Breaking In

Check out some great work from Rhys Newman.

Interviewed while Rhys was the Director of Advanced Design at HERE, a Nokia Company in Calabasas, California. 

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

A lot depends on which school or company the designers are coming from. The work that catches our attention is of a designer who thinks about the context in which their product lives, the consequences of their design, and the behaviors and experiences that emerge around their products. Designers who think more broadly, beyond their chosen discipline, that blur the boundaries between hardware and software, digital and physical, intrigue us. The best portfolios are the ones that start a good discussion, and show the designer as a designer, but also a prototyper, an entrepreneur, a strategist, a visionary, and a bloody great storyteller.

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Nokia

Rhys Newman is a designer, artist, cyclist, CEO & Co-founder of OMATA Inc. He was VP of Everyday Adventure for HERE, a Nokia Company, and was previously responsible for building Nokia’s Advanced Design team. He is also a designer-in-residence at several companies, where he helps build happy and motivated studios where designers want to work, creativity is the priority and innovation happens. He is also co-writing and illustrating the Universal Truths of Cycling.

Rhys has a Masters Degree in Product Design from the Royal College of Art in London, and a First Class Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Wales, Cardiff, UK. He has been a part time lecturer at Art Center, Goldsmiths University, Denmark Design School, and the Royal College of Art. He has served on the jury of competitions, been Chair of the IDSA IDEA Awards, and holds multiple Patents.

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Check out some great work from Alexander Pelikan.

What motivated you to open up your own design studio?

It all came about really naturally. It wasn’t really planned. I was finishing my third year and I wanted to work for a designer to pay for my cost of living, so I approached Maarten Baas because he had a studio next to mine and I asked him if I could build some furniture for him. He said “Yes, okay but you need to have your own studio, so you can write your own bills.” So I opened up my studio while I was still studying. I have always, since I was 15 or 16, worked independently. I was used to working relatively in-dependently and it was really natural that I started this studio. It became really handy because it allowed me to do my own design. It worked out well, not only working for other designers, but also promoting my own stuff. There was no huge plan behind it. It’s kind of scary, actually.

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Kataba Chair by Alexander Pelikan

Alexander Pelikan is a Dutch designer and founder of PeLiDesign, an international design studio and focuses on creating outstandingly innovative products with a specific focus on detail and functionality. He graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven in 2006. He specializes in eye-catching, experimental product and furniture design, and places special emphasis on sustainability. He often juxtaposes traditional and contemporary materials and processes in pursuit of his ongoing interest in “cybercraft.” Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Alfonso Albaisa.

Interviewed while Mr. Albaisa was the Design Director for Global Passenger Vehicles and Electric Vehicles at Nissan Design America in San Diego.

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

There is not a shortage of portfolios out there; what there is a shortage of is individual risk. They’re all starting to look very similar. What we look for, because we don’t hire that often, is someone who’s bucking those tendencies and looking for their own ground. Just technical expertise is not so critical, because what we find is that the portfolios are very professional. Then everyone who comes in actually drops in skill for the first half a year. It’s very strange. Maybe because suddenly they’re with all these number ones from previous years, and they’re not the top person, so there’s kind of a shock. For us, instead of a technically impressive portfolio, it’s more about really clever individual ideas.

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Alfonso Albaisa is executive design director, Infiniti Motor Company, a position to which he was appointed in April 2013. In this role, Albaisa is responsible for further developing the design of all future Infiniti vehicles and concept cars. He leads the global Infiniti Design team.

Albaisa is a passionate and seasoned automotive designer with more than 25 years of experience. Albaisa joined the Nissan Design team in San Diego  in 1988. From 1997, he held a number of senior Design positions within Nissan leading up to his appointment as Design Director, Nissan Design America, in 2004. Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Edwin James.

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

There isn’t one specific type that gets my attention. The standards of creativity and presentation required will obviously be very high, but I personally look for a good technical understanding of how things are constructed as well. I work on car interiors and follow the industrialization phase of projects, which explains this specific need. I like people who can work out the big volumes, but are capable of going into great detail as well.

Design is fun. It’s not just a job; it’s also a way of life, a state of mind. I love people who show artistic ability based on other things than cars, the non-“petrol heads.”

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Interior of Citroen C4 Cactus

Edwin James was born in England and has been working in France for PSA Group after his studies at Royal College of Art. He has also been involved in design education support for the French design schools and is regularly on diploma juries.

Over the years, Edwin has completed many interior projects at PSA, first one being on the Citroën XM with Moray Callum, who now heads up design at Ford. Edwin was also the project leader for Xsara and C3/C2 in his role as deputy chief of the interior studio. More recent work includes running smaller teams of young designers, industrializing parts for the DS3 interior where he contributed to the design of the gear shift knob, handbrake and the key. The most recent industrialization project he had responsibility for was the interior of the Citroën C4 Cactus. Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Chelsia Lau.

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

A product designer needs to have a really good sense of proportion. We also look for creativity and innovation. We often see portfolios with really strong sketching techniques but sometimes the design is not original or innovative enough, so we will not be particularly interested in those. We are looking for people with well-rounded skills, there has to be good problem solving, offering new solutions, really going beyond just a beautiful sketch.

Have you seen a portfolio recently that resonated with you, and what about it stood out?

The auto industry in China is still developing. We see a lot of portfolios, but I feel most of the time the students’ work has not yet reached the level of refinement or sophistication we are looking for—but we do see the potential. I’d say that we pay more attention to originality and design thinking.

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2004 Ford Explorer Sport Trac Concept

Chelsea Lau got her start drawing pictures in her parent’s restaurant in Hong Kong. Noticing her artistic ability, her parents took her to a tutor every week outside of her usual schoolwork. After graduating from the Lee Wai Lee Technical Institute with a degree in product design, Lau made the leap to the United States by attending the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

While in Pasadena, she took an internship with Ford. It was during those three months of training that she discovered her passion for automotive design. Lau officially joined Ford in 1992 and has been responsible for several key vehicles, including the Mercury MC 4 (while still a junior in the studio), and Ford Explorer SportTrac concepts, both of which debuted at the North American International Auto Show. Ford fast-tracked Lau’s talent to the design teams for key models, from the Explorer to the Fiesta. In 2004, she led the design of a small SUV for South America which is now the segment leader. In 2006 she was the winner of World’s Outstanding Chinese Designer by the Hong Kong Design Center. She is now the chief designer of Ford’s design strategic concepts group in Shanghai.

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