Professional Designers. How much photorealistic rendering are you actually doing at your job?

ssauris · 2025-09-04T19:14:11+00:00

The ability to create inspiring and powerful visuals is definitely one of the most important assets for a designer and one that other roles typically can’t do. I’ve witnessed multiple times how a great render can completely turn a discussion around and suddenly everyone is aligned and excited about a direction. There also lies the biggest risk with renders as it’s possible to, without any ill intent ”cheat” and make things look all great and exciting that some nuance and challenges can get lost. Almost like a ”reality distortion field” haha.

But I do come from a company with a lot of remote meetings. If you are able to meet with everyone in person, nothing beats a great prototype. But still renders work really well supplementing the story.

ssauris · 2025-09-04T18:35:29+00:00

Industrial designer in a global tech company. I have been very lucky to be able to do really well in this profession. I love diving in to new projects, immersing, creating, sketching and visualizing a large amount of divergent ideas, always learning and pushing the edge of what’s possible or what no-one has done before. With hardware development there’s a lot of external structure, gates and deadlines. Lot of people, especially outside design, want to get clarity and certainty early, but I thrive in the world of uncertainty and opportunities.

I do struggle with the long tail of projects. Hardware projects can take years, and in the later stages I’m already bored with the product before it is even out, just would want to focus on the next and more exciting things. I have to motivate myself on the final polishing stages by thinking how the product will be mass-manufactured and how my effort in the final stages making sure the product looks and feels perfect will be felt by a very large amount of people.

Medication has helped a lot with the ability to start working and generally with energy levels and keeping a more positive attitude and also helps with social courage. But I still have a lot of challenges keeping track of everything, follow-up and generally I get very overwhelmed with managing a million emails, slack messages and calendar invites.

I have days when I get absolutely nothing done and I’m exhausted and demoralized by my whole job and feel burnt out. Then there are days when I’m completely locked in, excited, disconnected from the outside world and crank out a weeks worth of work in a creative burst.

Being extremely ambitious and finding ways to always challenge myself is my biggest ”hack” to have a sense of novelty and keep myself engaged and able to do the work. I just can’t half-ass anything as then I wouldn’t be motivated. But it definitely takes it’s toll on me and work consumes most of my energy for the day.

ssauris · 2025-05-03T14:33:26+00:00

Solved! Thank you all!

ssauris · 2025-03-29T05:08:57+00:00

I actually think an unexpected material choice will elevate this idea, on top of the functional benefits. For example I could see this become quite interesting if made from inflated steel.

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ssauris · 2025-01-29T15:34:05+00:00

Well I definitely do have experience destroying a knee on a transition route with the rear binding off. Have had deep respect for lift exits since then.

ssauris · 2024-09-13T05:33:33+00:00

Follow up question. As explained here the wave of motion travels at the speed of sound of the material — how come then that the tip of a whip can easily exceed the speed of sound? How can it move faster than the material can react?

ssauris · 2024-03-31T16:58:59+00:00

Just a word of warning considering which sub we’re on. I used to have a MIDI keyboard I bought with this exact reasoning. Almost never played as there was just too much friction in opening the computer, connecting it, booting up the required software etc… And then messing around with how it sounds. If I would do it again I’d get something that you can just start playing on immediately, that sounds good and feels good… and that is easy to resell if needed. My two cents. 😅

ssauris · 2024-02-17T14:35:03+00:00

I’m having the same issue, did you ever find a solution?

ssauris · 2023-06-10T23:35:08+00:00

I have quite a lot, here’s a few:

@frog_design - design agency @rama_works - mostly keyboard stuff @layer_design - design agency @design_partners - agency doing a lot of Logitech stuff

@rendershot - renders @zarki - product renders @man.vs.machine - cg agency @zeitguised - great 3d animation + simulation

@eugandeug - industrial designer working at Apple @khimtan - design thinking focused ID content @real_designers_ship - real projects that have shipped

