Recently we had the pleasure of interviewing Spencer Nugent, a principal designer from Studio t-minus and co-founder of ID Sketching. A vibrant design studio based in Sacramento CA, Studio t-minus specializes in creative and results-driven product design and brand identity solutions. In this interview Spencer shares his thoughts on ID Sketching, a free online website for sharing sketch and visual communication tutorials aimed specifically for industrial designers, illustrators, visual artists and students. Founded with John Muhlenkamp ID Sketching has quickly become a valuable online source for students and designers. Spencer also tells us about his own experiences as a student and intern, his passion for teaching, and bestow some words of wisdom when starting your own design studio!

For more information on Spencer Nugent and Studio T-minus please check out http://www.studiotminus.com/, http://www.sketch-a-day.com/, and http://www.idsketching.com for free video tutorials, work samples, and design sketching tools.

Interview by Roxanne Palisada  – @embody3d

General Questions

Hi Spencer, thank you for taking the time for an Interview with Embody 3D today. Can you tell us what first led you to become a designer?

I actually was on track to becoming a math teacher when I decided to switch things over to Industrial design. I love teaching and I suppose that’s where the desire and drive to help others comes from.

One day, a friend of mine told me about what he was studying and immediately things started to click for me. As a child, I’d always been curious about how things worked, fit together, and came apart. Industrial designed combined many things I loved into one thing, and that’s when it all clicked for me.

What is your personal motto?

I don’t have a personal motto really. If anything, I’m known as the “sketch guy”, and in that case, my motto would be “sketch, sketch, sketch”.

Teaching has remained a large part of your life; working as an Industrial Design Teaching Assistant at the Brigham Young University and more recently running workshops for ID Sketching. Can you tell us what challenges you have come across in teaching design, designers, or teaching in general?

It’s easy to have an idea, and another thing to effectively communicate that idea. I find that in teaching, the challenge of communicating years of experience in a finite time can be quite difficult and challenging. It’s really a design problem in itself. Students or workshops participants become my users with specific needs. Delivering the content in a way that suits everyone at some level is challenging.

Perhaps one of the most rewarding things for me lies in seeing someone directly benefit from someone I taught or shared.

Can you tell us how your experiences while as an Intern in Astro Studios Inc. and General Motors Tech Center shaped you as a professional?

I’ve had wonderful experiences as an intern. Both experiences were significantly different. For one thing, working in a consulting environment at ASTRO Studios forced me to be super creative on the fly. That experience also taught me to quickly adapt and focus on sharpening my core skills as a student.

General Motors was great too! I loved the people, the challenge, and the project. We were placed in a multidisciplinary team and tasked to design a car of the future for Gen-Y. The challenge of working with others who weren’t designers taught me a lot about the importance of clear visual communication as a means of cross disciplined communication.

Currently you are a full time principal designer at Studio T-minus and also keep ID Sketching and Sketch-A-Day online and up to date. Can you tell us what a typically day is like for you?

Well, life just got infinitely more insane for me with the arrival of my son Oliver. With that new challenge, I’ve had to be a bit more selective about my time. I still try keeping sketch-a-day up to date, but lately it’s been more of a sketch-every-other-day thing.

A typical day starts off with answering piles of email (I swear some days I want to delete the program), then depending on project load and my capacity at the time, I work on the project at hand or focus on ideas for ID sketching and sketch-a-day. My schedule usually is flexible and I enjoy having that freedom to work on what I really love to do.

Congratulations on your new bundle of joy! =) Can you tell us about any upcoming projects you’re working on for ID Sketching, Studio T-minus or for personal interests?

Right now, my wife and I are in the process of purchasing a new home. It’s a fixer-upper, and I look forward to working on all the improvements we plan to make. It’s like painting with a mostly blank canvas.

As for professional projects, I rather not disclose clients at this time. Needless to say, we’ve been working on some exciting products and will share at studiotminus.com when the time is right.

Student Related Questions

From your experience, what were the most valuable lessons you learnt as a design student?

