If I Knew Then What I Know (Advice to students)

There is no need to point out someone else’s view point here.
You can take it or just ignor it.
BTW, I am staying home today, trying to get recovered from the cold.
So, I am saving lot of my classmates’ lives. :sunglasses:

I agree with Cow about taking good care of your health.
And I also agree with Dog that if you are sick, try to recover it first.

Bad health=Bad design

…uni is not vocational tech…your there for an education not a job…build a great folio and network, network, network…

MAKE SURE YOU TAKE TIME IN EACH WEEK TO DRINK BEER WITH YOUR FRIENDS!! SOME OF THEM WILL BE GODPARENTS AND BEST MEN OR BRIDES MAIDS< AND FRIENDS FOR LIFE. MAKE SURE YOU DRINK GOOD BEER ALSO< SO YOU CAN WAKE UP ON AN AWESOME SAT MORNING AND GO INTO THE STUDIO TO WORK WHEN THE WHOLE WORLD IS OUT ENJOYING THE WEATHER.

Edit

tip 1:
don’t take yourself too seriously… have fun with your work

tip 2:
don’t let negative energy get you down, if you believe in yourself, things will happen

tip 3:
be a cool guy- to have people admire and respect u is so much more rewarding than big bucks and a flashy title.

First, a couple disagreements…

Do not drink good beer. You will go broke. And some of them give a wicked headache in the morning.

Do drink cheap local beer. Something like an icehouse will give you the extra alcohol content for the same price. Enough light beer can give you a great buzz, while letting you get up the next day back to studio in time to get some real work done.

Follow the opposite advice with hard alcohol. Spend a little more for a glass bottle, and you won’t wake up with your face lying on the linoleum floor of your bathroom.

Do not enter school competitions. You will have sooooo many chances to do this after school. Your school is (or should be) operating at such a different level then being concerned with a f-in competition that it should be basically beneath you. Competitions are for marketing yourself. If you found yourself saying “hey, that’s a great idea” then you should go to b-school or social psychology degree.

As for getting portfolio pieces: wah!?!? The best places will hire you if you have a napkin sketch of a brilliant, creative, self-directed design. Not a “portfolio” piece that has been slicked up to enter into a design competition. Be aware that design critique is NOT established - many competitions are sponsored by design magazines that, today, are not anywhere near a critical gold standard: most being influenced by large studios/corporations with deep pockets.

And some agreements…

Sketch! yes, do not sit in front of your laptop.

Spend time outside your major. It will pay back in spades later when you realize that your major didn’t prepare you for 20% of what you encounter.

and finally, my main 20/20 points are…

Do be critical. With yourself and with your classmates. Screw niceties: you do not pay $20k+ a year to learn social etiquette. You are there to learn how to give valuable, timely, incisive, inquisitive, critique.

Do iterate, rinse and repeat. Your designs are crap. And they will be no matter hard or long you work on them. Design it, step back, redesign it. I don’t know how much time I wasted thinking about a concept, making it perfect, then either barely finishing the first version, or not even getting it done. Design is an activity: 5 parts doing, 1 part thinking.

Do understand respect. Respect yourself, your work, and other’s. Design is not light stuff. It is life and world changing.

Do be creative. School is only about learning how to be creative. If school gives one thing: it is the teaching and path to creativeness.

Start looking for jobs early and prepare yourself and your portfolio for them,

Do something you love.

Develop your personal ideology and skills so that the skills and ideas from many projects could be used for one. e.g. Take inspiration from your dissertation to fund the creativity of your major project.

Oh, and get your dissertation done very early, with time for a re-write because most people i know, did just that!

Use the library resources, where else will you find that many books on a subject that you love?

When it comes to work experience, or internships, try and find summer, easter or even christmas placements with a company, who knows, when you leave they may want to take you on. If not it will be very valuable experience, and something employers will see and know you are keen!

Until they get their tenure…

I wonder why not to wear a suit?

