I love to see side projects in someone's portfolio. Granted, they need to be interesting and well-done too. Bad poetry doesn't score many points. But good side projects show what you're capable of with no restraints. How far you'll go to make something cool. How big of an itch you have to just create something new in the world.
About six months ago, we hired this guy. His name is Guy. He's a great advertising creative, but beyond that he has a whole life as an artist. He has two portfolios, one for advertising and one for his art. Here's his art portfolio. For the inflatable Trans Am idea, he had no idea how to make inflatables. He just had the idea, then he started calling people to figure out how to make it happen. The end result is pretty bad-ass.
Guy Overfelt, untitled
(his 1977 Smokey and The Bandit Trans AM as an inflatable) 1999, 2009
inflatable nylon and electric blower
54H X 204L X 84W inches
Another friend of mine recently started a side project (obsession) that required him to learn a new craft of his own. His name is Victor Solomon. I know him because he used to do some freelance editing and the occasional shooting for us. He had an idea to do basketball backboards made out of stained glass. A comment on the deification of athletes, the spiritual nature of sport, something like that.
When he had this idea, he knew absolutely nothing about stained glass other than that he liked how it looked. So he did some research and did an apprenticeship with some master stained glass dudes down in San Jose. It takes him around 100 hours to make a backboard, but man are these things cool. And as he's just starting out, his craft is only going to get better.
See more of his backboards at literallyballin.com.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. The only ideas that matter are the ones you care about enough to actually bring into the world. Pick the hard ones--the ones that you don't know how to make. Let your passion to see it realized be your fuel. Make yourself learn something. In the end, you'll have created something in the world and in yourself.