What areas of industrial design should you learn to be a better designer?

[@A1D1C]

Totally agree with you there Sam, going from a consultancy to an inhouse industrial designer I noticed a massive shift. My consultancy experience was very much focused on the usability of the design and production engineering - set a cost and user group from a defined customer brief. Now working in house I have to understand and communicate with all elements of the business, users, marketing, sales, directors, engineering to ensure everyone is in the loop. It becomes far more challenging keeping to the theory of design as you are pushed and pulled by many opinions and perspectives as the designer you have to filter those. Focusing back onto the visualization side of design process and also time scales I find my design process early on involves creating elevations of designs before going into perspective drawings, non designers and even some designers engineers find it difficult to interpret flat elevation drawings. So they have to be accompanied by perspective drawings which take a lot longer to produce especially to hand render prior to 3D modeling even occurring. Towards the end of the design process, stakeholders within the business seek CG/keyshot/realistic renders as they feel closer to the object and can interpret it more easily as an end product. These are only possible with refined CAD models, to also realistically represent materials in the software is also time consuming and not always acknowledged by the wider business. Anticipating that if you have CAD you have a render, not acknowledging the time it takes to set up scenes, lighting components and even longer if it needs to be animated! These visual tools/renders that we see on Instagram are often personal projects, I am lucky in a way that I get the time to produce renders and they are a requirement of the businesses design, marketing and product development. Many designs will never be rendered to the level you often see models on Instagram and will only be photographed after production. As a designer that skills tool box needs to be pretty broad and I often feel like I have heard Tom Dixon say many times in interviews, 'Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one'. Why now in design education you see many masters in design as understanding design theory and applying it to skills already known not related to design can help innovate within your own industry. Familiar thoughts of Tim Brown of IDEO. Nice little video and thought provoking!

[@VanillaBean15]

I'm just starting my career as an industrial designer, so thank you! It's important for us young designers to know what's worthy to look up to.

[@hannaloschacoff1733]

I completely agree, although at my university (Eindhoven University of Technology) I feel it's the opposite. We are taught about design thinking, theory, and the business side a lot but we never get any classes on modelling or CAD. These are skills you are expected to learn by yourself so that's also another side, where when applying for internships I don't have many beautiful visuals to show but do know a lot about business design (which on your portfolio doesn't stand out).

[@padel24x7]

that you don't have courses in CAD is a huge red flag imo, maybe switch to twente to industrial design engineering

[@SamDoesDesign]

I can understand how that’s frustrating, but I actually think that’s the correct way for a course to be taught. A design curriculum takes years to write, and years to perfect. When I was in university we had a whole module on learning Adobe Flash. It was a dead program, but we had to do the module. If you can use your lecture hours learning theory, you’re free to choose the most up to date programs to learn in your own time - and there are always more software tutorials online compared to design theory

[@madebyymira]

same here, a lot of it was basic design principles but we never go in depth in CAD or even talk about how important precision or manufacturing stuff. it’s a large reason why i switched to digital product design because i didn’t feel like my education was preparing me for the real world

[@padel24x7]

Not getting teached CAD as an industrial designer is the same as being a photographer and not knowing Photoshop. How are you supposed to work in a design agency if you can not do CAD ? There is a „game design“ study in Groningen that still teaches adobe flash. I am sorry but there is no way to justify this. It’s a completely useless skill and if your university doesn’t change this the only reason is that they do not care about your „hireability“ and only want to scam gullible young people

[@parameshranjith3295]

totally agreeing with you sam. Most of the design competitions, design pages start a topic on design but ends up like a render competition. Same context, but many iterations are seen distributed. After all the basic motive of Instagram is relied on Photos.

[@simpernchong]

Couldn't agree more. Thanks.

[@BdHammerli]

Any advice for better showing the design thinking and theory process in portfolios?

[@jacobround]

Completely agree with you Sam. I often find myself wanting to almost get to the 'end' as quick as I can. I love the visual element of the process. I've learned to tame that monkey now. That's why I love a lot of render posts which also have pictures of modelling and other parts of the process to paint more of a realistic picture.

[@3DPI67]

If you have a sony alpha series then, to get the perfect focus: set the focus area to WIDE, focus mode to C-AF (continues autofocus).