I think I had better wear it at designer’s events like job or school acceptance interview, as these are very important for me. I almost never wear a suit, but I’m keen on wearing it when concerning important design events in my life. I think the interviewers may understand watching on my clothes that I know it’s important for me.

What do you guys think about it?

it deepends on the place of business and how “uptight” you looked in the suit. If you are able to put some design flair into it, ie a pinstripe suit with a cool graphic tee and a pair of leather dunks or something.

I am applying for MS in ID at North Carolina State University, Arizona State University and San Francisco State University. Please tell me more about the ID program, Alumini work, Financial Aid and social life

:wink:

my advice is quick and easy.

If you get out of school and get that big ID job and start making money, save 10%.

If you get out of school and don’t make alot of money, save 5 - 10 %

this career has been so unpredictable for me, I really needed to have a solid finacial strategy in place. the income over my career, in full time positions intermixed with layoffs, has been roughly 45k->58k->20k->57k->25k->67k->40k

kind of makes buying a house or having a family tough

i think if i knew something i will wise students.First,as a student must do your best in study;the second,do some housework in home with parents;third,i think this one is my best matter,don’t quarrel with your parents.
That’s all i think i can tell the student.

IMHO,
Learn how to be enterprising if you plan to go big.
i.e.:Attend a University ID program and take as many business classes as possible. There isn’t an ID program on the planet that prepares you for entrepreneurship. We’ve all been trained to run the rat race and fear “The Man”.

If you want to make it big some day, you’ve got to know how to take calculated risks, negotiate, cut a deal and protect yourself! Chances are your design profs have no idea about that stuff or they wouldn’t be teaching design.

Realize that this is the time to focus on what you want to do. Listen to others, but in the end pursue what you believe is the best thing to do.

WOW - This should be required reading for all students…

Based on my experiences let’s break it down for ya:

1) Don’t go to a school that has a young program (e.g. - under 10 yrs).

2) Don’t think that just because you can draw better or that you are a better designer than everyone that you will get a job over them (GPA’s do count!)

3) Don’t blindly believe all the granduer that your faculty and design prophets promote about designers shaping the future of society…start out with the basics of design.

4) Learn to sketch like DaVinci (seriously!)

5) Learn to model quick prototypes (under 10-30 min.)

6) Learn to speak only when necessary and make sure you thought about it first - do this in a foreign language too!
7) Be the best listener you can be - ALWAYS!

8) Begin the job hunt from day one - build up that resume, post on discussion boards, read about industry news, and network with faculty, professionals, etc… - refer back to step 7.

9) Maintain a professional appearance and a clean paper trail (e.g. - no disciplinary actions sanctioned by the school, courts, employer, etc…)

10) Only about 10-20% of those who earn industrial design degrees will make it in the industry as industrial designers - but that does not mean that getting a degree in ID is useless or only good for ID (although it’s a tough road either way!)

Learn from the errs of others - this stuff is gold!

Hi,

I have just finished my foundation degree and will be studying BA product design this September. I really want advice on how I can make this summer as fruitful as possible. I am a complete newbie in product design and I am so enthralled to see those cool presentations that people put in design competitions such as those displayed in designboom.com. But the thing is I just dunno how they do it. Also, I know nothing about computer programs in design. Any advice on this? THANK YOU VERY MUCH! YOUR ADVICE IS GREATLY APPRECIATED :smiley:

I would recommend focusing on product sketching, quick ideation sketching (showing your thinking and ideas on paper)

all of those polished renderings you see for those competitions is the last thing those designers did. First they came up with a good idea… the rendering is like gravy and the design is like a goose or something, without the goose, the gravy is pretty useless…

there will be plenty of time to learn how to do those renderings in the coming years, get a jump start on the hand skills… just my opinion on it…

THANK U FOR THE GREAT ADVICE :slight_smile: but i m wondering…how can i get directions on what to sketch and stuff? and the thing i discover about product design is that it is sooo hard to come up with ideas…sigh…do u think it is worthwhile to take computer classes such as illustrator, autocad and photoshop on my own before school start? will it be useful? i m asking so much sowwie… :wink: but thank youuuu! :smiley: