I want to know your ID life style !!!

Design Discussions students and schools
1

hey!! guys… I am 3rd yrs ID Student… This semester I start new project which is related with ID Designer’s life style… I don’t know about other guys… but at least at first time, When I decided to learn design I thought designer’s life will be very graceful… and exciting… ( I don’t mean it’s not exciting) Nice looking, Drive sports car, Drink Coffee at morning for 30 minutes, earn lots of money… But the truth is like …No sleep!! No time to eat!! ( too much??kk), Go home 3times in a week…(We don’t have dormitory)

Anyway… My new project is using the gap between two perspectives in ID designer. So… I really need your schedule in a usual day… ( ex. Wake up 7AM. Go to School/ work 8 Am… Bla bla…)

Or … just give me any tip of real ID designer’s life… and what is the gap … between “REAL DESIGNER” and “IDEAL DESIGNER” …

Thanks~~ a lot!!

2

Weird one, I’m guessing the responses are going to vary quite a bit:

Normal day.

7:30 :Wake up :: Walk dog, have breakfast with wife, check personal email

8:45 :Get to work :: respond to emails, fire down some sketches, review and redline techinical drawings

10:00 :Break :: take a walk for 30 minutes and bitch with a good friend of mine

10:30 :Work more

12:00 :Lunch :: check core77, call some friends up, get some lunch, joke around for an hour or so

1:00 :Work more

5:30 :head home :: chill with my girl grab some dinner, what not

8:30 :sketch :: throw down some sketches at home while watching TV


A typical day during the week before our seasonal deadlines (3x a year)

7:00 :: get to work and work untill 8:00pm or 9:00pm order lunch and diner in

3

hey yo you didnt mention about posting replies on this forum…just curious when do you find time to do this?? do you get paid for being a moderator?

4

No pay, strictly volunteer… well I did get a “gift pack”

I usually post during lunch, or sometimes after diner.

5

at uni it was;
6a shower & drink 3 cups of coffee
7a-11a class time
11a-1p eat something and studio time
1p-5p more class time
5p-6p eat something & go to work
6p-11p work
11p-3a study/sketch
3a go to bed or not

now it is;
5a shower & drink 5 cups of coffee
6a-10a sketch/model/render/build or meetings
10a-12p meetings
12p-1p eat something/email/voice mail or meetings
1p-3p more meetings
3p-4p more email/voice mail or meetings
4p-6p sketch/model/render/build or meetings
6p-11p eat something/surf www/tv or a movie
11p go to bed or not

6

Up before 6, make coffee and respond to email from guys in Taiwan and China. Sometimes Europe.

Play with Indy.

At work between 7-7:15
More email, then start to organize work load for the offce.
Start work on personal projects - sketch, SW, whatever is needed.

9-10 meet with designers to talk about their projects as they arrive.

Work on projects, email, meet and manage clients / designers.

11:30 Eat lunch in the office.

Afternoon is more of the same. Project work, management and anything that is needed. Coffee is usually around 2.

Work till somewhere between 4:15 and 5:15. More if needed.

Go home and work out, skate, tennis, walk or whatever is on the exercise plan for that day. One day a week I teach a class at the local ID school.

Play with Indy and eat.

Email the people in China and Taiwan. Sometimes Europe.
Then if there is time I do a little sketching or sanding/fiberglass/motor work on one of the two Yamaha Waveblasters I am restoring.

Then we start again. Would not do any other job. I am so lucky to do what I do.

7

Unlike others, I’m no good in the morning, but better at night so my day is shifted somewhat. There is also no routine, but a typical day might be like today:

7:30 Wake up and get ready. No breakfast.
8:30 Visit jewellers supplier to research and spec production equipment.
9:30 Buy large take-out americano
10:00 Pick-up Dremel parts at another supplier for prototype.
10:30 Arrive at office. Login to network. Get coffee. Check email. Meeting with Dir. Ops.
11:00 Start on prototype. Results: Failure. Get coffee.
12:00 Check email. Call vendors for other projects. Get coffee.
12:30 Get sandwich from lunch truck. Surf Core, et al for design trends.
13:00 Get coffee. Meeting with printing supervisor on Pantone colours.
13:30 Get coffee. Review patent documents.
14:00 Get coffee. Call several vendor to check if they can work the prototype better.
15:00 Get coffee. Review quote from vendor for component on prototype.
15:30 Forward quote. Ask vendor more questions.
16:00 Ship prototypes to another vendor in advance of RFQ. Get coffee.
16:15 Take a break. Respond to Core post.
Predicted:
16:30 Review adhesive specifications. Get coffee.
17:00 Design and sketch. Get coffee.
18:30 Think about going home. Get coffee.
19:00 Send email memos on project status, et al.
19:30 Go home.

