are there any good american designers

i was looking on coroflot, looking for a capable and talented native-born american product designer. some good transport guys, but couldnt find any product designers at that level[/b]

heh.

another pissing contest across the pond.

it’s hard to find good designers anywhere, including italy.

its such a letdown that i couldnt find a single 24-30 year old younger designer that could take some idea to production level. everyone is looking for product design job, and cram their portfolio full of chairs and forks and ‘experimental’ works. The only ones who come close are the engineers who are trying to get into design, they have the 3d knowledge and some grasp of mechanical design, but everything they design looks like the telephone from a marker-rendering how-to book from 1988. We need to hire 6 people this comming year, and I have no idea how its going to happen.

Its hard checking schools because they all have their fatal flaws, like ArtCenter kids can render and style like bandits but there is no depth to anything, vs like RISD kids who are smat as hell but cant draw a cube in perspective.

Sounds to me you should hire 2 RISD graduates and 2 Art Center graduates and 2 engineer ID wanabees. Working as a team you will get what you want… and in the end they can learn from each other. You could end up with 6 designers who have the skills you want.

You can’t expect designers with a few years of experience to know it all. If that’s what you want then I would say not to limit your search by the chronological age of the designer.

…and sounds to me oggi is really good at gross generalizations.
every school - no matter its reputation - will have one or two kids that just blow you away. you just need to turn off your computer, get in gear and actually seek them out. chances are you won’t find them lingering on the coroflot site.

…and sounds to me oggi is really good at gross generalizations

yes that is true. i did overgeneralize the situation, I know there are the superstars out there, but even normal every-day civilian designers should be able to do their job 100%.

and for the idealistic thought of hiring 2 stylists, 2 thinkers, and 2 engineers, that is fantastic if the project load was 30% of what it is now and the salary budget was 300%. I need 6 designers that can design for production. I stand by my original crabby rant, that every designer that graduates should be able to design for todays standards. I cannot babysit a ‘think-tank’ of thinker/stylists/engineers, cant sponsor a jam session where we talk and and discuss and tweak a design on a white board in our meeting room sitting on beanbag chairs. that is idealistic and irritating. if we have 40 new products a year, each member must do his 6 projects on his own. I donno, im starting to truly understand why its so hard to find complete designers, cus everyone feels that they should get support for projects from others, and have some engineers package it up nice and tidy for them when their role is over.

and now the more i think about it, i see that it is the fault of the schools for not providing education on design and design process. at Risd i can remember any rendering class or product drawing class, and no education on manufacturing

oggi

I was just trying to offer some sort of solution based on the criteria and scenario you presented. Some teams work very productively if put together properly… and that’s where you’re job comes in.

You can focus on your problem forever but it would be more efficient to focus on solving the problem. Now its time for you to start thinking of solutions and stop ranting… you really don’t have time to rant for long periods of time based on what you have digitized in your earlier posts.

My question is what do design firms want and expect from a entry level designer? I know every place is different and that’s where it gets confusing. The school I went to gave a basic education on materials and production processes with a little bit of welding and forming plastics. Engineers I thought were the ones who tell us designers why a particular product won’t work in this fashion and send us back to the drawing board? :open_mouth:

Finding individuals that can do everything a PD firm can do is indeed rare–that’s asking for someone that can be highly creative and highly technical. Usually those are mutually exclusive, and that’s why you have the “integrated” PD firm, with ME, EE and ID partnering together.

The obvious solution is to outsource to a good PD firm.

mmmm, thats a whole other issue, finding a good firm.

anyway, I came from a consultancy to corporate, so I can handle design and preliminary engineering,but i could do that when I graduated. There were 2 other guys in my class who could do that level as well. I dont think we were superstars, I think we did what is expected, good sketching ability, creative problem solving, and good mechanical design implementation. I kind of feel like if that doesnt describe you, maybe you are in the wrong profession. If you only excell at one aspect, you are destimed to be a support tool and not a full designer.

I will take some of your suggestions, maybe organizing a studio at a design school and see who rises up to the top.

If I seem like a prick from all my posts Im sorry. I am just frustrated because this is one of the greatest countries in the world, and a majority of the guys that could possible fill the positions are korean. whats up with that

hey chris, I checked you out and you seem well rounded, you really think im asking too much for a full-time staff designer?

oggi, I think I speak for all of us in hiring positions that we understand your frustrations. Believe me, I am going through this day in day out. It is no small feat to find great talent and it is NOT wrong to have high standards and expectations. I consider myself a hard worker and certainly was fully committed in school, which resulted in a job offer before I graduated (which I didn’t take). And just like you, I am not a superstar, but I love what I do and I am my own’s biggest critic.
What I am looking for in candidates is passion, commitment to the profession (bordering on obsession), curiosity and a resulting well rounded skill set. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask for of a recent graduate. I have been looking for the right people for two years now and honestly, having a real hard time finding them without making compromises - regardless of school. But I also agree with laureng that it is our responsibility to hire the right talent and provide the right mentorship. I haven’t stopped learning, why should a squeaky clean graduate? It helps if you look beyond the existing skill set and focus on the potential present - it might just ease the pain…

Good Luck!

I think you’re asking too much for the SIX staff designers you say you need. It’s rare is all.

By definition the best designers aren’t unemployed, therefore you need to network to find them. (Networking is responsible for my last 4 jobs!) Fortunately design is a VERY small world.

ok, now everyone is being a littlemore candid. I know Im not going to find a perfect gem right off coroflot, I can look and see potential, even in crappy portfolios or weak resumes, I can still see who loves what they are doing, who does design because it is all that they are created to do and enjoy. I really know that whoever comes in will be thrown into a storm and I have no objections to helping them get up to speed, I just have a lot of experience with people that dont have certain abilities and feel like it is not their responsibility to ever learn them. if some younger designer is creative but doesnt know 3d cad, then I will teach somehow, either myself or with classes. I didnt mean to come off as such a hard ass and unyielding, just Ill yield only if it is for a good reason. You know it wasnt that long ago when the ID field was barren and no jobs, I remeber well, and it was a good thing because it clensed the field of a lot of bullshit that wasnt true and productive. Those were hard times, especially being a recent grad then, but I realized that doing freelance, if you do your job well and complete, people come back. That hard time is where you realize that you dont need a staff of 6 to work together to design a cellphone. You just need one reliable person, yourself, who will never fall short of doing something 100%. My ideal new hire is another survivor of thse bad times, who I can give a project and they can complete fully.

oggi -

where in the world are you, and for what kind of products and level of experience are you looking?

IMHO finding detail-oriented designers is the toughest part since people are either big-picture conceptualists, or CAD devotees without any new ideas. Around here you don’t get a chance to be either - you have to do it all. It’s tough.

oggi PM me with more details please.

im in NYC, and do consumer products, full range

…and you mentioned you’re corporate now?
If you email me with more precise job requirements, I might be able to recommend some people.

Are you at 4sight…cause you sound like someone there…if so, let the world know and rest assured you’ll get some mail from some talented people… no spam email, just an address and talent will come in…

yeah why not give us the address, I know i would send a portfolio packet and try to prove you wrong.

oh wait, im not american born…

ill still send it though :smiley: