For me, Oliver’s portfolio is what graphic design is all about. Intelligent visual communication. Over the past 4-5 years I’ve been increasingly worried by the type of work young designers are showing me in their folios. Students are being slightly brainwashed by design blogs to believe that ‘design craft’ and ‘finish’ is what graphic design is all about. It can be, but visual communication is also about ideas and storytelling.

I reviewed about eight portfolios at the AIGA portfolio day in San Francisco a few weeks ago and was surprised by the lack of ideas in young designers’ books. A fancy print spec, foil or duplex is not an idea – it’s just ‘finish’.

Remember, there’s more to graphic design than the work featured on September Industry and Visuelle. Sure, I love that stuff as much as the next person, but quite often it’s just design for the sake of design. Young designers should remember to switch on their brains once in a while and really try to balance their ‘sexy’ books with some thinking.

Oliver’s work and the work of The Chase in general is a perfect reference for the type of design I’m referring to. Wonderful, inspiring stuff.