Do it all again tomorrow. There may be more meetings or less, or more design work or even less, but amidst all the paperwork and admin stuff, I try to get some design work or design thinking done every day.

:)ensen.

8

This is for a class project? Isn’t it a little self-referential?

What could make this interesting is to find out if there is a designer ‘lifestyle’ at all, and will hinge upon how you use your documentation. Which brings up 4 questions:

How are you going to research this?
Who will you talk to?
What media will you use to document this?
How do you plan on presenting this?

(this one’s all about the how, in my opinion)

(sorry if sounds like a lecture; I get worried when the concept hinges around the word ‘Ideal’.)

For your research:

5-6am: read news, blogs, papers, etc.
6-8am: document the important stuff
8-5: job (10-20 emails, meetings, regular ID stuff.)
6-8: dinner, usually at home.
8-11: flesh out concepts, more emails, photos, documentation, networking stuff, etc.

9

Wow! You guys work hard.

10

It will also be interesting to see how your responses here stack up against what popular culture tells us the “designer lifestyle” is. I hope people keep posting :slight_smile:.

11

Nice thread, interesting to see the how others live.
My normal day:

7:wake up, lay in bed thinking about anything and everything
7:40 get up,shower,etc, find I have no time for breakfast.
8:15 Leave the house to catch train.
8:40 catch train and read ICON or stare out of the window.
9:05 Arrive at non design related work, Check Mail and surf conditions online.
9:30 Start work
10:30 get brunch (soup usually)
10:35 Work
12:00 Lunch break. Take a walk to the beach and do some sketching or walk into town to buy essentials
13:00 Back to work
17:00 Leave non design related work
17:13 catch train home
18:00 arrive home and eat a bowl of cereal while watching ‘Simpsons’
18:30 work on personal design products stetching/ Cad modelling/ prototyping.
21:30 Make some dinner
22:00 Spend time with girlfriend.
23:30 Work on On-line design course/ Look for and apply for Jobs
12:30 Go to sleep.

12

right now in iran- sorta like vacation. wake up around 8:30 turn on the computer work on some design after a couple of hours take a shower, put on clothes go out buy something, grab lunch, meet with friends, go over projects, come home drink tea with cherry jam while looking outside the window at the traffic jam, plug in the guitar play some scales, occasional chords, go out again to the neighbourhood shops, buy food, joke around, come home play video games, read books then design,eat something, design again till mid night,sleep.

13

forgot to log^

14

Routine:

9am- wake up- eat breaky and out by…
9:40- Cue for bus…sometimes early, sometimes late…
10:05- arrive work late…check emails…
10:30- Boss arrives late…chit chat…
11am…work for bit…
12:15…go out for lunch before the tables are full…
1:30-2pm…lunch over…back to work…
6pm…review work…
6:30-7pm- Refine
8pm- work a bit more…
8:30- home time!!

But if on tight deadline- as above but
8:30- eat dinner…
9pm- 1 hr later (boss likes to eat!) work somemore…
10pm goes by…
11pm goes by…
Midnight…home time…
sometimes even 1 or 2am…depends on client in US or Europe!

This last scene happens monthly…!!

5.5 days aweek…sometimes even full day saturday and sunday…depends on client deadline!

15

My schedule is always changing and evolving depending on the season, what I’m working on, whether I’m teaching, etc.

I work at home, have an office with computer equipment and a door that closes, and an attached shop with machinery.

These days it goes something like this:

Mornings:

6:00 Wake up, walk dog, make tea, tend the woodstove

6:45 Eat breakfast at the computer while doing email correspondance, reading the news, researching anything of personal or professional interest

Either:

9:00 In my office: begin working on freelance design projects at hand. Try to do most of the more creative work in the AM since that’s when I’m fresher.

10:00ish Talk to clients on phone, discuss new projects

Or:

9:00 - 12:00 Work in my office on anything related to furniture design: writing, drawing, research, phone calls, marketing, documentation

12:00 - 1:00 Walk dog, lunch

Afternoons, Evenings:

Either:

1:00 - 4:00 Continue designing for freelance clients, with more of an emphasis on drawing the ideas I came up with in the AM

4:00 - 5:00 Walk dog, exercise of some sort: yoga, walking, rowing machine, kayaking.

Or:

1:00 - 5:00 Design and build furniture in my attached shop

5:00 - 7:00 Cook dinner, spend time with family

7:00 - 8:00 Check email, occasionally talk to clients

8:00 - 10:00 Spend time with family


Fun thread - interesting to take stock of my own schedule and to read others’.

16

Here’s today. No day’s the same, but this is fairly representative of life as a design manager in a corporation:

6:20: Wake
6:45: Check palm for today’s agenda (look out for early meetings or conference calls.)
7:00: Pet Dog, Brew Coffee, shave/shower/dress
7:30: Hit Southern California traffic, listen to iPod, NPR or both (If I have a bit of time I’ll take HWY 101 along the coast instead of the freeway.)
8:30: Arrive @ work, dock iPod (pick a playlist to randomize, today is bossa-nova) & Thinkpad.
9:00: Drink Coffee, eat breakfast bar, check Email & meeting invites, (typically about 30/day), Check Calendar, Check Core, Write this
9:01: Think about cleaning my desk. Yeah right, maybe tomorrow.
9:30: Core team meeting for a project A
10:30: Weekly meeting for other project B
10:55: Talk to staff member about her HF plan for an upcoming test, tell her an idea I had while in the shower
11:00: Group design crit for element of project C
12-1:30: Review with internal clinicians re; product feature
(lunch provided)
1:30: Check & respond to voicemails, new email, book lunch reservations tomorrow offsite. Check snail-mail.
1:45: Call design recruiter, discuss leads
2:00: Go outside for some fresh air, call wife and tell her how depressing it is to be cooped up all day with weather like this, check in with staff members
2:30: Respond to about 10 of the ~30 emails I have for today, draft a few new ones. Print out articles, training docs or other things people forward to me that I need to read. Dump into an overstuffed “Reading materials” folder I typically take home.
3:00: Someone random drops by to discuss an element of their project. The appropriate feel of a magnetic encoder, or how the IEC symbol standard for “recapitulate” sucks, or how Sr. management still isn’t sync’d with a project vision, or what we need to do to move project Y out of Phase 0 and get staffed etc.
3:30: Look at week ahead, pick project of highest impact to work on for the rest of the day (pick powerpoint presentation to Sr. Management re; something important related to design)
4:05: Make a to-do list for something (stuff to buy, magazines to subscribe to, things to test.)
5:00: Check Core, Personal email, Gizmodo, MSNBC etc., respond to more email & invites
5:30: Surf Creative Hotlist for a technical illustrator I need to source for project X, bookmark a few
6:30: Leave for home, listen to BBC world news or iPod, watch the sunset over the Pacific
7:30: Arrive home, change into something comfortable
8:00: Eat dinner with wife in or out, watch the news (Tivo’d), walk the dog. Talk about our work, give each other advice etc. Plan upcoming trip and coordinate with some visitors.
9:00: Read (maybe even something I’m suppoed to), Underline a few cool passages that I’ll jot down later. Passively watch something like The Amazing Race, Standup comedy, Mythbusters, etc.
10:30: Sleep (I’m a night owl, but I need 10 hours to function!)

17

Mine is a bit screwed up, so is the rest of the school:

Wakes up at 10.30~11am.
Eat something, check e-mail, news etc
1.pm Class
4.pm Model Shop
7pm Class, or shop
11pm, get kicked out of shop, turn to Alias for consolation as well as dinner
Alias… and some fooling around on the mighty internet
4~5am back to bed

Woo… 4 new cans of primer and a new tube of Bondo hardener. I’m gonna get high again!

18

I am not a morning person… at all… Sounds like a lot of the above people are more sr.level designers/project managers. I am still new.

Out of bed by not later than 8am (set alarm for 7am)
Get ready- maybe get coffee and muffinish stuff on walk to work(before 9am)
8:30 or 9am- 10am (sometime much later- have had days where I do email all day) Email from HK/China/Licensers/Boss/Friends/
10am-1pm New product development/Research/Lots of on going revisions/ excel sheets (yuk)/ invention sometimes/ mockups (packaging/product)/ meetings sometimes/ playing with toys/ listening to ipod/ joking with office buddy/ surf the web for inspiration/
1pm- 2 or 230 Lunch - Maybe goto the Zoo and eat with the Sea Lions, or at a restaurant around the office/ Sit by the lake and eat/socialize with people from the office
2pm or 230- 3pm- Recheck email/surf the web
3pm- 6pm (or later… depending on lots of variables) New product development/Research/Lots of on going revisions/ excel sheets (yuk)/ invention sometimes/ mockups (packaging/product)/ meetings sometimes/ playing with toys/ listening to ipod/ joking with office buddy/ surf the web for inspiration/
6pm-615pm Walk home - maybe meet freinds for dinner/beer
615-7-30 eat with friends/ gab on phone with long distance g/f (not recommended)
7:30-12or later sit around watch tv/ go to event/ go out with friends/ or whatever…
Wake up for more.

I haven’t done this since college… it was pretty interesting to jot down my day. Thanks for the neato post.

19

1:00p.m. Get Up
1:10p.m. Jerk Off
3:00p.m. get out of bed
4:00p.m. sketch
5:00p.m. eat pizza
6:00p.m. go to bar
9:00p.m. absolutley wasted
4:00.a.m. go home and sleep

20

Is 3:52 after lunch?