‘Ketchup’ with Tom

Product Design Alumni , Tom Crisp, will be returning to Teesside on January 28th to give a talk about his career so far, working with some of the world’s best design consultancies, and to spend time in the studios with the product design students.

After graduating in 2004 Tom moved to Portland, Oregon to work for for international design consultancy ‘Ziba Design’ at their HQ and, for a short while, at their office in Germany. After 6 years he moved to San Francisco and spent a year and a half at ‘New Deal Design’ working alongside world renowned designer Gadi Amit. After that he was offered the opportunity to start a design studio in San Francisco for the Irish company ‘Design Partners’. They are now in their second full year of running the studio, getting it established and growing the team.

Tom has worked on: Many of the Wacom tablets and screens, the Fitbit products, the new Heinz Ketchup bottles, high-profile laptops, design strategy programs, in-depth research and conceptual projects. His clients have included: Heinz, Fitbit, Wacom, Citibank, Intel, Dell, Logitech, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson and Samsung.Newly_Redesigned_HeinzKetchup_Bottles51Lbf6K3AkL notebook stacktc1 wacomintuos4medium

Class of 2013 – part 2

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Graduation was great last week and enabled us to catch up with our graduates and find out what they have been up to since leaving in the Summer.

‘Tees Made’ is happy to report that a many of our graduates had started in full-time work or education. In roles such as product design, packaging design, design engineering, self start-up, teaching in Asia and teacher training.

More news will follow so watch this space.

Tales from the Middle Kingdom

Teesside Graduate Conor Barnes’ ambition whilst a student was to teach in the far east. Since graduating in May Conor has realised that dream.The following is Conors 1st email since starting work.

‘I work at Changsha Foreign Language School as the head of junior two’s (12-14 yrs.) oral English lesson, where for the past few weeks I’ve been teaching them a range of topic’s; from Music genre’s to parts of the human body. Also teaching how to make comparisons, superlatives, spellings, pronunciation, etc.

I found that I’ve adjusted to life here very well and are already considering staying another few years.  I have made many friends here in Changsha and have a busy social life when I’m off duty, I’ve even started a band and we should be starting to play some shows around the pubs and club next month.’

Check back for further updates from Conor.

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Careers in Packaging Design

You may remember reading an earlier post about Abigail Holden.   Abi secured a Silver Award in this year’s Student Starpack Awards.   Well…, to update you on her progress…, Abi went on to develop a retail trolley packing system for her major project.   She exhibited this at the New Designers Exhibition in London during July and caught the eye of Tescos.   Subsequently she was invited to Tescos head office to present her concept.

These projects undoubtedly helped Abi secure her first job in the design profession.   Abi has joined international packaging company Chesapeake as a packaging designer, initially being based in Bradford.

Abi is joining another Teesside Alumni, Richard Turnock, a structural packaging designer who will be helping her to settle into her new role.   We, in Product Design have worked with Chesapeake for many years including through live student projects and Carol Hammond, Head of New Product Design (Pharmaceuticals) gave an inspirational talk at the university last year.   The packaging industry offers some great opportunities for design graduates.   It is sometimes an overlooked area when graduates are seeking employment but Design at Teesside has a long history of success in this area

We are so pleased that Chesapeake selected a “Teessider” for this new post and send Abi our very best wishes.    Don’t forget to keep in touch Abi! 

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Students enjoy Joint Chinese ‘Design for Ageing’ Project

Second year Product Design students kicked off a joint project with their Chinese counterparts at the  Suzhou Art and Design Technology Institute with a group Skype call where all the students and staff met each other and discussed the details of an exciting new  project. Paul Denison, Principal Lecturer (International) has been working towards getting the project off the ground for 3 years. The project is called ‘Design for our Future Selves’ and the idea is that students from each institution help each other to research issues around ageing in both China and the UK. They then design products in small groups that are ‘cross cultural’ and suitable to be sold in both markets.

The project is being facilitated by two Chinese students who are studying in the 2nd year and who are acting as translators as well as being team members. It is hoped that all sudents will develop a strong sense of working internationally and that this will help them to develop skill sets which set them apart from graduates in other universities.WP_000226 WP_000228

Wheelie good news from Jannicke

JannickeTeesside University Product Design graduate Jannicke Rogne, was part of a team that recently won a professional runner up award for social impact in the Core77 2013 Design Awards working for Norwegian organisation Design Without Borders.

Jannicke worked with her team in Guatemala designing and developing a pediatric wheelchair  customised to the needs of children in Guatemala, in partnership with Guatemalen charitable foundation Transiciones. Transiciones, who manufacture low cost wheelchairs for marginalised social groups, lacked a wheelchair targeted towards children in its product range. The needs of a Guatemalan users and the local challenges of poor infrastructure, availability of materials, production facilities, costs and ergonomics were taken into the design process.

The project was also aimed at transferring knowledge about design methodologies, to enable the highly skilled technicians at Transiciones to customise wheelchairs more efficiently and continue to design new models.

Jannicke, along with her team, returned to Teesside recently to give an inspiring and thought-provoking talk about the project and how they had changed people’s lives.

For more information click here: Norsk Form | About Design without borders

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Jannicke and the Transiciones technical team. Photographer Juan Carlos Noguera
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Photographer Juan Carlos Noguera
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Photographer Juan Carlos Noguera
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Product launch. Photographer Juan Carlos Noguera
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Synne Christiansen (project manager, Design without Borders) at last year’s Design without Borders – Creating Change exhibition in Oslo. Photographer Kjersti Gjems Vangberg

 

Surely, this must be the best job in design!

 == STOP PRESS! ==

A date for your diaries!   We are delighted to be kicking off the new academic year in style with a very special lecture on 3rd October 2013.

Marek Reichman, Director of Design at Aston Martin and one of our prestigious Alumni will be talking about his career and designing for the “coolest car brand in the world”   Marek is a great friend to the course and it is always a pleasure to welcome him back to Teesside.

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This talk will be open to all current Teesside Product Design students and external invited guests.   We will have more details shortly but, in the meantime, keep this date clear!

If you are not currently a student at Teesside but would like to attend, please send a request to Peter Reid – p.reid@tees.ac.uk (non Teesside University attendees are limited and subject to availability)

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New Designers Showreel 2013

The above showreel showcases the student work that was on display at this year’s New Designers Exhibition in London.  The exhibiton was a great opportunity for our students to get their work in front of 100’s of professionals from the design and manufacturing industries. A record breaking 18,265 visitors came along to see the exhibition  – the highest footfall in it’s 28 year history.

Greetings from London

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Just a few images of us preparing for New Designers and our stand at the exhibition in the Business Design Centre, Islington.

What can I say…, the set up went smoothly and we have had some great responses from visitors; professionals and public alike about our graduating students’ work.    New Designers, if you don’t already know is THE national showcase for graduating students from around the UK and is the place to be to get noticed and meet companies looking to employ new design talent.    As always we have been joined by old friends on the stand who work in the industry.    Marek Reichman, Aston Martin design director and great friend to the course dropped by yesterday.   I  also had a couple of really interesting meetings with other industry partners which I am confident will lead to a rolling programme of  one year internships starting next year (so watch this space) and some special guest speakers from the likes of Samsung.   Anyway, there is still time to come along and… and… we even have a few complimentary tickets so e-mail if you are in London and would like to visit us.   p.reid@tees.ac.uk  (the show is open today and tomorrow – 5th, 6th July)

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