might stumble upon a portfolio serendipitously online or be directed to it upon meeting someone in-person. In particular, I had the context of industry and networking events in mind, where links can be dropped to potential employers and creative peers for them to easily view work.

Visibility and presentation are important for a designer to have, so having a customised and unique website is a good way to showcase those qualities. I've chosen to present my elevator pitch in the form of a page in my web portfolio because it reflects the format and platform other creatives often use to share their practice. While Pdf portfolios are an industry standard and Instagram portfolios are on the rise, self-contained, public web portfolios always have a place as being customised and unique in our attention economy.

I’m particularly looking for a junior graphic designer role in a branding and book design studio like BOB Design and Soup Work. These medium-to-small studios often pay more attention to the care a potential hiree puts into a web portfolio as compared to big agencies that prioritize getting through Pdf ones.

The Kingston University Graduate Attributes are laid out just like how a project would sit within the portfolio. The format works to storytell and frame the attributes alongside my wider body of work to represent my position as a designer.

I’m Charlotte, a final-year graphic design student specialising in identity and publication design. Dialogue is the driving force behind my practice, where I connect with cultures, communities and lived experiences. The constant flux of the creative landscape demands for continual plasticity and innovation through conversation—over the course of my degree, three of the graduate attributes that I’ve actively strengthened in relevant to this flux are self-awareness, resilience, and collaboration.

I believe self-awareness boils down to the constant willingness and effort to grow, of which I have proactively developed my skills, knowledge—and the ways in which I receive that knowledge. With the ever-changing state of technology and tools required of graphic designers, I’ve taught myself a range of digital programmes and skills to stay relevant. Among those are type design in Glyphs, interactive & reactive media in TouchDesigner, and newer processes of motion graphics in Cavalry. For example, the learning of TouchDesigner was initiated for an identity project that called for video source-based, shifting animations. I then utilised the programme to create complementary moving assets for the brand. These efforts stemmed from curiosity and an awareness to perpetually upgrade myself and resulted in improved abilities to produce interesting, fresher work.

In my journey, resilience and collaboration are traits that are developed through the common medium of connecting with others. The former has been worked on through the very act of reaching out, whether physically or online—where I faced countless non-replies or dead ends that force you to toughen up for next time. However, when connection is established, it also builds resilience in a different way when a more experienced designer would share about their personal stories and struggles, or give me advice on how to navigate the industry. Through job searching or in conducting primary research for projects, the many conversations I’ve had with others or stories I’ve heard has given me the strength to keep on going when things get tough.

Naturally, connecting is also a part of collaboration, in which I’ve pro-actively conducted through school and external projects. Collaboration and conversation leads to serendipitous insights that can guide a designer’s work; when I was stuck on a project revolving designing a restaurant brand, I happened to come across the restaurant, Wonton Charlie’s, on a trip to Hackney. Their branding caught my eye so I decided to take a chance and reach out to their marketing team. Their marketing head was kind enough to share with me their business and identity development processes, which gave me new ideas on how to approach my project. Having the courage to reach out and collaborate will always be important in an industry that thrives on multi-faceted thinking.

How I developed these graduate attributes are only a snippet of my creative journey, and I would love to share more. I would love to connect—whether you’re looking for an eager creative to join the team or just want to chat.

You can also check out the rest of my portfolio here!