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  Eric Strebel

  7 years ago

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  1. I went to school for Architecture at a two year college right out of high school and figured out what I did not what to do, Architecture. One of my teachers knew someone who worked at GM and got me a list of all the schools that had Industrial Design programs and that got me on the path to being an Industrial Designer.
  2. I have design mainly hand held consumer products, Wearable Tech, Bottles, Containers, Wireless chargers and equipment, Sunglasses, Medical and Personal care products as well as an occasional Toy. I do a lot of concept development work, hand sketching and rendering, CAD, Visualization, that end usually with functional prototypes cast in resin to simulate production parts as well as production data.
  3. There is no such thing as a average day as a Designer, every one is different than the last, it's what I love about being a designer. I run my own Design studio "Botzen Design". The day can start with answering a few emails from clients, then some sketching, perhaps a video conference with a client somewhere else on the planet. If I have models or mock ups to make then I do model work, and when stuff is "setting up" I sketch. Sometimes I need to write proposal for future work or just hold a clients hand to let them know it's going to be ok….
  I also teach at Wayne State and CCS here in Detroit. Those days are not typical when you deal with students either! There are demos to give, lectures to present and crits to engage the students with.
  4. Most people have no idea what an Industrial Designer is! It is rare that someone knows. It's part of being a product designer, educating the public and those around me about what I do and where products come from. It always amazes me that I can explain what I do, and people just can not always grasp the concept. It does not help that there are engineers out there that call themselves designers, it makes things confusing, it's quite annoying to say the least.
  5 No it does not affect me. But I see it in the education part of my life. Many of my female design students drop out at some point or just give up and go other directions for various reasons, much more so than their male counterparts. It always saddens me to see this as many of them are extremely talented.
  6. The industry has changed over the last decade in two main ways, the economy and technology. The current democratic economy is much stronger than it was under the republican run recession era, there are many many more opportunities for design projects in the last 4-6 years. Technology has significantly changed the way design is done today. I can be pretty much anywhere (with in reason) as long as I have access to some sort of industrial base close by to support me in my design process and get supplies. Internet access is key as well. Computers are fast enough to do what I need and 3D printing is getting better, faster, and cheaper every day.
  7. The most challenging part of my job is the "accounting" and "production". I hate all the work that goes into the accounting, billing tracking and running a business, don't even get me started on the part about the tax work that is involved. The challenging part about "design" part, is the production for me. While I create plenty of production data there is a lot of hand holding, phone calls and emails and design guides when it comes time to cut tools and get everything coordinated for my clients. I could do with out all of that headache. The rewarding part is the look on my clients face when they see my concepts, prototypes and then the production parts. I enjoy the journey that I take with my clients and the experience we have together. I truly enjoy solving the problem at hand and sharing those ideas. Oh, getting the check is pretty sweet too!
  8. It's tough to say how my identity is tied to my design work. I guess it depends on your point of view. If I am your teacher, you only know me as a designer. If you are a personal friend you probably have a much different view of me. I defiantly get to be myself as a designer as opposed to working some sort of a corporate job. I wear whatever I want regardless of if I have a client meeting or I am sitting at my desk. If you watch my YouTube videos you will see that I am usually wearing a Motörhead T-shirt and black jeans, thats a pretty standard look for me on a day to day basis.

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  mehmet oney

  7 years ago

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  1. Actually, I was meant to be a maker. Destroying every toy I got, tearing up devices, and building them back was a casual curiosity for me.. Than I heard there was a department called industrial design at the arts faculty I wanted to get in, I thought, wow that's me. :)

  
  

  2. At my first years of work life, mostly focused on, coming up new ideas as products like every new grad, I was into inventing stuff at those days.. After 2-3 years, I intended to create stuff according to needs from the briefs I got. There were no wrongs and rights, I only got 1 guide, ---brief---.  After 5-6 years, I was more dominant at projects, started to guide brief makers, for better ones, by questioning their needs, understanding them better.. Most cases all those years, I tried to satisfy the customer, (project givers as R&D, Marketing, Sales, Companies etc) according to their briefs. (I worked at home appliances field around 15 years)

  
  

  3. Research, learn, try, sketch, solve, decide.. After I made my mind for the best solution, 3D modelling and rendering. Work days generally goes like this.