I loved my experience at BYU. One of the most important things I learned is that what you get out of your education is in large part due to how much you put in to dedicated effort and focus during your years as a student. Be a sponge and take in as much as you can around you. Students have a hard job I think – Fresh out of college, you’ll be required to be masters of many things equally at the same time. A “jack-of-all-trades” if you will. This can be really taxing.

Was there anything you wish you had learned that you believe would have helped your career into the industry?

I think a better understanding of what’s “good enough” would have helped me entering the industry. As a student, it’s easy getting lost in the pursuit for perfection when putting together a concept or sketch. Now I have a better understanding of what’s good enough and the right fit and feel for my clients. No doubt, this takes time to understand, but it would have been nice to have that advantage right out of school.

I think many design students can definitely relate to being lost in that pursuit for perfection in more ways than one! What words of wisdom can you give to those who are interested in an Industrial Design course?

Perhaps the most key advice I could give is to be like a sponge. Absorb it all and be good at everything. Excel at what you love to do the most, but be good at everything and try to be well-rounded rather than purely one-dimensional.

What advice can you give to current Industrial Design students or recent graduates entering the design industry? Do you have any tips on finding that first design job, or job hunting in the design industry in general?

Be yourself. Show your personality in your work and come prepared to offer something unique to whatever team you’re trying to be a part of.

Do you accept internships or work experience from design students at Studio T-minus? If so what would you suggest to students when submitting their portfolios?

Yes, we do. We look for students that are capable of hitting the ground running. As a smaller studio, our projects run on a very quick timeline and so it’s important for those on the team to be able to keep up with everyone else. No better way to learn than by being thrown in the deep end.

Sketching related Questions

What would you suggest to others who want to improve their sketching and rendering techniques?

Draw from observation and draw from imagination. Observational drawing will not only teach you how to interpret 3D form in a 2D medium, but it will also teach you about composition and design as you sketch and draw other successfully harmonious designs.

Did you ever imagine how successful ID Sketching has become? What future plans are there for ID Sketching?

I never imagined it would be this successful. I imagined it being there, but not THERE. I’ve gone from recording videos here and there to hosting workshops in person in the short space of 2 or so years. It’s been a great experience, and most of all, I love the opportunity it gives me to help those around me who had similar struggles as I did when I was a student.

One plan I have set in motion is “IDSKETCHING LIVE”. I plan on experimenting with live sketch video stream in a Q&A format over Ustream.com.

As for the future, I’ve cooked up many a plan. It really comes down to time and resources. Without saying too much, I plan on becoming more tangible with ID Sketching in the near future.

A live sketch video stream sounds like a great idea and definitely something we are looking forward to seeing for ID Sketching! Speaking of future plans, on the website 95% of voters are in favor of an ID Sketching book. Can you tell us if there is a possibility that there will be an ID Sketching book in the near or distant future? What are your thoughts?

If I do a book, it will be in the near future. Things at this point are in the intangible phase and mostly loosely defined. A book by me would have to be unique, approachable, and supremely useful above all other books in its content. As I mentioned before, sharing my knowledge and experience is something I quite enjoy and a book for me serves as a means to this end.

Studio T-minus Questions

What do you believe are the 3 most valuable skills or knowledge to have when starting your own design company as you, and John Muhlenkamp, have with Studio T-minus? Briefly, can you tell us some of the challenges you both faced and how you have overcome them?

I think we were honestly a bit naïve and blissfully optimistic when we started out, however, with this came the sort of unrestrained energy that we poured into making things work. I think one thing that we have learned is patience. If you’re starting out for the first time, there will be periods of feast and famine. It’s important to be patient so as to not make emotional decisions for example.

Another is being adaptable. This comes from the perspective of a consultant. Projects change hands quickly, and each week we work on different things. It’s important to be able to deliver to your client no matter the project. That can be tough sometimes.

Thirdly, be confident. Embody confidence in your work attitude, and every other aspect of your persona as a designer. Your clients want to know that you’re sure about what you’re doing. It’s critical that they feel confident in what you’re doing and the best way to do this is to show confidence yourself.

DFI Tech Hybrid 4U. Lead designers John Muhlenkamp and Spencer Nugent from Studio t-minus.

What do you believe makes Studio T-minus different from other Industrial Design consultancies?

We aim to be a practical no frills firm that focuses on executing good design. What makes us different is our ability to deliver the goods, as it were, efficiently and effectively.

What advice would you give to others whom also hope to establish their own design consultancy in the future?

Follow through and have a goal in mind. Be prepared for anything and most of all, be prepared to work hard, have high energy and keep pushing.

How does a new design consultancy establish its first set of clients? Can you tell us about the first project by Studio T-minus?

Word of mouth, friends, and cold calls have worked for us. It’s always good to know people in the “know”.

Our first public project was with DFI Tech. We were commissioned to establish a new design language and flagship server product for the company using their Hybrid server technology. You can see more at http://www.studiotminus.com/work/dfi-tech-hybrid-4u/ and http://www.dfitech.com/products/view/11/hybrid-4u/ or http://www.dfitech.com/products/view/12/hybrid-2u/

Thank you Spencer for your time, do you have any final thoughts for Embody 3D readers?

Follow your dreams. Life is short, so make the best of it.

Vessel II. Studio t-minus. Lead Designer John Muhlenkamp.

Industrial designers sometimes get their persona profiles wrong by passing off their expectations and values of their fictional character as its own, or they create a person with circumstances too convenient to justify an intended product. It is easy to do, but the complexity of developing a ‘one size fits all character” was proven when a couple of UniSA industrial designers were introduced to a personality that caught them completely off guard.

The character’s name was Houdini.

Houdini is the child who can escape out of any given situation; some say when nobody else is looking, he can perform feats that defy his age, size, strength and intelligence.

Everyone believed he was a myth, but parents have come to know better.

To hear the principal of Christies Downs Special School explain his amazing exploits with deadpan expression- quickly made a room of dubious I.D. students, believers.

One story she told was a mind blowing act that still leaves staff baffled to this day.

Isolated and locked in virtually a bare room, without the assistance of any furniture, Houdini managed to remove the fluorescent tubes from the light fitting. Given his small stature, it was seemingly impossible for him to reach the ceiling. Nobody knew how he did it, and this was part of his enigmatic character.

Houdini was a child of no particular gender, age or motivation. He was a caricature of someone coined as unpredictable, resourceful, persistent and not to be underestimated in his immediate environment. These traits would ultimately make him an incredibly challenging element in a real design project.

THE ORIGINAL BED

Houdini’s containment bed in use was terrible to say the least. Adorned in shades of vomit beige and bearing some resemblance to an enclosure for the insane, it was completely understandable why a child like Houdini would garner such enthusiasm to escape.

Original Tented Bed: Complete with ominous corridor.

When Jane Durbridge, our liaison for the Women’s & Children’s Hospital, first approached the students to redesign a specialised hospital bed to contain Houdini safely, everybody was in for a unique and eye-opening experience.

After a long four months of research and gathering feedback to establish a profile of our beloved escape artist and better understand the habits and behaviours of those that directly dealt with him, most students did not have the fortitude to persevere on the project.

But two young women showed girl power and accepted the challenge. Developing close relationships with the user groups, they felt comfortable enough to continue the journey and further attempt to unravel the mystery that was ‘Houdini’.

ENTER MELISSA AND KENDYL

Melissa Sopel and Kendyl Katzenburg found Houdini was one of the most difficult personas they ever had to design for. He could range from two to seventeen years of age, he might have autism or another intellectual disability and possibly be prone to seizures.

Whatever his circumstances, Melissa and Kendyl were determined to find a solution, a happy medium between containing Houdini without feeling trapped, whilst simultaneously help those that minded him interact with the bed efficiently and safely.

Houdini’s saviours? Kendyl Katzenberg (L) and Melissa Sopel (R) with proposed solutions.

While both students feverishly worked away sketching designs and made foam models and mocks ups, each followed a different philosophy that in due course would shape their final design.

Kendyl’s concept was a reflection of empathy, understanding the discomfort and anguish Houdini felt from being confined in a big, scary plastic box, a padded prison that felt unfamiliar and claustrophobic. Her final design represented a tent, a fun play on escapism which was core to Houdini’s persona, perhaps when placed within this bed, Houdini would perceive it more as his own playful domain; his little castle, an intimate space just for him.

Melissa focused on the staff and others who interacted with the bed. Houdini had close contact with many members of the hospital and people he knew personally, so access was a key issue. If Houdini was to succumb to a seizure, the staff could act fast and quickly gain access to tend to his needs.

Above: Kendyl’s (L) and Melissa’s (R) concepts explore head access to ‘Houdini’

Hygiene also played a primary role in her design; though her attention was firmly with providing convenience to the staff, small details exclusively for Houdini were included, namely the bed having a much softer form making it less intimidating and using a blue scheme as the calming colour of choice.

As the hospital reviews both concepts and the dark circles of sleep deprivation slowly disappear from the designers’ eyes, Houdini will forever be a sober reminder that there are user groups designers might never entirely understand and projects we may not be able to completely resolve.

Riddles like ‘Houdini’ furthermore exemplify the role of industrial designers, illustrating the importance of how products should not only address basic utilitarian needs, but also seek to meet the emotional requirements for the user, to encourage them to embrace the product, rather than tolerate it and readily integrate it into their life.

Did the two designers really address the most prominent needs for Houdini?

Possibly- you might be better off asking him, but you’ll have to find him first…

Article by Martin Gibson – @embody3d @martingibson – Monday – 8/11/10

Being an industrial designer as many could appreciate is one of the most poorly rewarded and thanked occupations out there. If there are ever any mistakes in a project when it gets to the manufacturing stage it is 99% of the time the ‘designers’ fault, yet despite this responsibility industrial designers tend to be some of the most poorly paid professions within a manufacturing organisation…it’s ironic however that CEO’s seem to get more than their fair share in regards to income:responsibility.

The following article I am going to outline some strategies for minimising these all to common design mistakes. These strategies are mainly targeted at design managers, senior designers, supervisors, project managers or managing directors or anyone who is in a position of quality control.

Be Realistic in Scheduling Projects… Time = Quality

Allow for adequate time for designers to check through work after it is completed. After talking to many industrial designers there seems to be a real rush culture in organisations to get projects done. But as any experienced production manager could tell you adding just 5% extra time to the design process is a small price to pay when it could save 10 or even 20% of the manufacturing time. Managers need to understand the correlation between time and accuracy. There are a lot of things that can go wrong when designing especially when you’re the only educated eyes on the product design. A slight decimal place in a dimension or an incorrect letter in a filename could potentially cause all sorts of havoc and at the end of the day these are just standard human errors/oversights. The more time, the less mistakes.

You need to speak honestly to your supervisors and let them know that if you want to minimise mistakes more time needs to be allocated to design quality control. Whatever the case you need to be rational not emotional in how you make decisions when it comes to project schedules.

The Brilliance of Checklists

Checklists are one of the best and simplest quality control measures available to a designer. Use them! Whilst designing a designer is going through hundreds of steps to complete a project (or as I like to say, hundreds of quality control measures). Perhaps have some of these main steps documented in a checklist format and simply tick the boxes when a step is complete. A step might be something like this:

- Ensure 3rd angle projection is turned on for all the engineering drawings

or

- Make sure the space allocated to fit another product/material or supply is accurate and has a good tolerance

These checklists should also be updated and reviewed after every project. If anything is forgotten, simply add it to the list. This will prove to your supervisor that you’re being proactive about correcting mistakes.

Automation

The most effective way of minimising mistakes is by having automated systems that don’t rely on humans. Computers and machines don’t often make mistakes! Some CAD programs have ways of automating quality control, or this could be as simple as changing the defaults on your software program so you no longer have to remember to tick that check box every time you launch your program.

Unfortunately there are many great quality control procedures that computer programmers and coders use each day for quality control but these just aren’t available for designers or managers in a design/manufacturing environment.

Don’t Blame People, Blame the System

Humans make mistakes from time to time. But the biggest rule here is don’t blame people, blame the system. If you have effective systems in place there should be no reason to have to blame people because there simply wont be any mistakes in the first place. I recognise this aspiration is some kind of Designer/Manager nirvana but this end objective should be worked upon.

