Future ID Major, Skills to Learn?

Design Discussions students and schools
1

I have currently been out of school for about 9 months. I had to leave the school I was going to after only completing my first freshman semester due to a financial hardship. I’m currently in the process of enrolling in a community college to finish out my freshman year (only need to take 4 classes, planning on taking mostly liberal arts) while also applying as a transfer student to RISD.

I am interested in majoring in Industrial Design. As a transfer applicant, I know that RISD expects to see more 3D work in my portfolio as well as sketches.

As a student who has been out of school for so long, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do to increase my skill set? I guess my real question is where should I start?
Does anyone have any links to any sites that would help me?
Having only completed my first freshman semester, there is a lot that I still have left to learn (in regards to even basic sketching) but I would love to get started now, for both reasons of getting into school but even more so for personal reasons as an aspiring designer.

Thanks! Any advice is greatly appreciated

2

I think the way to get the best feedback in these forums is if you put up a couple examples of your current work showing us where your skills are so we can suggest areas to improve. The best resource for me when I was learning to sketch forms was Scott Robertson’s Gnomon Workshop DVDs Basic Perspective Form Drawing | The Gnomon Workshop

3

I would geek out on sketch a day.com and get the supplies suggested by them. I then would jump into rhino as its is the simplest ui and just start fooling around. Then get some cardboard and tape etc and make mockups of what ever it is you are creating. These three skills are the foundations of it all.

4

cool. thank you both! I appreciate it…

I guess my main thing is to just start [of course]. I want to develop strong sketching skills…

5

Rapid viz is the way as most your time will be spent in Solidworks or any other major 3d program getting things ready for the pitch, sell, engineer. Canson renders are dead, fast napkin to sketchbook pro is usually the path. Sometimes its just sketch model to 3d to manufacturing.

6

While Canson renders may be no longer used, anyone that can master a Canson rendering that knows anything about a computer, can master the art of doing a rendering in Alias Sketch, Corel Painter, or Photoshop. The skills are still good to learn.

However, I would just recommend focusing on sketching, perspective, and creativity. A successful designer has lots of ideas and can communicate them quickly to anyone visually. If you don’t have a good idea there is no point in rendering it in any medium. RISD is great on the idea and theoretical end of things but not so great on the communication end. If you use this time to get a leg up on sketch skills, you may just find that you come out ahead of all your classmates. Maybe having to leave school temporarily will be the best thing that ever happened. Life is weird that way.

7

Core77 itself is a valuable educational resource as well.

The Sketching forum (check out the topics in the “Announcements” section at the top of the page) is an outstanding source of … well, sketching … and rendering, and Portfolios will give you both an opportunity to see what others are doing, and how they represent themselves.

The easiest, most rewarding, and beneficial, thing to do is get yourself a big sketch book/pad and draw, draw, draw… concentrate on perspective and line weight. An understanding of how the “circle” works is critical to believable work; we’ve all seen sketches of cars (for example) where everything looks good except the wheels… aka: ellipses. We live in a three dimensional world of dark and light; an understanding of how light, shade, and shadow relate to form is not only basic, it is essential in depicting believable forms.

But sketching and rendering isn’t what makes products … materials, and manufacturing processes are literally what make products. Start looking at how things are made; the more you understand about materials and processes the more you will be able to draw them accurately. Plastics (parting planes, gating, etc.), wood (grain, color, joinery), fabrics (woven, non-woven, knits,etc.) metals (cast, formed, machined, etc.), ceramics (thrown, hand-built, slip-cast, etc.), and their various combinations.

If you use this time to get a leg up on sketch skills, you may just find that you come out ahead of all your classmates. Maybe having to leave school temporarily will be the best thing that ever happened. Life is weird that way.

Lots of stuff to know, so you might as well start learning it now; and the cool part is that you don’t need to be “in school” to pick this stuff up. You just need to know … that you need to know it. :wink:

8

If you have a financial situation, why RISD? It is a more expensive school. Why not a less expensive school?

9

I’m a recent RISD ID grad. If you are looking to transfer to RISD, I’d say definitely brush up on your sketching skills. Not necessarily fancy marker renderings and whatnot, but fast communicative sketches that explain aspects of your product concept clearly. Sketching is not emphasized at RISD very much, and even if it is its usually for the wrong reasons (being flashy, making stuff look cool). Rapidly communicating your concepts through drawing WILL help you excel in the program if you have a good grasp of it.

Sketch-a-day is a great example of this, especially the line-only drawings. Nothing fancy, but very attractive and communicative.

RISD will teach you plenty of 3D skills but you could brush up on a basic understanding of form. Elements of Design is a pretty good book for this and it has exercises that you could do to hone yourself. RISD usually teaches such basic form understanding in freshman year, but as you plan to transfer I assume you’re skipping this. The ID program currently (not sure about when YO was there), in my opinion, has a severe lack of emphasis on form. There are so many ugly projects with unresolved forms coming out of the studios (I even admit that I notice this in my own work).

Definitely get a basic understanding of graphic design skills. Laying out your presentations and portfolio nicely will get you ahead. You can check out GD blogs and maybe pick up a book or two on basic layout.

Also just stay informed about design in general. Make reading design blogs like core77, fastcodesign, dezeen, etc a habit before you hit school. Then your designs will be more relevant and informed, and you’ll also be inspired and absorb stuff. I find that RISD is very insulated from the design community unlike other schools, so it will be good for you to get a sense of whats out there.

Hope this helps!

10

Sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch, sketch.

Clear enough?