My professional identity

As a designer, I am interested in blending robust and effective engineering solutions with eye-pleasing aesthetics. I position myself as more of a traditional industrial designer with an interest in creating tangible, pleasant-to-use products, especially devices that feature electronics.

Before joining ID at TU/e, I leaned towards pursuing mechanical engineering. For three years I designed and built robots in a student team to compete in a competition. I spent my free time practising skills such as modelling in CAD and understanding how to use the software to create and execute a design with robust construction that fulfils specific functions. The university courses, on the other hand, complemented this knowledge by teaching me about the importance of the design process, and the cycle of analysing, ideating, developing, and executing a design. I find myself confident in being able to evaluate the feasibility of a design as well as be able to account for the needs and desires of consumers and/or society. 

Early in the design process, I like to put focus on market analysis and exploring relevant research to get familiar with the existing solutions. That said, the early problem definition phase has been my weakness. I can take too long in the problem definition phase instead of committing to a decision, losing motivation in the process. I received a lot of advice in this area. My strength has always been the execution phase - developing a sound product and building an impressive demonstrator that conveys the designerly intent (T&R) with strong attention to detail. In terms of teamwork, I have learned to be a lot more diplomatic with and understanding of my teammates. Being on good terms with my group members is often more valuable than being right. This proved especially true during my design research project, where team issues inspired me to read and learn from the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.

A designer should be well-rounded in order to be able to innovate by combining knowledge from diverse areas. One way to do so is to develop in the 5 TU/e ID expertise areas. In terms of U&S, all of the curricular design projects have necessitated learning deeply about the intended user. I sharpened my prior MD&C skills with courses including Digital Craftsmanship and Creative Programming. While I’ve been competent in T&R and some aspects of C&A prior to TU/e, I discovered a desire to learn about entrepreneurship and the business aspect of design. My aspiration is to start a company that brings technological innovation to the market or hold an influential leadership position at a company that does so. I’ve developed myself in this direction by taking multiple courses focused on B&E, most notably the Technology Entrepreneurship three-course USE line. I also actively keep myself up to date with the latest design and technology trends coming to the market.

For this reason, I am especially inspired by successful company founders. For instance, Christian von Koenigsegg, a Swedish founder and CEO, who was able to breach the difficult-to-enter automotive industry in the nineties with his company Koenigsegg, bringing excellent design and a number of innovations to the industry. This includes the introduction of carbon fibre chassis, a unique way of opening the doors of his cars, to name a few. I hope to breach the industry (not necessarily automotive) in a similar way one day. I am currently a design lead in the TU/ecomotive concept car student team, learning a lot about automotive design every week.

Vision

I look forward to a bright future for humanity, but I expect that the current world situation will create new challenges that will demand us to change the way we live and design. While I am a proponent of shifting towards the digital if doing so provides a real benefit, I also believe that industrial design should create a better balance between the physical and digital worlds. I hope to see society becoming less reliant on using screens and smartphones which, in their current form, serve to many as attention-shortening devices. Technology should enable us to make life richer and more fulfilling, but not be its focal point. A designer should be able to find this balance while still finding sensible ways to utilize the latest consumer technologies.

Furthermore, industrial designers should aim to foster their ability to anticipate future change. The better can a designer leverage existing insights to predict an upcoming trend early, the higher their chance to make an influential product that will bring true innovation to the market. Rather than reacting to and incrementally improving on existing designs, an industrial designer should strive to at least try to do things differently, however difficult that may be in today’s hyperconnected age. To do so, designers must stay up to date with new trends and innovations. They must be lifelong learners and generalists with a wide breadth of knowledge.

With industrial design being as broad as it is, I find it difficult and perhaps unnecessary, to narrow down my focus to specific areas. A designer’s passions and interests should be allowed to change and evolve over time. That said, one area I find fascinating and see a lot of potential in is additive manufacturing, as 3D printing has been my long-term interest. While the technology is ideal and well-used from the prototyping standpoint, I believe it will also gain prominence outside of prototyping, especially with the AI design capabilities now available. One of the main reasons for this is that I see the trend of personalisation of products becoming more important. Brands will be able to appeal to their customers’ specific wants and needs without drastically raising the costs. This can be a custom shape or pattern on a product or a more complex item such as a prosthetic limb or custom-fit wearable gear, such as skiing shoes. With additive manufacturing, it is possible to adjust the product to perfectly fit the customer’s body or preferences.