  
  

  4. They don't. And they don't need to. We are the ones, who need to convince them why they need us, and teach them why it is important, according to their products and projects.

  
  

  5. It depends, when we look at to the fields that industrial design needed, dominant gender may change according to products.. I witnessed that for most serious manufactured products, like appliances etc, we can say those fields are male dominant. When it comes to furniture, or more trend related fashion guided products like jewelry or tableware, female designers come forward. 

  
  

  6. Till 2000s, creating nice forms matches to functions were much more important. Than creating products with a story got more attention. After the sustainability and UX got promoted at past 15 years,  creating a product that serves emotions, cultures, health etc got much more important now. 

  
  

  7. Challenging: to find a solution that works for everybody. (to me as a designer, to the investor, to the manufacture side, to the sales side etc.)

  Rewarding: Witnessing that the final product embraced by end-users as you imagined.

  
  

  8. It depends. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't according to the project I involved. I don't complain, I do my job, try to fulfill what have been asked from me. 

  
  

  A Turkish designer who works in China.

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  Chris Weigand

  7 years ago

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  1) I'd been drawing buildings, cars, dinosaurs, you name it, also drawing inventions and whatnot my entire childhood into high school. Ultimately I loved cars and wanted to design them. I had no idea what an industrial designer was, but figured out that's who got to design cars. I ended up going to a school for ID that gave a more rounded education vs. focusing on transportation. After school I came back to Ohio and got a job designing temporary display of all things. I didn't even know people did that.

  2) Retail design is my specialty, though occasionally we take on product design projects, or internal projects that pique my interest. I design displays, fixtures, and store environments. Clients also utilize my research and trend analysis expertise as well. Those are the fun projects. 

  3) We have a home office so my commute consist is walking down the hall, avoiding the random cat or kid along the way. I start around 7 or 8am either going through office work or wrapping up a project to get off to a client before the phone starts ringing and new project work rolls in around ten o'clock. I work to take a definitive break around noon for lunch. Then the afternoon is spent with project work, or out at retail, or doing research. We turn projects around quickly so work extends into about six o'clock then dinner and family time. If something needs to be wrapped up then I'll work after the kids are in bed. I generally try to decompress and reset at the end of the day with a glass of wine and a movie before getting a few hours sleep and starting all over again.

  4) In twenty plus years of being an industrial designer, I have yet to find many people (anyone?) who knows what an industrial designer does. This includes many clients lol.

  5) For successful design it is imperative to get a range of perspectives. It boggles my mind that any design house or team would be all guys. Most of our design collective is actually female (graphic design, copywriting, interior design), although both of our industrial designers are male.

  6) You can't just make something cool and say "look at my cool thing, pick this". Clients and ultimately users are savvy. We try to teach clients who come to us wanting just something "cool" that in today's marketplace it's imperative that we make fact based design decisions. Yes, it will look cool, but let's make sure it makes sense first, then we'll infuse style into it. You'll never win if all your design has to stand on is looks.

  7) As consultants we're pretty much on call 24/7, but that also means we can (generally) take on the work that we want to. Work that is rewarding, or if it's more mundane, we know is going to pay the bills and we get to switch gears a bit. I personally work on 130+ projects a year. In the last four years I've worked on projects for over 150 different brands - often times they may not even know it but pretty much every major retail brand, and dozens of major product brands - we've influenced how they connect with guests. I have the best job in the world.

  8) My work as an industrial designer doesn't define me, rather it the other way around I feel. I'm a painter, writer, designer, carpenter, bee keeper...I have so many interests. Being an industrial designer allows me to exercise many of my passions, while bringing insight and creativity to my clients, all while keeping a roof over my family's head. I'm forty-three and still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I do know I want to do interesting things and have fun doing whatever it is I do.

  
  

  I'm from Ohio btw.

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  Mike Boylan

  7 years ago

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  This would make a great anonymous poll style q&a thing for core77.

   

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  Eric Strebel

  7 years ago

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  So how do we apply to this to be interviewed?? 

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    Rain Noe

    Eric Strebel

    7 years ago

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    I was thinking you answer right here in the comments! Would be fun to read the responses side-by-side.
    

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  Noodle Time

  7 years ago

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  why make question 5 a loaded question? (or even a question at all?)
  

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