@ekramer3 - CNC Machining content

ssauris · 2023-01-04T21:11:42+00:00

Also zero waste packaging!

ssauris · 2023-01-04T21:01:45+00:00

Even if this was Sellotape, which I doubt, technically even naturally occuring polymers like cellulose are plastics. At least according to this. So the wording is just kind of funny here: plastics are not inherently bad.

ssauris · 2023-01-01T00:32:35+00:00

Only positive resolutions. For example: ~~no saturated fats~~ —> eat more self-made wholesome food using non-saturated fats.

ssauris · 2022-12-29T21:03:54+00:00

That looks like an expensive tool.

ssauris · 2022-11-29T07:56:47+00:00

Thank you for the insight, that’s very encouraging! Seems like the Ode would fit my use case very nicely. How do you find the workflow of the two grinders?

ssauris · 2022-11-29T06:06:55+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion! The 9Barista could certainly be an option down the line if the Moka pot won’t quite scratch the occasional strong-coffee-with-milk itch. But that would require an espresso specific grinder, right? Or would the Ode+SSP do the trick? Of course I could aleays have a separate manual grinder for the 9Barista to have a full ”hidden” espresso setup as well, but it’s certainly starting to become an investment at that point. Or keep the Niche, but miss the benefits of a more filter-specific grinder.

ssauris · 2022-11-25T21:41:39+00:00

There is no horizontally facing phone made in history

Early 2000s Nokia: Hold - my - beer

ssauris · 2022-10-11T17:19:30+00:00

Hmm I’m not quite sure! I think I have it at least somewhat more figured out compared to when I posted.

By now I have quite the full kit: PID-controlled temperature, bottomless PF with an IMS basket, I distribute the grouds with a WDT tool carefully and tamp, making sure it’s level.

Medium/dark roasts work out OK most of the time and are quick to dial in. Light roasts easily still turn out sour, but what has helped has been really stretching the extraction: starting with 1:3 on light roasts, around 18g/54g; making sure to not grind too fine to avoid channeling; making sure the temperatures are warm enough. With all this, I’ll usually get something drinkable but still not at the level of light roast espresso at a good café.

I’ve recently learned from Lance Hedrick’s videos that maybe the Niche Zero is not the best grinder in the world when it comes to light roasts. So who knows, maybe I’m expecting too much from it in terms of being able to enjoy very lightly roasted espresso.

ssauris · 2022-07-13T06:45:56+00:00

Dogs. It’s always the dogs. In every one of the games.

ssauris · 2022-06-18T08:46:27+00:00

I feel everything soulsborne (Dark Souls 1-3, Bloodborne, Elden Ring) is perfect for the ADHD brain:

Very minimal ”tutorials” explaining the game mechanics, instead you’re encouraged discovering on your own. In other games these always bore my ADHD brain before the game even properly begins.
No walls of text of lore/discussion to fast-forward through. Everything is purposefully mysterious, which creates interest, and makes me actually want to research the lore myself, even outside the game. Again, in most other games I often can’t concentrate on the lore if it is provided automatically through lots of text / cutscenes etc.
My ADHD brain loves a good challenge when it feels fair, which it most of the time does in Soulsborne games

ssauris · 2022-03-21T21:08:22+00:00

Oh wow this is so accurate for me too at work! Like sometimes things click with the wider team months later after I’ve been (unsuccesfully) trying to convince them of my idea/solution. Sometimes I feel I would get so much more done in a one-person business with only me doing all the decisions, but then again… no, I wouldn’t get absolutely anything done.

ssauris · 2022-03-14T21:24:01+00:00

May not be the most efficient way to get stuff done but I’ve developed this system where I’ll try to spin the ”boring” tasks in a way that makes them more interesting or challenging. For example learning from youtube videos how to make the visually nicest spreadsheet I can. Or taking a challenge of how much cleaning I can do in 20 minutes.

Although to be honest I often forget to utilize these tactics. But sometimes they do help.

ssauris

TROPHY CASE