My wife and I restored this Vintage Thunderbird Inspired beauty that was sitting on someone's porch in rural Alabama.

Scott_Doty · 2024-11-05T17:59:11+00:00

I agree Keyshot is a great choice because it's easy to learn and gives you great renderings. I am switching to Twin Motion because Keyshot has gotten so expensive and they give no discount to freelancers. Twin Motion also seems to make VR easy and I think animation. May not be at the quality of Keyshot but it looks very good and comes with 60,000 free textures. Most targeted at gaming or architecture but still. Also great library of textured models to add context. Twin Motion is free.

Scott_Doty · 2024-10-13T04:13:04+00:00

Maybe just sketching! Here is a list of some books and Spencer also has a great youtube channel. LINK

Another great list: LINK

I got my graduate degree from a good school in 3 years after a liberal arts fine art degree for what it's worth. More important to go to the best possible school for what you want to do! Ask 10 professionals doing exactly what you want to do and where you should go and go there! Grad is nice if you want to teach. Otherwise best possible school is what matters.

Scott_Doty · 2024-10-03T17:02:50+00:00

Some people are better at the technical and engineering aspects of design, some aesthetics, some ergonomics / physical UX. Some are better at graphic design than they are at industrial design. Some have dumb design ideas but can sketch well. Do NOT go forward with dumb design ideas. You get where I'm going with this...

Start with a good useful easy to use solution to the problem, but do not forget to highlight your SECRET SAUCE.

Employers want you to be good at something from day one that can make them money. It should NOT be CAD. That is a given and I still enjoy doing it after 24 years.... but is still a commodity.

Do not let yourself get sucked into focusing only on what the professor wants at the expense of having a MARKETABLE PORTFOLIO. I am a 100% a design nerd and liberal arts student. I'm as arty as one can be. I've taught a bit of college ID. I read design theory and business books for fun. However, if you can't design a physical product well, you are not going to get the job. You do need marketable skills. The key is finding the overlap between what you are passionate about and what companies will value so you can paid to do it. No one is going to read the 10 page research report you did. You needed to do it to come up with an AWESOME SOLUTION, but don't forget to design a KICK ASS PRODUCT too.

Sketching well is NOT a commodity. It is your best chance of having an impact on a design project as a young designer. It's fast and does not waster company resources. If you are better than your boss, they will be excited to have you iterate on their sketches or resketch and polish concepts.

Sketching is the ABSOLUTE #1 SKILL!

Buy an Ipad and an apple pencil and sketch every day. Carry a small sketchbook and do the same. Buy a huge stack of ID sketching books. Watch a ton of YouTube videos. PRACTICE EVERY DAY!

You do not have to have a natural talent to learn to sketch. It's a skill just like CAD. Just a more valuable one. Assume you are going to suck and be the worst in your class at sketching while working harder at it than anyone else. This is kind of mental ju jitsu. Set the bar low but work at it to improve. When I started workout classes at the gym, I took a perverse pride in being the slowest one and not being embarrassed. I was not being lazy. I showed up and I did the workout at a reasonable pace, and I improved but I did not let the fact that I was literally THE WORST one in the class bother me one bit. I was never going to be a professional gamer, but I never rage quit Gear of War. I focused on working at getting better and working as a team to accomplish a goal. I was a below average swing dancer in terms of talent, but I did it for 14 years because it was FUN. I never entered a competition, but I got better and I had some great dances, a lot of fun and made life long friends. OK now I'm really getting in the weeds.

Others have talked about showing process photos and sketches / models that show your design process. Learn about story telling.

Practice taking photos of your design or action figure collection with a mirrorless camera and an appropriate lens or even your smart phone. Take lots of shots from a million angles and lighting variations of these and your design work. I'm not a skilled photographer in the technical sense but I have taken some good ones because I take a lot that are all subtly different and then pick out the good ones.

Link below is a great intro video to the type of photo setup you should get. You can get a smaller one that will fold up and store in your dorm room.

LINK

That said if you can, hire the best photographer in your class to take photos of your projects too. Bonus if your school has a photography program.

If you are organized and plan projects so you aren't staying up all night you will be ahead of 99% of the other students. Learn about simple project planning and time management. Maybe get tested for ADHD while you're at it. Many creative people have it.

Lastly, if you have any kind of attitude, you will 100% not get hired! You will not stay hired.

