A welcome return.

Last week we were delighted to welcome Tina Gray, Head of Innovation and Design at Mayborn Group , to the University. Tina gave a special guest lecture entitled “Working in Design, Perspectives from a leading design and manufacturing company”

Mayborn are best known for their Tommee Tippee brand which can be found in the major highstreet retailers.    Their feeding, weaning and monitoring products are used by parents and children around the world. Tina gave some insights into the Mayborn design and development process from briefing to production, and some of the issues that operate in this highly competitive market.Tina also discussed the skills and qualities that she looks for when recruiting designers.

After the lecture Tina spent the afternoon in the Product Design studio talking informally with students “one-to-one” and in small groups.

Tina and Mayborn are great friends of the course and it always pleasure to welcome our friends to give specialist lectures.

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Teamwork @ Dyson with Ben Russi

Since graduating with a first class degree in Product Design from Teesside University in 2012, Ben Russi has gone from strength to strength.  After completing a Master’s degree in Multidisciplinary Design Innovation and a 6-month internship, Ben snapped up an opportunity to work as part of the design engineering team at Dyson.  He returned to Teesside on Friday 15th January to inspire our product design students, offering an insight into the world of work for a graduate product designer.

‘Working at Dyson offers a lot of creative freedom. Within the first few weeks, I learnt a lot and the expectations of me where high. Very little time was wasted and quite rapidly, I was contributing to projects’

Each year Dyson gives them an Engineering challenge.  You can see last year’s challenge by clicking the image below and read more about it on twitter @ #ChallengeDyson:

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Click the image above to see the Dyson Challenge

Communication and cooperation form the basis of any business, but at Dyson, it is brought to the forefront.

Ben had some wise words for students about what he learned while studying his Bachelors and Masters degrees:

‘The Best way to learn about problems and possible solutions is to get out of the studio speak to people and research the problem. Always test your concepts and learn from each one. Inspiration is rarely found sitting at a drawing board.’

With the beginning of the third year’s major project, Ben had one final piece of advice for our final year students.

“Organise your time from day one, and put in as much time as early as you can.  Any time you miss now will have to be made up further down the line.”

Whether delving into a design career or continuing with further study, determination and perseverance are key.

You can read more about Bens’ early experiences at Dyson here.