Breaking In

Check out some great work from Myk Lum.

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

We review all portfolios closely, but the first hint of the quality of the portfolio is in the résumé. After viewing thousands and thousands of résumés and portfolios, we find that if the résumé is poorly designed, the contents are sure to match. Once we start looking through the portfolio, one of the first things we pick up on is the candidate’s sensitivity to form and aesthetics—not only in the products themselves, but in the layout of the portfolio and the sense of graphics. If the products are aesthetically appropriate, we’ll start to pay attention to how they derived the design, the research and strategy, and the level of innovation. Is it beautiful, but boring? Or did they first solve a problem or rethink how the product works, then made it beautiful?

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Double wall tumbler for Starbucks. The straw has a unique mechanism built into it – push down on the straw to drink from it, pull up on the straw to seal it, which can prevent inadvertent spills.

Myk Lum is the founder and creative director of LDA, a product design and innovation consultancy in Irvine, California. Myk leads the multi-disciplinary teams at LDA, working for a diverse range of clients in many fields. LDA is frequently called upon to develop ground up programs spanning a wide range of services, including research, strategy, brand and product definition, user experience, Industrial Design, UI, engineering and manufacturing liason. LDA’s work has been recognized by many awards programs and publications, and they are constantly bridging the gap between  brands and consumers.
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Check out some great work from Christopher Benjamin.

Interviewed while Mr. Benjamin was Design Director at Volvo Monitoring and Concept Center in Camarillo, California.

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

The most important thing that I look for in a portfolio is the student’s ability to communicate with impact. For example, when you start looking through a project and you get to the end of it, you want to know what it was all about, visually, without having to read too much. It’s a lot about visual communication skills. It’s about them showing their range, because a designer has to be an artist first, and then a problem solver. He needs to be able to take something from the beginning to an end, from ideation to a finished digital or physical model.

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2015 Chrysler 300 Interior

Christopher Benjamin is the Chief Designer for Chrysler Brand Interiors for FCA North America, a position he has held since March 2013. In this role, Chris is responsible for the design language of all Chrysler Brand vehicle interiors and works closely with the User Interface and Color and Materials teams. Previous to joining Chrysler, Chris gained broad industry experience in a series of different roles in both the U.S. and Europe. He started his career as a designer with Mercedes-Benz in Irvine, California and was shortly thereafter asked to join the design team in Sindelfingen, Germany. Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Thornton Lathrop.

Interviewed while Thornton was the Director of Advanced Innovations at Design Central in Columbus, Ohio.

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

The first thing I look for is the ability to draw, to think on paper. It’s one of the things that separates good designers from the average: how well can they think on paper and work through various design challenges.

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Crown WT 3000 Pallet Truck. A 2012 Red Dot Award Winner. The battery-powered, zero-emission WT 3000 pallet truck sets new standards in terms of robustness, performance and operator comfort. It is particularly suitable for tough applications in modern warehouses. The heavy-duty metal covers, which protect the truck against impact and damage, are contured into smooth and clean surfaces. The operator-platform suspension system, with its weight-adjustable functionality, is a one-of-a-kind feature in this sector.

Thornton Lothrop holds more than two-dozen design and utility patents as well as a variety of awards for his work, including several IDEA Gold Awards, an IDEA Bronze Award, and an ID Magazine Design Distinction award. He also received two prestigious Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design Good Design Awards given to cutting-edge industrial, product and graphic designs produced worldwide. Continue reading →

Check out some great work from fuseproject and  Yves Behar.

What kinds of portfolios get your attention these days? What brings in a product designer for an interview?

For me, it’s always been somebody who’s working on the near future. How students can abstract what we have today—how we’re living, how we’re working, the state of our lifestyle today—and project it into the near future with some new ideas, that’s what’s interesting. That always creates a stimulating discussion versus just reviewing skills or aesthetic and mechanical or technical abilities.

The 3D skills and drawing skills are expected, but we look for someone who can add something to the type of work that we do. What we do is never about the now or iterative design projects, it’s about being focused on what’s next. Seeing this in students’ portfolios and how in the future they project themselves is what makes them unique.

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Yves Behar is a design entrepreneur who believes that holistic product, digital, and brand design are cornerstones of any business. He is the founder and CEO of fuseproject, a design and branding firm he established in 1999. He is also Chief Creative Officer at Jawbone, where for the last 11 years his products, brand and communications work has helped the company become a leader in wearable and audio consumer electronics. Jawbone won a 2010 IDSA Design of the Decade Award. Behar is also the Creative Co-Founder of OUYA, an open sourced gaming platform, and is Co-founder of start-up August, a next generation home entry system. Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Ralph Gilles.

Interviewed while Ralph was Senior Vice-President of Product Design and President and CEO of SRT Brand and Motorsports at Chrysler in Auburn Hills, Michigan. 

I’m sure when it comes to portfolios, you’ve seen it all. What gets your attention these days? What brings in an industrial designer for an interview?

A nice range of very, very forward-thinking ideas. I’m excited when people take risks with design. At the same time, I like a few bookends. I like to see that the person can do more immediate stuff because sometimes we have immediate projects. We can see if the person can latch onto those. I’d like to see a couple of different themes. What I mean by that is when someone does a very loose sketch and they’re able to translate that into a design, without losing the essence of the sketch, you can see the theme survives the process of maturity and evolution. I also like designers that include their inspiration. What’s their philosophy? Some kind of a philosophical base in their work is very important to me.

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Ralph Gilles kissing the Dodge Viper SRT on launch day

Ralph Gilles was appointed Head of Design, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. in April 2015. Prior to this appointment, Gilles has also served as the FCA North America Senior Vice President: Product Design, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Motorsports, President and CEO SRT Brand, and President and CEO Dodge brand for FCA US LLC. He was named Vice President of Design in September 2008. Continue reading →