I've interviewed a few people for design-type jobs, and yes, it is easier to look at their portfolios first and base most of your impression on that. I don't know if that's a standard thing in the industry, but it's what I found. We always approached it from the viewpoint of "this is the work we need done, so let's see some hard evidence that they can do it." Any other questions after that would be mainly to determine whether or not the rest of us would go nuts working with them in a small office. The more obvious it was that they were a pleasant, normal person, the shorter the interview usually was.

My boss at that job told me once about the worst interview he ever conducted. The guy was so nervous that, halfway through the interview, he leapt up, ran to a window, and puked out of it. As if this wasn't already a contender for Least Impressive Thing To Do At An Interview, my boss's car was parked under the window at the time.

Brunnen-"has only told that story about a million times since then, but maybe one or two of you haven't heard it already"G