designer feedback

Design Discussions design employment
1

I am a graduate of Industrial Design who has been looking for a job for quite some time (two years). I have landed a bunch of freelance graphic work, but I continue to search for a “real gig”, a stable source of income doing what i love to do. PRODUCT DESIGN.

I recently put together a website displaying my portfolio and would love to recieve some feedback, critique, or just any advice from anyone who can help me land a job.

So, visit www.jgabry.com let me know what you think. The website still has some glitches, some things I am aware of that must be fixed. But I would really appreciate some feedbackon the content, layout, et cetera.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE

2

www.jgabry.com, could not be found. Please check the name and try again.

3

On your resume-- make your design-related internship more prominent-- why is it at the bottom of your experiences, under retail jobs?

4

agree with fueled. list your design work first. somehow.

this doesnt feel like a product design site to me. graphics are better than product. product stuff not so great. first one i see is Evenflo with magic sphere wheels. dont even want to read what you type. turtle is cute. like you spent more time on it.

why isnt every image on the Helmet page rendered? you spend time on some guy riding a bike. why?

Oasis project form development is weak. use ellipse guides. and ditch the 3D CAD images.

Lutron? will i see that on CSI as a murder weapon. “simple” interface… for right-handed thumbs. i dont see a sophisticated solution. i see a quick one. nice Mickey Mouse.

tired and bored. if best stuff is last i wont see it.

5

I think you have potential to be a decent designer, however you need to work on your material. I agree with YKH, that if these are your strongest products…graphics are more your forte. I was wondering what was up with the wheels myself; you figured out some form of levitation…you have got to let me in on it. Makes the design look rushed, unfinished, and makes it look like you do not stress the details enough.

You mention most of these were ten-week projects, yet the only one that appears to have ten weeks of development time is the Go Postal.

Come on now, ten weeks is a long time for a project, I usually have 6-10 weeks to complete and entire development program from market research to having the final functional prototype tested, and photographed for the marketing materials. Only exceptions are the medical, and government contract work…then I have 3-4 months.

My suggestion for the product section is to revisit each of the projects, push the forms further. Most of the forms are ho-hum and what you would expect…as YKH pointed out quick solutions. I would suggest spending @ 20 hours concepting out additional forms and solutions for each product. That should give you 40-60 concept sketches (stay fluid and loose, do not get too tight to soon, that is my biggest personal struggle), then spend @ 40 refining these down to the final design. It is a good idea to show the final design in context of use, ie the cyclist, however it should be evident that the product had more time spent on it. Best way (IMO) is to lighten the person, simply line art the person, or color render product, gray scale the person.

I know it seams like a lot of work, but I know a student who graduated the year before me, spent 2 months right after school looking for work, never even got a call back. Was feed up, but did not give up. Even though he was working 10 hour long midnight shifts at a local manufacturing plant to pay his bills, he was in our “Senior Studio” (a house off campus the seniors rented for 24 hour studio space) from 9:00 am to 5: pm mon-fri, and all day sat and sun to work on his portfolio pieces. That lasted my entire senior year. That May he sent out one portfolio…Hired the day they received it. Paid moving expenses and for an apartment until he found a house, and 45k first year, midwest area.

Moral of story, you will get out of it what you put in to it

6

I agree with designer, you have good potential. The overall design of your site is very pleasant too, I like that.

Product design: I would like to see more sketching. As YKH and others said, you’re solutions don’t seem to be that deep. If you show a lot of good sketching, you will show how much you thought are in these projects. Remember, if you only have one idea, it needs to be an incredible one (and that’s hard to do).

I would also suggest re-arranging the projects. I only took a look at a few of them, but I don’t think the strongest projects are at the top. That postal vehicle seems more thought out than the helmet, but it is stuck near the bottom. Employers don’t have time to check out all your projects, so you need to front load them with your best work.

Also, rework your resume big time. You say you had freelance graphic design work, but your resume looks like you’ve had a career in store management. Graphic design is a helluva lot closer to ID than Boyne Country Sports.

7

Sketch wise, things look weak. perhaps not enough time spent. It looks like your drawing strategy is focussed on making nice outlines- this never works. you need to spend more time exploring the structure of the objects, this means that construction lines are ok, and slightly messy lines are ok as long as they are fluid and are helping define the form. draw big and loose, with your arm not your wrist.

8

Purely looking at your product designs, I think you can improve on your form development. Products don’t have to be boxes with 6 sides, which I see alot on your designs. Products don’t need to have complex surfaces al the time, but if you are designing a simple, minimalistic object, you have to pay extra attention to details and proportion to carry the design.

Good luck.

9

hey everyone, thanks for your feedback. i really appreciate all of it.

i’ll be sure to include more of my concept sketches, and do more…

all of your input helps… except “draw big and loose” i haven’t drawn with my wrist since, high school.

thanks again to everyone.