Providing your designers are reasonably intelligent and diligent at work and mean no harm or malice, don’t get angry at them, get angry with the systems they abide by. How often do Presidents and Prime Ministers get blamed for a countries misfortunes? When so often it is the parameters in place that limit their control, the vagueness of their responsibilities and not to mention the boundless politics and red tape. Getting angry at the designers themselves will severely bring down the confidence of the employee for days or even weeks ahead and will make them more hesitant in future activities and consequently it will likely induce them to make more mistakes not less. You need to support designers and be proactive in cooperating with them to improve existing systems. Don’t develop these systems independently as you will likely lack empathy/knowledge about existing systems that designers proceed by and secondly it portrays to the employees that you don’t highly regard their input.

Changing the Culture – Get Rid of the Blame Game

There are many organisations that play the blame game, where designers blame the makers and the makers blame the designers. This culture insights self-defensive measures which only further perpetuates the problem. Work between designers and makers should be collaborative and it should be in both parties interest to work together. Perhaps some kind of incentives should be offered to employees who show great efforts in teamwork? Or perhaps value management meetings should take place before every project begins between designers and makers?

Don’t make your business look like a typical day in the House of Representatives

Do you ever ask your employees how systems can be improved? Or is the culture within your workplace best described as some kind of autocracy? To improve quality standards having an autocratic management style is the worst way to improve systems. Designers need responsibility, authority and the opportunity to free speech; it should be encouraged, not ignored or frowned upon.

Technology is often the Greatest Variable in Designer Quality Control

Technology is often one of the largest pretexts to design mistakes. Updating software can sometimes cause confusion and make years of good systems disappear over night. It is important that software of course is updated and other technological tools at your disposal are maintained and regularly kept up to date. Major changes however need to be implemented with great care and testing before they are released into your business processes. Forecast what changes and problems may occur in the event of updating or acquiring new technology. Don’t just throw new technology at designers and expect the gears to keep turning. Sometimes the gears may roll to a grinding halt, or even perhaps start to turn backwards.

Also keep in mind: designers aren’t computers, but designers need to work with computers and often computers aren’t designed to work really well with humans… or for that matter don’t really work that much at all. That is, sometimes computers do strange and wacky things! Take for instance Solidworks; despite being around for years and years and accepted globally as one of the main CAD standards, there are still hundreds of bugs and issues with Solidworks that drive designers absolutely insane day-to-day.

Reduce Complexities Inherent to the Design

Another sometimes less obvious way to reduce designer mistakes is perhaps inherent to the design itself. Maybe the product being designed in the first place is just overly difficult and is causing the designer heaps of mistakes? Is there perhaps an easier way of getting the same result? Maybe the designer could simplify the design a little which might make the product easier to model or less riskier to make?

Although it kills me to say it, sometimes the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) is very effective in bringing back control to the designer and reducing the fear of designing overly complex products. KISS and makeup baby!!!

Apple…it just works…

Reduce Complexities Inherent to the Designer Quality Control Measures

It is critical that any duplications of quality control procedures need to be eliminated. Your businesses quality control procedures needs to be simple to understand otherwise they simply wont be followed. Get rid of minutiae or inadequate quality control measures that just create more work rather than monitor the existing work.

Understand Root Causes of Mistakes

All to often managers only ask the question “Who made the mistake?” and then they plan their evil retribution measures (jokes). However, lets say the factory made a product 500mm instead of 50mm like it was supposed to be because the engineering drawing had a mistake. Typically the manager will go immediately to the designer asking why the designer has made a severe error in the drawings. But the designer might have been under great stress trying to get the drawing done on time and didn’t even have enough time to check the drawing even once. Is this the designers mistake, or the managers mistake for not allowing adequate design time for the project? Really managers need to ask these questions:

- When is the mistake occurring?

- Why is the mistake occurring?

- Is this mistake occurring in isolation or because of another mistake occurring somewhere else?

- What is the risk of the mistake occurring?

- What is the consequence of the mistake occurring (monetarily, time etc.)?

- How can the root cause of the mistake be treated?

Data can be gained from diagnosing design mistakes and this data can be put into a matrix to better manage designer quality control (just like classic risk management: consequence divided by probability). Like many philosophers have said throughout history: how can you treat something you don’t understand?

Testing and Prototypes

If your business will allow it, make prototypes and test out your designs before they get mass-produced. It is the age-old designer quality control measure. If the prototype is perfectly fine tuned, well then one could assume that a full production version using the same data would also produce a perfectly fine tuned result.

Think Micro and Macro Simultaneously

It is the challenging job of the industrial designer to get details as micro as a dimension correct whilst thinking macro enough to consider the core functionality and user ergonomics associated with a product. The industrial designer should strike a balance between the micro and the macro of design. If one thinks too much about small details like whether the product should be 99% or 97% black, one might forget that perhaps the colour should be yellow in the first place because it needs to highly visible at night or in emergency situations. Likewise one mustn’t consider the purpose of the colour so much that he/she forgets to specify the correct colour to the most precise degree.

Remember always to refer back to the original design objectives specified in the client brief. Manage your time wisely so that critical issues demand the most attention to minimise the consequence of core mistakes occurring.

Looking After Yourself Mentally and Physically

A designer like any other employee needs to take good care of themselves both mentally and physically. The mental state of a designer can severely impair their concentration ability and as a consequence, the amount of mistakes they make.

So many industrial design activities these days unfortunately take place on a computer. It is important that you rest your eyes and get up and walk every half an hour or so, even if it is just around the office. Maybe go for a run before or after work or even during a work break. Eat healthy food and don’t rely on stimulants like energy drinks and coffee to get you through each day, rather rely on a good nights sleep and a positive attitude.

Article by Martin Gibson – @embody3d @martingibson - 09.08.2010

Sometimes we have to remember it is not just about whether the client picks you, but you also have a say as to whether you pick the client. The industrial design job market especially for contractors is extremely competitive and you will often find yourself viciously and desperately tendering against fellow industrial designers. But sometimes you have to remember some clients can be a lot more harm than good. Sometimes it is better to avoid certain types of clients who may end up theoretically costing you money rather than allowing you to be profitable. Sometimes it is better to turn down the work and try and find someone more appropriate even if it delays your work schedule a few days. As fiddling around with a bad project where you don’t make any money for 2-3 weeks will cost you dearly, how are you going to pay for rent, food and other expenses?

Here is a list of clients you should be very weary of, it is not to say you should ever avoid these clients completely though:

- Clients who have no clear goals or expectations
- Clients who continuously change their mind
- Clients who may not have the financial ability to compensate you
- Clients who may have no future intention of your work
- Clients who can’t or are unwilling to communicate effectively
- Clients who are amateur designers
- Clients who offer you unreasonable contractual terms
- Clients that wont allow you to disclose your work

I will now explore some tell tail signs to watch out for from the above 4 client categories.

Clients who have no clear goals or expectations

aka No Idea Norman

Be cautious of clients who have no idea of what they want and have no expectations or standards for your work. Sometimes you will meet a client whom in no disrespectful terms has no idea what they want, they might be puzzled so much they might not even know whether getting an industrial designer was a good idea in the first place. You will know who these clients are as they will often have no idea what design services are, what different materials are, and how to manufacture products. These clients might even prematurely cancel the whole project because they realise they either don’t need a designer or they realise that they should have done more ground work before contacting you.

Clients who continuously change their mind

aka Convoluted Clarence

Be weary of clients who continuously change their mind and product goals which might continuously change your product design brief. With these clients you can find yourself doing 2-3 weeks of ‘work’ without even doing a single bit of designing. And if your design contract specifies you only get paid for real design work you could be left empty handed for a long time. I recognise that nearly every client changes their mind, but here I am specifically talking about clients who will change their mind maybe 5-10 times over trivial matters, or clients who change their mind radically. For example, if a client wants you to design a rotationally ceiling fan and then they change their mind to wanting you to design a floor mounted built-in fan. If a client becomes a victim of scope creep and the time of the project for you increases, don’t for a second not feel obliged to transfer this cost onto the client. Don’t allow a client to manipulate you by sticking to the original quoted price. Have appropriate clauses in your contract or charge by the hour to counter client incompetence. These clients have not done effective ground work internally and will only waste your time and money.