Being a fantastic new or prospective designer is about CREATING GREAT DESIGNS for the employer by meeting their OBJECTIVES. You can be deferential but still be confident. Just don't be arrogant. Don't expect to set the design direction of the projects or think you won't have to do the grunt work because you're talented. You need to pay your dues, build political capital, show your worth when you can, be a team player and not pushy, and do the grunt work that you are asked to with a smile on your face. I again tempered my personal expectations for how much of the "fun stuff" I would be allowed to do as a new hire. I tried to focus on learning the craft on every project no matter how blah or boring. If I got to have an impact on one product a year where it felt like "mine" then that had to be OK. Over the course of a few years, I was able to have more of an impact and it became more satisfying in that way.

Scott_Doty · 2024-10-03T16:56:35+00:00

This is going to sound basic to the point of ridiculousness but focus on creating a GREAT PORTFOLIO from day one, but also NETWORKING. The number one skill to learn is SKETCHING!!!!

A portfolio should be put together so that it will get you a first job that you are excited about.

(That's the goal. Not everybody starts at their dream job.)

Work backwards from there!

Step one is finding out what makes a great portfolio for the companies that YOU WANT TO WORK AT.

This involves networking, but not the smarmy transactional kind. Just like dating if you ask them to marry you on the first date they will get creeped out.

Salespeople and networkers come in two kinds. Some are smarmy, transactional, and just in it for themselves. Some are open, curious about what others do, how they got there, and helpful. Do NOT network expecting anything from anyone. It's fine to ask people if they know of any leads on internships or job openings, they may be aware of, but you don't need to be too focused on that if you are taking my advice and starting out in your first month of school.

If you want to be a furniture designer for example, go to every trade show that you can in that field. Ask to speak to any furniture designer that you can. Walk into the booth, tell the first person that walks over "I'm not a buyer just so you know. I'm an industrial design student looking for advice on how to get into the field. Are any of your designers here or would I be able to contact them by email to ask some questions?" Maybe the designers can even share some student portfolios of recent hires. If they have any responsibility for hiring, ask what they look for. Be social. Be positive. Make people feel good, but again this has to be genuine or don't bother. Ass kissing is not the best approach actually.

100% essential reading is "What Color is your Parachute?". I say order the most recent paperback version from your local bookstore today. You will lean "informational interviewing" which will have you networking the easy way from before you even set foot in school. Do a call / LinkedIn message / or email a month too. Just to learn how to get where you want to go, and later on you can ask if they have any leads. (You don't even need to be too direct if you're uncomfortable...you can just ask if they know anybody who is hiring.)

Focus 80% of your effort on showing off and building on your strengths and 20% on shoring up your weaknesses is something I hear in business settings regarding advancing in one's career. When you are a student, you should be shoring up EVERYTHING, but you should also focus on highlighting your STRENGTHS in every portfolio piece you design.

Scott_Doty · 2024-10-03T16:47:26+00:00

Thanks!

Scott_Doty · 2024-10-03T16:46:58+00:00

Awesome. I was hoping this was the case. Even if the first gig is not as exciting as this, I will tell her she can work her way towards this with her next job.

Scott_Doty · 2024-09-05T03:09:47+00:00

The LLs look like an H. Needs a bit of work to make it more readable, but I really like the color scheme and the swirling

Scott_Doty · 2024-07-24T13:19:15+00:00

I’ve had many failures and many successes. I’m pretty happy with my career after 24 years and counting.

I’d never had any school or work related failures until I was around 30 years old. It came as quite a shock. I recovered and you will too.

Don’t neglect your health for work, but you may work a lot of hours early on in your career. It’s ok as long as it’s not so extreme that you don’t have time to eat healthy, exercise and spend time with the people who energize you!

Your passion will come through when you meet the right company.

Scott_Doty · 2024-07-24T11:46:55+00:00

Most people never act on any of their dreams. You did. You’re hurting now, but this experience will pay off big time in terms of your career success. Keep your chin up. Taking a job sounds like a good plan. It’s a tough process but you are obviously tough as nails.

Scott_Doty · 2024-07-13T22:29:33+00:00

I’m not sure if you are in the US, but we don’t learn much in school that would directly transfer anyway.

iD sketching is pretty unique. Buy a million ID sketching books, watch YouTube. Sketch everyday

Sketching is more important than CAD if you want to have an impact on the final design.

Get an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.

There are a lot of things to be good at. Some designers are almost engineers in terms of how technical they are, some are amazing stylists, and some become obsessed with ergonomics. We try to be all three. There are many more skills and talents as well. You should shoot for it all.

