International – Page 2

Ich bin ein Berliner…

Last week 1^st and 2^nd 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.

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 20^th century and the magnificent 368m tall Fernsehturm Tower with its incredible views of the whole city.

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

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.

Tom’s Magic Tips

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 28^th 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.

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.

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.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: