Plugging in to your design process…
I've been asked in the past to explain my industrial design process, demonstrate my approach to design work, and explain my skills and expertise.
The most common questions I get asked are:
Where do you fit in?
What value can you add?
What part of the process do you enjoy the most?
So here we go…
As an industrial designer, I've been fortunate to experience and work on a wide array of products. I love witnessing the transformation of ideas and concepts into tangible products that address real-world challenges. Creating something that not only fulfils a need but also resonates with users is what fuels my passion for ID.
Having worked in different consultancies over the years I’ve seen the weird and the wonderful. I’ve been faced with a number of different design challenges for a variety of different products. These projects have each had their complexities and no design challenge is ever the same.
1. Where do I fit in?
Some of the projects I've worked on have been heavily conceptual, while others have been tightly constrained by manufacturing processes. Each design task has required different strategies and approaches to solve the overall problem.
These experiences have taught me to blend my front-end conceptual approach with manufacturing processes and engineering principles to produce design concepts that are not only visually appealing but also feasible and practical when it comes to production.
2. What value can I add?
Designing something that looks great and can be made well is only part of the challenge. For me, I strive to create a sense of uniqueness and desirability through the industrial design process. I carefully analyse the proposition and find a way to integrate style, form, and feel with the product's unique selling proposition (USP) to create something that truly resonates with the user.
I like to approach a design task with an analytical perspective, and I often question why a product should look a certain way and whether there is room to add value by exploring different design options.
3. What part of the process to I enjoy the most?
For me, it has to be the exploration stage at the beginning of a design project. This usually starts with getting as many ideas down onto the page as quickly and efficiently as possible. Whether through rough pen and paper sketches or tablet drawings involving lots of wiggly lines and annotations pointing to areas of focus.
While these sketches may not always be the most aesthetically pleasing to look at, my goal is to extract as many ideas from my head as quickly as possible while clearly communicating my thoughts and rationale behind my design decisions.
This stage of work focuses on the quality of the idea, which is probably why I enjoy it so much!
Thanks for taking the time to read through. If you have a design project you’d like to discuss, feel free to get in contact and lets talk design!
