Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog

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Thanks for visiting and please keep in touch? ~ D.T.

We have finally reached the end of this 7 days series with this last instalment. It has been an interesting journey, as I wanted to try a different way of blogging with this series. On one hand it has been tough making the time commitment to write each post daily, but on the other I quite enjoyed it as each post took very little time to write once I had outlined the structure it last Sunday.

Before we continue here is the link to Saturday’s post if you missed it.

Hats by drumsnwhistles

7) Able to wear many hats
The most effective designers have the ability to wear many “hats”, in other words they can step into the shoes of the different disciplines that are related to Industrial Design. He/She is then able to speak the language or terms of that discipline, and thus able to communicate the design so as to maintain that design’s intent.

For example the effective designer, can speak about a product’s design in terms of target market and branding with the Marketing department. This designer can then discuss the BOM costings, technology constraints, solve molding and manufacturing issues with the Mechanical Engineers or R&D departments. After that, this designer can then relate to senior management the strategic importance of the design and the role it will play in furthering the company’s business.

To a small extent today’s habit “tips its hat” to Thursday’s habit where we spoke about diverse interest, as well as Saturday’s habit when we spoke about communication. However in this case, it goes beyond interests or curiosity, as the effective designer recognizes that he needs to achieve competence as required by the job. He recognizes it must be done as a means to ensure that the design can be the best it can be, but may not enjoy nor is interested in the process. He only does it for the good of the design or project.

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Well I hope you enjoyed these series of 7 posts, and please let me know if my intent of making bite size and digestible works for you? Also this series felt more of an “organic” growing experience rather than the usual mixed feelings of happiness and exhaustion whenever I finish a long post. What do you think? Thanks in advance and please keep in touch!

Almost there! This is the second last habit of our week long series, whereby I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week. Here is the link to Friday’s post if you missed it.

Talk bubble by spekulator

6) Strong communication and people skills
This one is pretty interesting as there are two sides of the coin in this discussion.

The first side basically should come as no surprise; effective designers have the ability to communicate to other designers well. He can articulate complex design problems or theories in a language that even the non-designer can understand. Fantastic presentation skills are also part of the equation. Look for the designer that always gets the client’s approval and the designer that every one loves working with. This designer also has vision and control, so much so that people are both inspired and motivated to work with him.

On the other side of the coin these effective designers have great “bed side” manners. They are superb active listeners and have the ability to empathize with the other party. The listen, analyse, and make great recommendations to problems. No only that, their empathy with other people, allow such designers to come up with great user focused design solutions.

Of all the habits, the designers that are strong in this habit, are the ones that also makes the best design managers.

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I do hope you enjoyed Saturday’s entry; if you did, do check out Sunday’s final habit which is up here.

This post continues our week long series, whereby I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week. Here is the link to Thursday’s post if you missed it.

Post-it Note Sold by cccdebbie

5) Ability to sell well
Well, actually it’s not so much about the ability to sell. Let’s look at it in another way; selling is really all about persuasion, or about persuading someone to buy your product. So in other words the effective designers are not good salesmen but good persuaders.

I think you can see where I’m heading towards? Effective designers have the ability to sell ideas to clients, build convincing design proposals, negotiate contracts or get a project buy-in from all the stake holders. The list is endless, and the ability to sell makes life a lot easier for everybody.

But how, you may ask, if one feels that he/she is not good at selling? That is again why I encourage you to look at this habit more as persuasion rather than selling, and that is something everybody can do. Think about it, when you were a kid, have you not persuaded your parents to increase your allowance before? What about convincing someone to trade that hot collector’s baseball card? Or what about staying up an extra hour after bed time? If you think about it we are well equipped to be good at persuasion.

Not only that the good negotiators also are masters of yesterdays habit. That is having wide and varied interests. This variety helps to come up with different and creative ways of approaching a subject or attacking a negotiation point.

Before I close for today, I like to leave you with one more tip on persuasion, and that is to tie an to a great story. That’s right, convincing people is a lot easier if you can paint a picture that puts him into your shoes. Wait a minute, is that not why we learn to do mood boards or consumer use scenarios in design school?

The circle is complete. Heh-heh!

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I do hope you enjoyed Friday’s entry; check out Saturday’s habit here.

This post continues our week long series, whereby I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week.

Sorry it’s a little later today as I had a few important things to sort out first. Here is the link to Wednesday’s post if you missed it.

