Breaking In

Check out our profile on Allan Chochinov.

AH: What kinds of industrial design portfolios would you say are getting the most attention these days?

AC: Portfolios with strong visuals and evident skills. Employers also like to see process so it’s important to show what decisions you made during a project, research, prototypes, iterations—the stuff that led to the final product.

AH: How would you advise an industrial design student to prepare their portfolio in order to land their first job?

AC: I would think in terms of “projects” instead of products. Very often, the artifact is the result of deep research, analysis, experimentation, synthesis—a whole lot of steps before the idea is actualized in form. You want to tell a comprehensive story by including all of those elements.

Continue reading →

Allan Chochinov is the Chair of the new MFA in Products of Design graduate program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and a partner of Core77, a New York-based design network serving a global community of designers and design enthusiasts. Allan lectures around the world and at professional conferences including IDSA, AIGA and IxDA, has been a speaker and guest critic at various schools in including Yale University, Columbia School of Business, IIT and Carnegie Mellon. He has moderated and led workshops and symposia at the Aspen Design Conference, the Rockefeller Center at Bellagio, Compost Modern, and Winterhouse, and is a frequent design competition juror.

Continue reading →

Check out our profile on RitaSue Siegel.

AH: What characteristics or qualities are necessary to be a successful industrial designer?

RSS: Over the last 10 years they have been the following: the ability to collaborate and accomplish things with and through others. Being capable of combining analytical, intuitive, and strategic thinking. Having the ability to persuade and communicate both verbally and visually the value proposition contained in the recommendation of a path or design direction in terms that non-designers—who make the go or no-go and investment decisions which lead to implementation of the recommendation—can understand and will be moved by.

Continue reading →

RitaSue Siegel, founder, president and partner, RitaSue Siegel Resources influences at the intersection of design, business, media, and education. Recipient of the 2011 IDSA Special Award: “RitaSue and her firm have given all of us a legacy that is unrivaled in the history of design. RitaSue has touched virtually every American industrial designer through her speeches, workshops and placements. Her writings, like the essential How to Get a Job in Industrial Design, have provided countless young designers with an outstanding guide for advancing their careers. Her work with the Rowena Reed Kostellow Fund and her collaborations with design educators around the world have created a sturdy bridge to help design students cross over into professional practice. RitaSue’s firm has carried the banner for industrial design for more than four decades working to help business leaders understand and embrace design as a tool for gaining a competitive advantage.” Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Don Norman.

AH: What characteristics or qualities are necessary to be a successful industrial designer? What do industrial designers need to know in order to succeed?

DN: There are two parts to this question: one is what makes a person succeed in any job and the other is what is special in the design field. In any job you want someone who is dedicated, enthusiastic, creative. If you’re doing a job because it’s a job, or because you think you’re supposed to, you’re not going to be very good at it. The first thing is, you have to find a match to your talents and things that excite you. Sometimes that means changing companies, or within a company it might mean trying to find the correct projects and somehow talk yourself into them. It’s amazing how many people do things or take jobs because they think they’re supposed to.

Continue reading →

Don Norman was named by Business Week as “one of the world’s most influential designers.” His studies and books on design theory coupled with his extensive academic and industry experience help companies produce enjoyable and effective products and services. Norman brings a systems approach to design, arguing that great design must touch every aspect of a company. Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Bob Worrell.

AH: What kinds of portfolios get your attention these days? What brings in an industrial designer for an interview?

BW: To me, the portfolios that are the most impressive are the ones that display the designer’s ability to think, where you can actually see their process. It’s thinking that’s based in the ability to sketch and communicate. I look for sketching ability and page layout that has a nice composition. My design team here agrees that the best industrial designers still exhibit those wrist skills. You can just see an individual’s ability come through those simple line sketches, highlighted by color felt tips. Then what I’m looking for is a finished presentation with amazing form generation with the ability to drop the form into context with Photoshop.

I also look for CAD skills such as Alias or other programs used for surface modeling. We look at that ability to model and then—as I mentioned—for the ability to Photoshop. It’s important to take those CAD images and drop them into scenarios or an environment that allows you to see the context and use of the product. It’s this combination of thinking combined with these amazing new tool sets that can bring an idea to life very quickly. We are looking for the best talent we can find from all over the world. I will say it is sometimes difficult to attract people to Minneapolis. Nonetheless, we manage to do it.

[ … ]

Continue reading →

Model Learning from Worrell Inc. on Vimeo.

Bob Worrell is an award-winning industrial designer and entrepreneur who founded Worrell Design, Inc., in 1976. Since then his company has grown from a home-office to an ultra-modern 30,000 square foot facility in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with another office in Shanghai, China. Now, nearly 50 top industrial designers, researchers, strategists and engineers work at Worrell, creating innovative consumer products, life-saving medical devices and much more.  Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Leonardo Massarelli.

AH: What kinds of portfolios get your attention these days? What brings in an industrial designer for an interview?

LM: It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a portfolio that captured our attention. But, I’d say that the first impression is the general layout of the portfolio, which denotes the aesthetic quality the candidate has towards design. Typography, colors, care with the images and composition. After the first layout impression, I search for the quality of the products presented. Sketch, 3D, and rendering ability are very important to provide a good impact and impression.

Finally, the most important thing is the relevance of the candidate’s design ideas. What is the product intended to do? For whom? What’s its context? The holistic thought in the development of a product is important in our evaluation.

Continue reading →

Guitar Concept by Questto|No

Founder and partner of Questto|Nó and with more than 13 years of experience in design, Leonardo Massarelli is a strategy and innovation director. A generalist, he applies his broad way of seeing things to connect different knowledge to create new products, services or business. Leonardo was also manager FGV’s Innovation Forum focused on Design Thinking, and a professor at IED/SP, teaching majors in ID and Masters in Strategy Design.

Continue reading →