I think the danger in getting pigeonholed is that it turns you into a HOW person instead of a WHY person. Designers are, or should be, WHY people, but if we’re not careful we can become nothing but tool experts. The people that know HOW always work for the people that know WHY.
That, and I think most of us love design for the variety.
I don’t know the answer to this, so there isn’t a point I’m trying to make.
Lets say for a second you have a twin that looks and talks just like you, and thinks the same way and is equally nice to be around, just like yourself. You go work at a restaurant, and learn about cooking, customer service and restaurant management, because no matter where you go, you will always end up picking something up.
Your twin goes to ABC Plastics and pumps serious cad, spends time in the tool shop and learns about a hundred different types of plastic, the types of shapes that can be molded in various processes, and the way to work with other professionals in a business environment.
You both went to the same school and did very similar projects, and left with similar skill sets. Both of you come home at night and practice sketching together.
you both apply to some hot consultancy for a “real” design job, who gets it?
What if you are actually a better designer than your twin? but he has mad hands on plastic experience vs. your mad sketch exp.? What then? What if while he was at ABC he was concerned about product lifecycle consideration and made a big deal about it even though it wasn’t his job, and now the company saves a boat load of cash on disposal, and thinks very highly of their cad guy? What if they call the consultancy? or what if they need a designer?
There’s a ton of what if’s, but I think being in close proximity to design thinkers is better than being in close proximity to a grill or coffee machine.
Ok maybe there was a point.
Here’s a point, the twin that worked in the restaurant understands customer service, conversation, story-telling, and management. It is more likely that a “hot” consultancy also looking for someone that can present their designs in a compelling way to land contracts. It isn’t his knowledge of process and materials that wins them, it’s his charisma, articulation, and understanding in how to sell your designs. Pitching “hot” sketches and designs by talking about how they’re made as opposed to what they do, who they’re for, how they create happiness will more than likely not have the inspirational effect.
When you boil it down you’re talking about an expert vs. a star, and the latter is usually favored on the pay scale.
Sadly, Greenman makes a great point.
There’s a thread going around about Corporate vs. Firm culture, and believe this is at the root of the differences. A corporate hr manager would most likely hire the twin who pumped CAD and has the street knowledge of actual stuff. The firm is going to hire the talented salesman twin so they can get their dreams realized by the corporate manufacturers.
But, don’t you think if the hot-dog design firm hired the twin with all the plastic experience they’d be able to do more for their clients? Push the envelope farther and faster because they know where the limits are and where you can push them? I mean, BS Sales guys are dime-a-dozen these days.
It’s hard for me to think back to all the people I’ve met and remember stories that sound like this:
“after college, I turned down quite a few positions doing only one part of the design process, and then suddenly found one in which I was presenting concepts to clients”
I hear more of these:
“This first job I had I was 3d modeling/churning out hand sketches/breathing pounds of foam dust and bondo/preparing fabric patterns for print, but I learned a ton and moved on to where I am now…”
Design doesn’t need any fast talking “star’s” with ray-bans and graphic tee’s. We need real passionate people that know true creativity comes from enough expertise to know what to do when the rules change or there aren’t anymore.
Practice your sketching/cad/presentation skills, but be reading about design/marketing/psychology/philosophy/other topics that are interesting to you.
Practice your sketching/cad/presentation skills, but be reading about design/marketing/psychology/philosophy/other topics that are interesting to you.
Agreed
I don’t think it’s a sad point that i’m making and I don’t propose one path to be better than the other, but in terms of pay-scale, more often than not, those that can articulate and communicate their ideas and designs in an exciting, compelling matter, are going to be the ones that climb ranks and make better pay. That is not to say they BS their way there or are some egotist as suggested by calling them “stars”. Those types of presentation and personal skills are also a tool, or a skill that can also be developed. If you don’t want to be a one trick pony your whole career then develop new tricks, get out, or accept your role and be the best at it.
As far as a corporate HR manager going for the CAD guy over the personal type it really depends, quite honestly I think selling designs and ideas internally in a corporate setting takes the ability to move mountains more often than not. But yes, if an HR person is tasked with finding a certain skill set they will do just that. Thankfully I work in a corporate setting where HR finds people and allows teams to interview for what is usually the yay or neigh.
As far as i’m concerned those real passionate people with that expertise AND the ability to articulate it and inspire that passion in others is what would be a “star”. Having expertise guarantees nothing, it’s what you do with it.
Lot lot people that work in restaurants are not stars… a lot of them just wait tables forever.
Experience trumps all. You can be a CAD monkey, put in extra hours hanging with the design team and creatives, and transition over.
I don’t want someone who knows nothing about a hot sketch selling a hot sketch. Guaranteed that “project manager roll” can be just as much a dead end if you are not careful… I’ve seen it. Just cause you got a nice smile and a way with the clients doesn’t mean jack, it is an expendable skill, just like pumping cad or throwing down a hot sketch. You need to have more than one skill set to rise above the fray.
The big take away is that it is about WILL, as in the will to do something about your situation, whether you are waiting tables or stitching surfaces together. Get up, put in the blood sweat and tears, and be who you want to be.
Man do folks get nippy about pencils. My whole point was really about defending CAD, and elevating it to a DESIGN tool. When I say one model a day, I mean one model a day that sells to Best Buy, Target, Toys R US, Circuit City, Costco, Spencer Gifts…I have dozens and dozens of SKU’s on the market right now done over a few short years that were developed in a day. Concepts that the buyers of these retailers, the ones who have the say whether the item will ever show up on the shelves, saw in a finished 3D render. Not a sketch. I know I’m coming off as a total dick here. But are you going to tell me I’m doing it wrong? Should I draw them nice and tight first?
Just because that’s the traditional way?
P.S. All responses to the sketching debate must now be hand written and sent to…whatever core77’s physical address is.
In all honesty I love sketching and wish I was better at it than I am, but I simply find I don’t have time to do it. That might be weird to someone who works in a design firm, but I work directly for a small family owned manufacturer/importer. I have to go from concept to render by myself, and since I have a much better design eye than my boss (which is why he hired me), I don’t need to present sketches. They like the fact that they get a new product design thats fully rendered on an average day and I like to sit down in the morning, think about what I want, and by the end of the day I have a sweet render. It always comes down to your circumstances and you should always go with what works for you.
This is certainly how it should be. My point is this is not always the case and that there is a difference between experience and knowledge.
Exactly, and I think that’s why people have this from the gut negative reaction when “star” is mentioned, they should encompass all of the qualities we’re talking about here, not just be fast-talking sketching salespeople.
I agree with yo one hundred percent, and even with Greenman towards this end of the discussion. I’m taking an illustration in product design class and learning about a whole area of product design that I had never even really been exposed to, so there are really infinite ways to become a designer.
The most important thing, just like Yo says, is the will. I heard a quote the other day along the lines of “it isn’t what you know, it’s what you want to know, that is important”
The surest way to become a designer is to make yourself one by putting the time in and working at it. If no one will hire you, hire yourself and start putting products on etsy, the more prolific you are in your work the better you get. Clothing and stationary are both products that lend themselves to that for instance.
I thing what we forget a little bit is that a hand sketches always lie.
CAD doesn’t. If you render out a dimensioned model, THAT is what it is going to look like.
Maybe Marc Newson can sell a hand sketch to Ford and get by but normally that is not going to happen.
I believe CAD is not the right tool for creative flow but it is very important in order to get the proportions right.
Both hand sketching and CAD have their place.
I go back and forth all the time.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that. Right tools for the right point in the process…
exactly. nobody is saying CAD is evil, it’s just not the right tool for the rapid viz and exploration steps, that’s all.
R
They like the fact that they get a new product design thats fully rendered on an average day and I like to sit down in the morning, think about what I want, and by the end of the day I have a sweet render.
This is not the design process.
You’re not solving complex problem with innovative thinking through exploration. You making one singular idea look pretty.
Guaranteed, you come up with one idea that has taken you all day to think/solve/render against 10 other professional Industrial Designers… by the end of the day 9 out of 10 designers would have better designs that are unique and have many more selling points (aka, problems solved). Much higher value of the design, and then the next day they can make a 3d render. When it comes down to it, the higher value design is better. AND the designer got paid more since they spent more time, 2 days versus 1 (ideally anyway).
I don’t question your CAD abilities, but the system you’re working in is a bit broken.
This is styling, like they do on the Home Garden Network.
This is just a different way to do things. My render at the end of a day is the summation of my constant self editing. That is why I think CAD can be a POWERFUL design tool. I often spend the most time throwing down the first few curves, as it is the foundation for the entire model.
It IS a design process. I start with a blank screen. By the time I’m done it looks like a photograph. Multiple angles. Accuracy. Color scheme. Its all there.
How is it that 9 out of 10 designers are going to have better designs than me because they did more pencil work? I start at the same place. I try to solve design problems. I think about who the end user is. I think about the steps it would take to have the product manufactured and whether it would make sense to have it manufactured a certain way. I think about how it can be boxed and shipped. I think about how I can cut waste and save money.
The difference is that I don’t spend a lot of time drawing the thing out by hand. As I’m building the model, I have the ability to tweak and shape and change things at will. Think of it as digital sculpture. I squeeze and mold it until I get EXACTLY what I want. As someone posted earlier, sketches lie. I’m also limited by my sketching level rather than my brain level. CAD allows my to maximize my ideas because I make the tool work for me. It does my bidding.
Thats not styling my friend. Its still creating something from nothing. Ask my boss if he would rather I spend two days on a design to do it your way, or one day to do it my way. I can predict the answer. All that matters in the end is the design itself, and whether or not someone buys it.
Home Garden Network styling would be taking an exsisting chair, painting it green and sticking silk flowers on it. I take offense to that statement. But I forgot, you wanted a million dollars a year to do CAD. Apparently it is beneath you.
I’m replacing one tool for another. A machine gun over a spear. A computer over a pencil. Its worked really well for me so far. Its not broke. So there’s no real need for me to fix it.
Learn CAD and then we’ll talk. I can still do basic sketchwork if I need to.
your confusing “I think” and “pencil work”, the latter which is actually thinking, exploring, and solving.
The former is not.
I’m replacing one tool for another. A machine gun over a spear. A computer over a pencil. Its worked really well for me so far. Its not broke. So there’s no real need for me to fix it.
Incorrect.
You’re replacing an entire army with a photo-realistic 3D rendering of a spear, it just doesn’t make sense.
The army is the multi-faceted tools and skillsets of the industrial design process.
And that will always win when it comes to the value of the design as a whole.
I try to solve design problems. I think about who the end user is. I think about the steps it would take to have the product manufactured and whether it would make sense to have it manufactured a certain way. I think about how it can be boxed and shipped. I think about how I can cut waste and save money.
Another designer would actually research these point rather than just “thinking” about them, making for much better results. “Thinking” about an end user is a ridiculous concept.
I’m stressing that you add exploration in 2D to your process, and you will achieve much greater results, period.
Here’s the thing I think you are confusing cdaisy… .the process vs. the result.
Sure, the final CAD rendering is pretty, but you do loose a lot in only going through the process of building a model and “tweaking it”. You don’t have the option to look at multiple solutions at once, (or present them), to compare totally different solutions and possible outcomes.
For example, by the time you’re halfway into a CAD model (half a day) it is very difficult to totally change things around. As you yourself mention, those initial curves that are the foundation of the model set things on a set path from the beginning. If you do 30 sketches in an hour, you’ve only invested an hour and can look at totally different solutions with totally different foundations. THIS is the beauty of sketches. Likewise, as mentioned having the sketch be NOT complete/accurate is actually a benefit. It’s is purposely open to interpretation, again bringing in more creativity to the process…
As mentioned, there is a place for CAD, but using at the start of the process really limits you and the result can suffer as well. As you yourself acknowledge, it is the end result that is the most important. Like evolution, the more different solutions you explore to get there, the better the result.
R