Category: Product Design

Ireland abounds…

Product Design graduates Anna Staples and Emma Braham applied for European Placements and both ended up working in Cork, Ireland, on three month internship schemes.

Anna has been working for a company called Quay Designs who upcycle  furniture and sell it on in their own shop. Anna says:

“I am really enjoying working at Quay Designs because its allowing me to have a hands on approach with all the furniture, see how timber and oak is treated, we get a lot of different styles of furniture in, art deco and 50s kind of stuff. It’s actually ideal for me at the moment. I also get to see what styles of furniture are on trend and what colours are on trend also.”

Emma has been working for Air Dryer Systems Ltd in their new product development department.  Emma says:

“The experience has been really good, working on products to extend their current range”

Anna is hoping to extend her stay in Ireland for a further 3 months, whilst Emma has since secured a new position back in England.

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Ich bin ein Berliner…

Last week 1st and 2nd year Product Design students could be found in the German capital, Berlin. The main part of the study visit was a day trip to the truly wonderful VW Autostadt in Wolfsburg, probably the world’s first automobile theme park, with its beautifully designed pavilions and of course the cars.

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Other visits included the Reichstag, with the large glass dome designed by British Architect Norman Foster, the Bauhaus Archive Museum of Design, with its extensive collection art pieces relating to one of the most influential art and design schools of the 20th century and the magnificent 368m tall Fernsehturm Tower with its incredible views of the whole city.

DSCF0437 DSCF0486 P1100323 Overall it was an excellent few days with lots to see and do. Watch out for more posts from the trip.P1100460

Take a seat: Date for the diary

Postponed from 28th Feb,

Product Design graduate Jonathan Prestwich will be visiting the University this Friday (7th March) to talk about his very successful career as a freelance furniture designer and consultant.

Jonathan graduated from Teesside in 1995 and for 2 years worked as a junior designer for a consultancy in Boston Massachusetts.  From there he worked in France for 6 years as a design manager for Burkhard Vogtherr, a successful German designer, which gave him the experience and contacts needed to set up on his own.

Since then he has produced designs for many well known international furniture companies including Arco (Netherlands), Arflex (Italy), Davis (USA), KlÖber (Germany) and Modus (UK).

Time: 1:00 p.m.

Venue: Centuria Building (School of Health) Lecture Theatre H0.01

Jonathan will then be available during the afternoon to speak with students in the Product Design studio.

Body chair, Davis Furniture (USA) frame lounge, Arco Muebel (NL) Web Tec, Davis Furniture (USA) OS Lounge Chair by Jonathan Prestwich OS_wallpaper

Ben cleans up at Dyson

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Product Design graduate Ben Russi has been succesful in securing a graduate Design Engineering position working for British inventor, industrial designer and founder of the Dyson company, Sir James Dyson. Dyson is best known as the inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner, which works on the principle of cyclonic separation.

On getting the role Ben said:

“Interviewing for a position at Dyson as a Graduate Design Engineer originally made me quite nervous as to be expected. On the day I quickly realised however that this interview was going to be quite different to others, both days where extremely enjoyable based around demonstrating my creativity as a designer and technical understanding and fundamentally my design process and thinking. The Dyson employees where very friendly, answering all of my questions about the role very openly. On getting the position I was understandably very excited, I have not stopped thinking about what I might be doing since and cannot wait to start my new role. The course at Teesside University prepared me greatly for the interview process, I used all of the skills and new ways of thinking I had learnt over the three year course. The product design course also gave me the confidence to apply and push for a role with such an innovative and exciting company. It is a course I would highly recommend to any aspiring Designer or Design Engineer.”

Tom’s Magic Tips

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Teesside ex-student, Tom Crisp, now Design Director at Design Partners in San Fransisco, came back to Teesside last week and wowed Product Design Students with a bundle of stories about life as a designer.

As well as showing his award winning portfolio of work he has done for Wacom ( Cintiq, Bamboo and Intuos), Heinz Ketchup (new squeezy bottle), Intel ( Mobile Metro), Villeroy and Boch, Logitech and Proctor and Gamble, he gave a talk entitled ‘Twenty Things I wish I could have told myself at University‘. Among his top tips for designers were ‘Make Things Constantly, Experiment and Have Fun‘, ‘Make Friends with Criticism’ and ‘Add Magic. Always’. Students were then treated to a master class in drawing and some feedback about an on-going sledge project.

Tom also invited students to submit their portfolios to him for the possibility of working for Design Partners as an intern. It was a truly inspirational day. Tom has promised to come back to share more of his wisdom next year. See more of Tom and teams work  at http://www.designpartners.com/.

‘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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