Excited to share my recently completed portfolio! Would love your feedback and suggestions!

https://thealexirving.com/

How much of this is your designing things and how much is AI. It all feels like Ai and that’s not really unique

ACD here (this is an old title from when I first signed up to Fishbowl)

Your stuff looks great, so no problem there. But I think your concepts could be a lot stronger.

Keep pushing for those really "wow!" ideas. The "I wish I thought of that" ones. That's what gets you hired somewhere good. You don't even need a book full of them. Just one or two really amazing ideas is enough for someone to give you a shot.

I think the best thing in there right now is "save the splurge..." but right now it feels like a missed opportunity. That could be a really funny campaign...

Remember this is your one chance to put together the portfolio you want to create. Later in your career you'll have to work with the opportunities you have. Now you can do anything you want, so take advantage of that and come up with some great stuff.

First off, thank you for putting yourself out there and sharing. That’s often the hardest step.

I agree with a lot of what C1 and CD1 said already. The work itself is fairly polished, so no huge issues there. Not sweating AI usage but showcasing more design would help out too.

My biggest area of critique is concepts - they could be a helluva stronger. Next to nothing here stops me in my tracks to go “oh shit, that’s interesting” and I think about it or “I wish I’d done that.”

Chicago CTA - Like the energy here, but I need to see OOH. Maybe taking a cue from your scavenger hunt (which makes sense and works for me) and working in imagery and copy for certain Chicago spots that highlight this wave, that you can also use within the campaign’s overall design language.

Audible - One of the weakest for me overall. No real concept here, visuals look great but that’s it really.

Schwinn - This feels stronger to me. No issue with leaning into nostalgia for a brand like this. I don’t think your tagline is “Legacy on Wheels”. Who cares? “You never forget your first” is the line. That’s the conceptual anchor to build around. What firsts in your life, or someone’s life, did you experience when you had your Schwinn with you? It has a Norman Rockwell-kinda feel already you can explore.

Wilson - Collection of activations with no concept here. “Raise The Bar” makes sense as an idea but it’s barely expressed, except for the OOH. And, please, consider revising “The Bar Is Set, But You’re Not Done Yet.” It doesn’t come off as clever as it seems.

HydroFlask - Honestly, I really like the NPS collaboration idea and would like to see that built out and explored more. The rest has a pretty on the nose point of view, but finding that connection between HydroFlask and the National Parks is something I’d stop and look at closer.

Spirit - Again, the line is fun. Basically agree with C1 above.

Overall, really solid starts to a good amount of stuff and technically the polish is there. Take everything I said here with a grain of salt, because it’s ultimately your book in the end, but again thank you for sharing and best of luck to you! 🙏

Love how you used AI for your comps. Are you going to put the logos in the tv screens for your thumbnails?

Put captions under each thumbnail with the name of the client or project. You’ve got a “mystery meat” thing happening and I don’t know what I’ll get when I click on the thumbnail. I’m on mobile, so I don’t know if there are rollover captions.

The other thing: why are you using TV-themed thumbnails instead of actual project images? TVs are cool and all, but they’re not relevant to the project.

Why does your bio mention humor but there isn’t a single funny piece of work here?

There’s also nearly zero evidence of an idea. Too many juniors (fairly) confuse something that looks like an ad, for a good ad.

I’d prefer seeing ideas with pencil over midjourney comps without strategic thinking.

Since AI is pretty new, I’d like to hear what a CD think of this. I think my only concern with the AI thing is it makes your work all similar.

I would also show scamps before the final execution, it shows your thinking process.

Push your insights. You’ll get more fun ideas out of it.

Include something that is designed by you, you will hardly have the opportunity to use AI. (But things are changing, so who knows)

You need to expand on your skills in the resume. They need to be more on point with the job responsibilities you can and wish to do.

Curious, why NYU over SVA or somewhere similar?

Good work! This was a very cool idea.

Kinda reassuring to me personally as a copywriter that the writing and the ideas needed a lot of work but the visuals were pretty strong.

Super cool. Really solid overall. Question - did you use AI for all your comps?

Alex Irving…AI??

Fun work!

It’s all very cohesive and you are showing your personality in the copy!

I got lost a bit knowing that it’s all AI generated work. As an AD I would expect to see some more stuff that was produced or designed yourself.
Some projects felt a little long, would suggest cutting it and only showing the big stuff.

Does Alex Irving exist? Is this an experiment with AI?

This is pretty well done if so. Only a few things kinda made my radar go off. If you are real and haven’t already partnered with a CW already, you can make the copy better and elevate some concepts with a “wow” idea.

Needs more blood. Way way more.