I am applying to study product design at: Nottingham Trent, Coventry, and De Montford (I also have an offer from Leeds ) which require a portfolio. I am concerned about this as I haven’t really done product design as a subject before, though I am on an art and design foundation, which all my work is product design orientated. I just wanted to get some feedback on my portfolio (there are still bits I need to add which aren’t finished yet) and for people to ask any questions on the content to prepare me for the interviews that are within the next few weeks.
Hi Jen,
Firstly I think its good that you are looking at products and drawing them. I would keep working on that - maybe make a project out of it i.e. look at how it was made - maybe with the water bottle do a cut through shot showing the injection moulded detail, etc.
I actually went to DeMontfort and the design course focuses on understanding how things are made and the processes used. I would also look to sharpen the linework you use.
Product design at DeMontfort also focuses on presentation elements so creating a simple template/border may help to bring it altogether.
Hi, thanks for your advice, those observational drawings were done a while ago now, so i think I’ll look in to doing some more now that my sketching is improved a bit. I did actually have them all on a template, but because i have done a fair bit of graphic design I overdid it so I was told to strip it back, but i think your right in saying that the presentation could be cleaned up a bit, its more my style to do that anyway haha
Also did you enjoy DMU? And what are the grad prospects like?
Yeah DMU was great, I ended up getting a job from it within 2 months but whilst I know that is quick most of my friends from that year also did pretty well. The course balances adventurous design with realistic manufacturing processes and I feel that has left me with a good platform to develop at.
I think its certainly on par with Nottingham Trent, but I would recommend going to New Designers (or looking up photo galleries of it) http://www.newdesigners.com/ and seeing the exhibitions they put on to get an idea of the standard.
Hi, im currently in my second year at nottingham (not trent) im studying product design and manufacture.
The course is quite new but after looking at dmu, leeds and the two courses at loughborough ( who claim to be the best at design) I chose notts due to the fact that not only do you do a lot of work on sketching, hand rendering. Thought processes behind why you design but also complex modeling in proE. The course is however a meng degree so there is also a lot of tooling, automated manufacture, near net design and optomisation for production involved. This I rate as a very good mix of skills.
If it helps i have friends at brunel and centre st martins and so far ive done as much sketch work as them. only drawback is a ver hectic work schedule.
) which require a portfolio. I am concerned about this as I haven’t really done product design as a subject before, though I am on an art and design foundation, which all my work is product design orientated. I just wanted to get some feedback on my portfolio (there are still bits I need to add which aren’t finished yet) and for people to ask any questions on the content to prepare me for the interviews that are within the next few weeks.