Aerial screw by Leonardo Da Vinci

4) A Renaissance outlook in life and unique specialist interests
The most effective industrial designers draw inspiration from many sources outside of design. These designers are in many ways are very much like Leonardo Da Vinci, one of our first “Renaissance man”. They have an open mind, diverse interests, and always willing to try new things and methods. And yet they have very specialist skills such as 3D CAD design or cycling or even looking after kids.

Not only are these people great to have a conversation with, they have the uncanny ability to think outside of the box and come up with great unique solutions. It is their varied interests in things that allow them to do so and gives them an edge over other designers. Basically if you only look at other designer’s work for solutions to your design problems you might risk creating variations of the same work. These days, as design industry gets more competitive, we just cannot afford to come up with similar design solutions.

I do realize that this is some what similar to what Tim Brown, from IDEO, calls as “T” Shaped type people:

We look for people who are so inquisitive about the world that they’re willing to try to do what you do. We call them “T-shaped people.” They have a principal skill that describes the vertical leg of the T — they’re mechanical engineers or industrial designers. But they are so empathetic that they can branch out into other skills, such as anthropology, and do them as well.
Source: Fast Company

But my focus here is slightly different and more towards designers. It is not really about doing other jobs, per say, but the ability to explore other interests and draw inspiration from it. In addition to variety, a designer that has a narrow specialist interests in, for example, sailing can also bring a lot to the discussion table. Thus from my point of view specialist interests does not necessary need to be related to design, in fact it should not be related to design, but can be useful in coming up with design solutions.

Unfortunately, this is more easily said than done, and surprisingly many designers are not as varied as they think. Many designers I have interviewed, strangely continue to design in their spare time. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but they risk being one sided and having design thoughts stuck in a never ending spiral. In reality, it does require genuine interest in learning new things, as well as overcoming the fear of stepping off the beaten path and trying different things. An easy test on the interview table is making a calculated off-handed suggestion of an interviewee’s work that is opposite to his design solution to see if that designer takes it constructively.

As a designer, there is already so much to do and so little time in a day, so how can we try on new things? The easiest way is to offer to take on occasional non-design related tasks, another good way it to read voraciously, read anything and everything.

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I do hope you enjoyed Thursday’s entry; do head on over to the next habit which is up here.

This post continues our week long series, whereby I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week. Here is the link to Tuesday’s post if you missed it.

Outlook Calendar 2004 by arkitekt

3) Good general management skills
I’m not saying that all designers should be design managers to be effective. No, but the highly effective Industrial Designer are naturally practical, well organized, and efficient in getting things done. This is simply because their time management, self management and big picture thinking skills are all top notch.

This is harder said than done, and I will be the first to admit it that it does take me some time to get myself organized. You see the product of a creative mind means that things tend to get pretty chaotic around them and their environment. Strangely enough, the more creative a designer, the seemingly more disorganized he/she is.

Unfortunately the reality of work is that there are datelines, program requirements, and problems that need to be solve methodically and efficiently. Thus it is highly valued for a designer that can overcome the chaos required in creativity; control it, and ultimately managing it in an effective manner. Do use all the tools available, personal management tools like Microsoft Outlook and Project, PDAs and diaries, and most importantly always carry a sketch book around to take notes and keep track of things.

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I do hope you enjoyed Wednesday’s entry; here is Thursday’s habit.

This post continues our week long series, where by I will publish one of the seven habits on each day of the week. Here is the link to Monday’s post if you missed it.

Fly by VinnyPrime

2) Proactive, passionate, motivated and truly loves what he/she does
I can’t emphasize enough of the value of a proactive designer in any team or organization. More so than in any other profession, design deals with a lot of unknown, and a proactive designer, always passionate and eager, is a boon any project as you can be sure that he/she will have ensured that the best design solution has been sorted out and worked through to the end.

Furthermore, believe you me, that the majority of design work is not the glitz and glamour of the so-called genius concept or sketch, awards and the sexy rendered coffee book images. A lot of it is managing piles of issues, tiring nights, and sometimes just down right dirty work. The pro-active and motivated design is a positive influence in the team, chewing through the work like a paper shredder.