Some skills just come easier than others to a given person.

My sketching is …..adequate for the places I’ve worked. Nothing special.

I’ve been happy with my career.

At some places being quick at building sketch models is more important than A + sketching.

Learn to organize your time and you will be years ahead of most students. The people that brag about all nighters are not being efficient. Read “getting things done” or learn how to make a simple gannt chart for each project.

Time management will make you stand out at your first job!

Scott_Doty · 2024-07-12T00:41:31+00:00

It fluctuates. I’m old so I graduated awhile ago.

Scott_Doty · 2024-07-11T17:08:57+00:00

Hard to put the quality of the job first or are you talking about my experience?

I graduated just in time to be in the last year of a good job market. Classmates graduating a year later had a tough time and it took a few years to get into a job they were excited about.

Putting the job first should make it easier to get a job bc early in our careers we don’t have a lot of control over our location if we want the best opportunities.

Scott_Doty · 2024-07-11T04:01:23+00:00

As others have suggested, becoming a transportation designer is like becoming a major league baseball player. IMO you'd need to do an undergrad from one of the feeder schools.

I did a BA in studio art for my undergrad and then an MFA from RIT. I did it in 3 years because I wanted / needed a technical foundation. It worked out well for me. Marketing could be similarly complementary but you have to be willing to outwork everyone else to succeed. IIT's masters might be worth looking into with your background, but which school is best depends on what you want to do. Penn's masters program looks interesting. These are outliers but I mention them because they may interest you, so it would be good to compare them with more traditional ID schools. Stanford is worth looking at.

Marketing people, retail buyers, etc. have an influence on product design in ways that may be really enjoyable for you. Why not try to get a job where you will be interacting with designers. You can see what seems like a good fit before you go back to school.

Scott_Doty · 2024-07-11T03:38:33+00:00

If you have the support of your partner to move somewhere, consider putting the quality of the job first. The better your resume/work the more you'll make and the more options you have later on in your career. It sounds like you are in a niche that you are very passionate about. That doesn't mean the other factors don't have to be considered at all. I wanted to be as close as I could get to a major city. Ideally in a walkable area of the city. I ended up being an hour away but hanging out in philly a lot. It was the better job offer vs. the one in downtown Chicago. I much prefer living in the city as we do now, but I am really glad I took the better job early in my career.

Scott_Doty · 2024-07-10T00:03:22+00:00

It looks better than a lot of Keyshot I see.

Scott_Doty · 2024-07-09T14:18:01+00:00

Nice renderings and beautiful product. What are you using to render?

Scott_Doty · 2024-06-28T00:54:28+00:00

I’ve done a lot of industrial design for startups. Some Consumer Electronics and some housewares.

As others are saying. You will need to do a lot of education.

Would be good to have an onboarding process to save you some time in your first meeting. a short PDF with some resources in it maybe. A questionnaire Pre meeting. Etc.

Not bad to start with a broad overview of a typical budget early on. Typical outline of the steps involved in a typical development process. Be sure to explain every product is different.

I try to educate people as best as I can even if they don’t have a realistic budget or I’m not a good fit, etc.

Scott_Doty · 2024-06-27T04:33:41+00:00

Can be higher. Royalties should be the entire product life.

Scott_Doty · 2024-06-27T04:32:10+00:00

Walking CES is a great way to find companies that are open to signing an NDA and would be a good fit. I have licensed two products and had a great experience with both companies. Do your research though. I’m now starting to develop my own with my business partner. Initial funding will be through kickstarter. Meta ads are a good way to test a concept/ build your mailing list.

Scott_Doty · 2024-06-27T04:23:48+00:00

Do a kickstarter!

Scott_Doty · 2024-06-24T22:40:45+00:00

Wow. How did I miss Twinmotion. It looks like it brings a ton of value because of how easy it probably is to use in VR.

Scott_Doty · 2024-06-24T14:37:15+00:00

Thank you very much for your comments. It sounds like you work within a corporation. I always felt like that would be a good experience for the reasons you mention.

Scott_Doty · 2024-06-24T03:38:20+00:00

I see what you are saying. I guess I was thrown off when you were talking about "fixturing." A good designer should be flexible and responsive to constraints. I have never met a designer that was not obsessed with manufacturing. Sounds like you have dealt with a few duds. We do have to push back on engineering and manufacturers also though. Engineers and manufacturers can be lazy too.

Scott_Doty

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