[@hugoalbuquerque6867]

You touched really interesting and important topics which absolutely need to be better implemented into design schooling. Designers do lack this type of understanding, and other areas (professionally speaking) do lack it as well. We keep on being seen as object’s visualization artists when in reality we’re part of the core of a company. Great video addressing this subject! Hoping that some colleges can emphasize this aspects for the next generation of designers to come.

[@babumoshai6191]

Is it okay if I’m not great at sketching,rendering,modelling? I’m more interested in reading design books and design theory.

[@madebyymira]

me too!

[@elsonloo5211]

same here

[@Re.Re.e]

Hey, but how would you actually learn about design theory? And especially business in design. If not taught properly in college?

[@m3run697]

finish the video

[@4sho777]

I learned to prioritise theory as well as the business aspect but still appreciate the visual aspects

[@alexhadden-wight1994]

Agree with everything but do think an area that most designers lack knowledge/understanding in is how something is actually made in production. This also links with understanding business more as mentioned. Lots of students can design really beautiful products but don't know how to actually design something ready for manufacture. I personally feel the jump from final concept to a product that can actually be injection moulded let's say, is huge. I don't feel we're taught about the limitations of some manufacturing methods and their viability. Maybe this is more for the engineers anyway! Let me know what you think :)

[@designedby]

I agree with the Instagram thing, I look at all these shiny renders and products and I'm like WHY? so now what? here's another pretty chair but why? how does it help us, humans? I'm sure there's lotta research going on behind it but since we can't see it, it just looks dull.

[@SamDoesDesign]

I agree! But I also think Instagram is definitely not the space to judge “good design”. It’s a playground for a lot of people to try new ideas with no real-world consequences. I like seeing the shiny shallow renders 🙌

[@designedby]

@@SamDoesDesign Yeah, It's good for our mood boards and some inspiration if anything

[@DesignTruth]

some doses of design truth here... nicely done Sam

[@SamDoesDesign]

Thank you so much!

[@m4rios916]

Hello Sam, I was wondering about how a candidate with no experience but lots of ambitions and passion about design can start at a proper company and learn. What can you do if you are entry level so you can be considered as a proper candidate ?

[@SamDoesDesign]

Hello! That’s always a tricky one. You could begin small and snowball your experience based on the last thing. Volunteer somewhere for a while, maybe a design company, museum, gallery, or factory… then maybe use that to get an internship somewhere else. Then build from there. Good luck!

[@sebastianbott4540]

Design is going bigger in future one side shiny clean insta content other part is going into process and systems of the whole thing in a company

[@markbolick7224]

Business, business, business.

[@adamlandstrom5094]

Very much Agree Im in my third internship now I can now write, the markets, and torget groups i worked towards and the prdoduction and businesses Im familiar with I know much more about costs and all of this is so much intresting then rhino and keyshot etc. stating tools as a skill is as important as saying what languges you know what matters is what i do with the tools and the results! I dont agree with that buisness is not as fun Ive always loved that aspect of design, i love working in competitive markets. I think this needs to be better teached in scholes aswell as marketing form is in the end not mattering that much, alot of the times the problem and the solution is in marketing and better buisness plans and with that it can allow us to make even crazier and more exiting design really nice that you bring these questions up please remove the bits where you check your focus talk about camera super distracting and got me all out of focus

[@chrisantle7870]

Nice video... I'm in the product engineering/design/visual communication world... I don't have any social media. I feel like it has allowed me to keep a clear mind of what is good/bad and avoid the clicky/trendy... In essence, focus on trying to answer what is "good design" ... not just what would be validated on social media.

[@bibitayoomidiora3907]

I've been wondering if I should get into the business side of industrial design and this video has cleared that. Thanks a lot Sam.

[@babumoshai6191]

What’s the business side of design?

[@madebyymira]

this was really interesting! i’m a third year industrial design student but am actually making the transition to ux/digital product design. i’m really grateful to have an ID background though because there’s not as many of us!

[@josephzammit6155]

make research shiny, challenge accepted

[@Design.Theory]

Design Theory? Pfft. Over rated. ;)

[@SamDoesDesign]

Haha Design Theory™️