There will be times where there are jobs nobody wants to do, but it has to be done. For example, after the team pulls an all nighter, someone needs to reposition a logo. Or everybody wants to jump on that sexy mobile phone project for a high profile client, instead of that latch design for a back room server. The pro-active designer takes on the job, and treats it as a learning experience, and that through these hard knocks he/she will become a better designer.

edit: After reading Jon’s post here, I think there is one more attribute that I forgot to put into the mix, that should be in there, as it sums it all up. An effective designer has to truly love what he/she does. When there is love, the proactive information searching and motivation comes naturally. The problem with many designers, especially with the senior designers, is that they are all jaded after too many late nights and design constraints and forget what they loved about design in the first place. If this is the case, then its time to stop, take stock of your work and life, and perhaps decide to move to a different design environment.

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I do hope you enjoyed Tuesday’s entry; do check out Wednesday’s post after you are done with this?

Along the same lines and inspired by (containing no related content) the original, I like to present The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Industrial Designers. Through my time in the industry, I’ve noticed that there are a few attributes that noticed make very effective and efficient Industrial Designers. Interestingly enough these designers are great to work with!

Anyways, as it so happens that there are the same number of days in a week as there are habits, I’ve decided to do something different this time by splitting out this post over seven days. So each day I’ll try to post up the next habit for your dissection!

Also that by splitting out the post over seven days it does give you time to digest and reflect on each point as well as keeping it nice and bite size for all you busy designers.

Breakthrough by Scyza

1) Creative problem solving instead of problem creating
What? You might ask, are designers not supposed to be problem solvers? Well yes, most of the time with their design works, but strangely not with anything else. You might be surprised to know that there are quite a few designers out there that are creative problem creators instead. That’s right, they think of one thousand and one ways of why a design will not work, why a project will fail or how you cannot do something this way.

Positive thinking and looking for ways around things is the key. A designer’s power of problem solving in his design work, can be applied and should be applied in all aspects of work and life. Dealing with colleagues, getting ahead in your career, time management, personal finance, negotiation with vendors, project planning, even figuring out how to create a CAD surface, are all great examples or areas that creative problem solving can be applied.

Interestingly enough, you find that there will be a lot less whining and whinging, and work, projects and just life in general gets on a lot smoother for the designer and everyone else around him or her.

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I do hope you enjoyed Monday’s entry; do head on over to Tuesday’s entry, for the next effective habit.

Every once a while I like to look back to see what sort of trend predictions research companies made, that have come true. In 2002, some clever researches from British Telecom published in BTexec that in 5 years time, ie 2007, lifestyle brands will dominate. I must say unlike many other predictions these researchers were right on the money.

Just look around you at the worlds more popular brands and products. Apple has dancing silhouettes, Nike is always doing it, and BMW gives you sheer pleasure. The power of branding is not dead, it has evolved into a whole new animal as beautifully described by Kevin Roberts. Consumer lifestyle brands dominate and as far as I am concern will continue to dominate into the near future.

What about the Design Discipline, the organisations and people behind those wonder products? My thoughts will be that it will continue to be more and more difficult to survive if the Design Discipline does not find itself in a strong relationship with branding.

Before we go on, lets now take a quick look at the design discipline, in particular industrial design. It seems these days everyone is talking about design management and creative thinking in business, especially in consumer electronics. Designers, non-designers, engineers, CEOs, management consultants, etc. are all talking, however as Seinfeld always says, not that its anything wrong with that. Not only that, it is also becoming more and more difficult to NOT do good design. Everywhere we go, shops and the media, we are bombarded with fairly good if not great products to buy. Designers are well equip these days with all the right skills and know how to do things right, and the power and speed of the internet just facilitates it.

It is not surprising to see that a recent AIGA symposium focused on defining Designers in 2015, though targeted more towards Graphic Designers, it did give a route map of great skills and roles designers will play in organizations in the coming years. However in my humble opinion, the viewpoint seems pretty narrow focusing on technical aspects rather than the bigger picture. The successful companies of today (both in design and buyers of design circa 2007) have already begun to apply or use such design strategies and management tools. Personally I did not think that the boundaries of the discussion stretched far enough to include leading design management companies such as IDEO (though the symposium did proposed one of IDEO’s “T” shape characteristics of successful creatives and their management), and even management guru Tom Peters as they are in the forefront of such design + creativity management techniques. And these guys have been on their soap box for a very long time. Perhaps Tom and some chaps from IDEO would have been a great addition to the “drivers” to this discussion.

So if the future is much about continuing about what the best companies are doing now but better, and it seems every one else can eventually catch up and also do an equally good job in design, then what’s going to happen to the design discipline? In particular what is going to happen to people who’s job is focused on actual design and designing?

