Welcome to the School of Art online graduate profile project!

CONTEXT

RMIT School of Art are planning to hold the end of year Graduate Exhibitions on campus in November and December, supported by online profiles of graduates. You can check out the profiles from last year and exhibition documentation archived here: https://schoolofartgraduates.rmit.edu.au

The site will profile of you as an emerging artist and/or photographer and your work-in-progress towards your capstone project. It will be used to promote the RMIT School of Art Graduate Exhibitions and remain as an invaluable archive after the exhibitions close. The profiles act as an extension of your graduate exhibition installation.

Please be assured that creating your profile in WordPress is relatively straightforward and does not need to be time-consuming. You are basically being asked to submit a couple of paragraphs about your capstone project and your practice, a few of images (3-9 images is good), and a link to your online website and/or social media. You can also add video or embed other forms of content. The WordPress user interface is quite intuitive. The instructions below are provided to assist you and there will be drop-in help sessions for anyone who wants more help.

You are invited to include images of yourself, your work-in-progress, ‘behind the scenes’ content and images of your working space.

Next steps?

Scroll through the general information below

Take a look at the profiles in the Graduate Archive

Gather your images, video and any other content you want to include

Draft your text – a couple of paragraphs about your capstone project, a few lines about your practice, and links to your social media and website. An abstract from your studio work statement is good.

Follow the instructions below to create your post

If you have questions, attend one of the drop-in sessions listed below or contact Dr Alison Bennett via Teams

Submit your profile by Week 12

fyi check out the social media plan and hashtags listed here

Continue to share content for social media in the lead up to the opening and throughout the exhibition

Depending on how you like to work, there are different options for instructions:

1. General instructions are below …

have a scroll through to get an overall sense of the task

2. Detailed step-by-step instructions are here:
2023 RMIT SoA graduate profiles detailed instructions.pptx

3. Drop-in sessions are scheduled if you want assistance.

These sessions are not compulsory – just if you have a question!

Click here to join the meeting or leave a message in the chat.

[drop-in session times to be announced]

Contact Dr Alison Bennett, Associate Dean Photography, if you would like to schedule a video consult.

CREATE A PROFILE POST

CLICK THIS LINK to join the graduate profile site as a ‘contributor’ using your RMIT email address and password. This means that you can create a post and submit it but not publish it. You can save your draft post and return to edit as often as you like before submitting by the end of Week 12. The posts will be checked by an editor before being published.

PLEASE NOTE: create just one post on this site.

You can add text, photographs (JPG or PNG); embed video (vimeo preferred); or embed content.

Ideally, we want you to present your profile in the way that best promotes your work. Please test your content to explore how it looks on the post. Take the opportunity to explore the possibilities of this platform for presenting your work and consider the creative constraints of the medium. But if your capacity is limited to an image, some words, and a link, that is also ok!

There are detailed step-by-step instructions linked above, if that is how you like to work; or keep working through the general information below.

TIMELINES & DUE DATES: WEEK 12

Start now! You do not need to complete the post in one session.
You can save your draft and return later to continue editing as often as you wish until editing is closed for proof-reading at the end of Week 12. It does not need to be final or perfect till then, but we recommend that you test it out as soon as possible.

The site will be closed for proof reading at the end of Week 12 and go live mid-November. Semester 1 graduates will go live mid-year.

Note that creating your profile in advance of the graduate exhibition reflects industry practice. It is not unusual to be asked to provide text and images well in advance of an exhibition.

You may have differing timelines if your profile submission has been included as part of the assessment for a course, but the overall project timelines are listed HERE

Help is available! Drop-in session times are listed above 🙂

You can find more instructions on using CampusPress here:

PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO

As you can see from the previous profiles, documentation of your work-in-progress, your working space and ‘behind the scenes’ processes are a rich complement to your final exhibition installation.

If you are unsure about how or what to photograph, please discuss this with your academic lead/curator. In 2022, some groups of students formed teams to photograph each other.

Photograph of Lara Gough in front of her three paintings.

sculpture student Sona photographed by Hassan Ayache as part of the 'picturing community' project 2022

The profiles are an opportunity to give an insight into your work beyond the finished project, such as these images from the Digital Materialities project.

If you are working digitally, screen recordings are an effective means of documenting behind the scenes content.

timelapse video of Tilly Parsons installing work in the 2023 Robyn Beeche Award exhibition:

3D content and embedding HTML

You can also embed content via HTML
There are instructions on embedding HTML code here.

The 3d model on the left is hosted on Sketchfab and them embedded into this page. You can also embed content from webXR platforms such as Styly, and NewArt.City.

If you want to experiment with 3D content, try out the Poly.cam phone app!

Come to one of the drop-in sessions listed at the top of this page if you want support with embedding content.

MINIMUM CONTENT / STYLE GUIDE

Below is an example of minimum content for a profile post. You may explore the best way to present your profile but we ask that you follow the style guidelines noted below.

Screenshot of published template post:

Screenshot of ‘Edit Post’ interface in ‘Classic Editor’ mode.
Note settings on right hand side:
Featured image, categories, & tags.

MEDIA LIBRARY

It works best if you add your image captions to your image files within the media library, rather than directly within the post interface.

Fill out the media attachment details like the screenshot below in the media library before you insert the images into the post.

Please caption all images and visual content in exactly this manner:
Artist Name, ‘title’, year, media, photo: Name Photographer (if applicable).

OPTIMISING IMAGE FILES FOR WEB

When preparing your files before upload, we recommend:
- – Optimum pixel width 2,000 pixels wide
- – Minimum pixel width 1,000 pixels wide
- – If you need a quick easy tool to resize your image files, try
  https://express.adobe.com/tools/image-resize
CampusPress will not let you upload images over 50mb in file size. If it is too big, the computer will say ‘no’.
Allowed file types listed here: https://docs.campuspress.com/en/articles/358-allowed-file-types
If you can, we recommend the following file naming convention:
Year-Discipline-Program-Your-Name-Title-PixelWidth
- For example: 2023-Photo-BA-Alison-Bennett-elands_1000px.jpeg

NOMINATE A FEATURE IMAGE

The ‘feature image’ will appear in the post previews above the statement extract, as you will see in the example above. We prefer a square or landscape orientation for your feature image. You could upload a cropped version of your feature image.

If you need a quick easy tool to crop your image files, try https://express.adobe.com/tools/image-resize

EXCERPT

Note that the preview includes the first part of your statement.

SELECT CATEGORIES & TAGS

As you can see in the screenshot of the ‘Edit Post; interface above, you will find the CATEGORIES and TAGS on the right-hand side of the default Classic Editor interface.

CATEGORIES: select 2024, your program and select either ‘Discipline of Art’ or ‘Discipline of Photography‘

TAGS: type in ‘2024’ and select ‘2024 graduate’ and the dates of your exhibition

PERMISSION TO PUBLISH YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Students need to complete the Intellectual Property Permission form here: https://forms.office.com/r/6aac8hcv5r

REMEMBER:

1. General instructions are above …

2. Detailed step-by-step instructions are here: 2023 RMIT SoA graduate profiles detailed instructions.pptx

3. Drop-in sessions are scheduled if you want assistance. Click here to join the meeting or leave a message in the chat. See the dates and times at the top of this page.

yours

Dr Alison Bennett
Associate Dean, Photography
RMIT School of Art
alison.bennett@rmit.edu.au or message me via Teams