If we extrapolate this a little more, if good design is good business from China, Korea and to the USA and then Europe, then how can design consultancies and designers be different and rise to the top? On one hand this is a good thing as this means that design has been accepted mainstream as a true strategic competitive advantage for an organization, designers can now rejoice. But the bad thing is good design will now be a given, a commodity. Just like TQM (Total Quality Management) or customer service, good design will become a baseline and expected by consumer as everyone will be doing some form of it.

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Sketch by Michael Bretherton

The concept development phase can be one of the best or most frustrating times a designer can experience during the design process. Furthermore managing the concept development work from both from an Art directors or designer’s view point can also be no easy task.

Managing creativity is almost like an art form, I always like to believe! Anyways here are 10 easy tips I have used over and over again in my work that has helped me guarantee a great concept development session.

1) Never Throw Away Your Work
Keep everything, your thumbnails, sketches, and even sketch models. The real reason is that design is essentially intangible, and often the answers to your burning design problems are not easily found. By keeping your work, you create frames of reference or reference points that allow you to see where you have come from, your previous mistakes, and how much more you will need to do.

2) Don’t Get Stuck on The First Sketch Idea
Many designers tend to think that the first idea they came up with is the best and can’t or won’t move on from there. But let me tell you that the genius sketch is a myth and probably one of the best urban legends in design there is. Most of the best design solutions I have encountered were not developed from either the first idea or from only one idea, they were through a development process.

3) Know the Value of that First Sketch
However that being said, that first sketch is important, but important as part of the bigger design process. The first sketch can be seen as the first intuitive distillation of all the requirements of the design brief. It’s your first go at that idea or concept and should be treated as that, a first go. It’s the first consolidation of raw data in your mind and the out come is always very rough and unrefined. The next step is to develop and clean the idea up.

4) Know When to Take a Break
Not many people realise but creativity and inspiration comes in waves. It’s about 20 minutes or so intervals within an hour. It is within this time that you are the most productive, and your ideas are really fresh and good. The moment you pass that 20 minute mark, the quality of work starts to go down hill. If you find you are starting to draw the same concepts over and over again or you ended up with an old idea but redone. It’s time to stop and do something else, as this change of environment will keep you productive.

5) Do Pin Ups
You be surprise how many designers sit huddled at a table with their work littered around them. One thing to do during your break is to hang up all your concept sketches on the wall or lay them out on the floor. By taking it off the table and on to the wall, you get to take 2 steps away from your concept. The advantage is you kill your “tunnel vision” as you now can see your work in a different perspective, as well as to see what else other people are doing, and get inspired from it. Also it would be a good time to organise the design work into themes or ideas and throwing out the similar ones. You would not want to spend your time on an idea to find out someone else had already done it AND its much better than yours!

6) Be self-critical
After you take 2 steps back, you need to be very self-critical and take down work that you don’t like. No use kidding yourself, if its crap its crap. Work the concept until you are satisfied. Besides its a much better experience cutting your own work than someone else telling you too or doing it for you.

7) Ask for Feedback and Try Not to Work Alone
When you get your work on the wall, and after you self sort the good from the bad. The next thing to do is get feedback. May it be your cat (just kidding), your neighbour, sibling or another designer, get a fresh pair of eyes on your work and strive to get good and honest feedback. However do note and ask yourself if the feedback has any biases to it. I also do understand this might be difficult in a freelancing or solo designer situation. But you be surprised that you can get good feedback from non-designers. Another way to do it is to make a network of good and trustworthy designer friends you can tap on.

8) Pick a Good Idea and Refine It
Many times you will have so many options and possible design solutions that it becomes just a boat load of confusion. The best thing to do is pick a good idea and develop it. Some times arriving at a good design solution becomes difficult when you just skim the surface of an idea, and don’t look at it on a deeper level. This is in particular with design projects that have a lot of mechanical constraints. The trick is to develop it, and if its wrong, then try again with something else. Hesitating because you can’t decide or worrying if it could be the wrong concept only wastes time because you are just stuck with ideas that are too superficial to really make a good decision on. Someone said “make many mistakes but make them early”, that is early in the concept design phase.

9) Know When to Stop
Designers tend to be so good at generating concepts that they just keep on going. They keep on generating ideas and keeping the design engine going, which means you then run out of time and fail to meet the dateline. Knowing when to stop can be aided by keeping an eye on the clock and more importantly by getting your work on the wall to see if you have actually hit the design solution or have already fulfilled the design brief. Also on a separate note its a good idea to know when to say that’s enough, throw in the towel and go home. But you have to be sure that you have put in the work because the only person you are fooling is yourself.

10) That Last Sketch Idea is the Most Important
Often when it comes down to it, you might just somehow randomly create a sketch and find out that it is IT! That’s right; when you get the right design answer (provided you asked the right questions) you will know it. Many times during a design project, due to time limitations, you go with an idea that the best idea at that time. But after rendering it all up you come up with another better solution. Worst you could come up with more than one! It does happen, and many times in the evening before the 9 am presentation the next day. The reason is you have finally manage to wrap your mind around the solution and basically distilled out all the erroneous and less important information and manage to get a solution that really satisfies the crux of the design problem you are tackling.

The thing to do now is you owe it to yourself to dig deep and get it done right, as again if you do not; the only person it hurts is yourself. Do it good, do it right, and make sure it becomes a portfolio piece you can be proud off. It’s this 110% effort that makes the difference between the good designers and the truly GREAT ones.

Image from stock.xchng

Often I get questions from designers by email on how to solve various problems they may have in their design careers. Most of the time my advice is returned via email.

This time however one of my readers, Bill, has asked a great question that I think could be something that many budding designers would have as well. Thus it would be of value if I post my advice here at Design Sojourn.

Bill asks:

…how a new designer can be sure to get credit for his/her
contributions on a project?

Ah in our ultra competitive design dog eat dog world, there is no glory or money in second place. The trick really is looking get ahead without killing or stepping over people along the way. I believe you can make it to the top without being nasty about it.

However before we get to the meat of this discussion, I need to make a few assumptions. Bill, I assume you mean getting recognition when you are working in a consultancy or an in-house design department environment correct? I don’t think this applies if you are working freelance or run your own business, as if you are hired, it means you already have recognition.

You are already recognized!
Just like getting freelance work, if you are hired to work in a consultancy or in-house design department, this means you ARE recognized as a designer that can add value to the projects or to the team. I am surprised that many designers actually fail to recognize (excuse the pun) this. You got hired, means you got selected from a pile of resumes, now its time to get to work!

Have your own style
It’s often very intimidating when working in big project teams, to work with and also stand out from the other designers in your team. Also it is pretty common for concept or project reviews to be done on walls of sketches/2d/3d project information. So how do you stand out?

A good way is to have you own style with your design presentations. It can be as simple as a unique layout, or even just sketching with color pencils when everyone else is sketching with pens. Or even developing a personal sketch style that is different from the others. People tend to do loose free hand sketches, then why not try doing something more childlike? However do keep in mind the parameters of the project and do not ever put your picture or mug shot on your presentation boards! Thats just trying too hard.

Talk about your work in design reviews
Design is about communication. So whenever you can, take the advantage to talk about your work during reviews or presentations. Don’t be shy, get up there and talk about what inspired you or your concept. This helps your design managers better understand your work, and thus getting immediate recognition if your concept gets selected by them. There is nothing stopping you from jumping in there, even if someone else is presenting your work. Again, be polite and nice about it.

Pay it forward
While you are up there talking about your work, don’t forget to pick out some great work other people have done as well. Karma moves in circles, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Besides, the fact you are on your feet talking, and not someone else, is recognition enough.

Volunteer for project management or leadership positions
Despite many design organizations being relatively flat in management structure. There are a lot of project management and lead design work that can be done. Volunteer for them all, or what ever you can fit on your plate. Do ensure that your quality of work does not decline! Doing more means taking on more responsibility and thus getting more recognition.

Also being in charge of project management, means you get to manage the allocated billable time, and thus having all the opportunity for your work to be seen in a better light.

Find out who pays You
Find out who decides on how much you get paid and take the effort to spend some time with or him/her to them know of the work you have done. You can even make use that time to get their professional feedback on your work. I think this point is pretty much self-explanatory.

Enter design competitions and offer to manage it
If you are confident with your work, enter them into design competitions. You don’t really have to win, but the PR fallout of you entering your work is good enough. Furthermore take the effort to manage the entry process and make sure all designers that are involved are recognized. Remember Karma?

Always do good work!
Last but not least. Always, always strive to do good, no great work all the time, everytime! Nothing gets you more recognition that a portfolio of great design work done for an organization.

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I do hope this list of tips does help solves some of your issues. Please keep in touch, and do let me know if this post has been helpful or not. Best of luck to all of you in your design career.