Clients who can’t or are unwilling to communicate effectively

aka Missed Yo Call Mark

I understand world trade is more and more globalised, but sometimes when it comes to industrial design projects it is near imperative to meet your client in person first, especially if the project is complex and difficult to explain via other communication mediums. Most of the time there needs to be live and tacit communication where concepts can be explained and prototypes can be demonstrated. Clients who are unwilling to meet you in person or clients who may try and communicate complex graphical information via email or phone without sketches can turn into a disaster. Be careful of clients who don’t return your phone calls or emails in a reasonable time; or keep you waiting weeks to get your hands on a simple request like the company logo just so you can apply a decal on their product. Also if the client is adamant not to meet you in person this could also be a hint that they may have no intention of paying you and they are trying conceal their identity.

Amateur Designers

aka Arrogant Andre

Be careful of amateur designers. Sometimes it may be better to get a client who has no idea about design rather than a client who thinks they know everything all the time. Sometimes amateur designers will try and give you advice or even give you unfeasible or unrealistic parameters for your project. They may insist that a solid gold printer is the best idea for the next release of Canon’s PIXMA printer range. These amateur designers will often not value your input and ideas no matter how much you say injection moulded plastic is the best material for the printer. These amateurs are selfish, unreasonable and they will make you question why they hired you in the first place.

Clients who may not have the financial ability to compensate you

aka Tight ****** Thomas

This is by far the most important issue you have to look out for before undertaking contract work. We all love to design but we also need to get paid, and if a client doesn’t pay an invoice it could cause you severe financial insecurity. It is often very difficult to judge or research into your client and their financial history so you really have to be wise in making this judgement.

Make sure your client has a real address and a real telephone number, this might seem self explanatory but people have been fooled by this before. People who just have mobile phones and live in temporary dwellings are far more riskier to deal with than established businesses with real addresses and real telephone and fax numbers. Generally speaking, the larger the business the more pressure there is for them to comply with the law.

Other strategies to counter these types of ‘dodgy’ clients include insisting upfront payments to cover you initially. Also in your statement of work contract ensure you list that all email and telephone calls, travel time and work-related expenses will be billed to the client in addition to the hourly rate. This is extremely important to note.

If you are extremely weary of a particular client I recommend in an honest and a non-obtrusive way contacting some of their previous designers, suppliers and clients and ask them for a reference as to the companies history when paying invoices. This will give you invaluable information about your client. If your client is a large public business they may even disclose their financial results on their website so check this out!

Be weary of entrepreneurs and innovators. Sometimes these clients can have dreamy expectations, and often have extremely tight budgets. These clients might try and undercut you in every way possible, they might even try and bargain you down on every cost spent on your expenses report and they will also question you on every minute spent on your hourly log sheet. They might even have the arrogance to offer you a portion of your total invoice without even the slightest empathy and respect of your work.

There are options available if a client doesn’t pay you and these vary much depending on your country of residence. In Australia the first step you should take is mediation. In NSW for example there are Community Justice Centres where you can meet with your client and a neutral mediator to discuss your disagreement. This service is free of charge. But there are 2 problems with this process. Firstly, you will find it near impossible to get your client to show up to the mediation as they have no obligation to show up if they don’t want to (and why would they…they owe you money?!). Secondly any rulings made by the Community Justice Centre aren’t court orders, therefore you only have their moral conscience to rely on to get paid. The next step of course is taking your client to the district court. To lodge a case is approximately $75-$85, but you have to get legal representation and this can be extremely expensive. Just to give you an idea it can sometimes cost $250 for half an hour to just talk to your lawyer over the phone! It really isn’t worth pursuing legal action unless the sum of money owed to you is over roughly $10 000. Sometimes you really do have to cut your losses as miserable and unjust as that may be. That’s why it is important to make judgements of your client early and cancel the project immediately if there is any suspicion you might not get paid.

My general advice is, if you get any instinct that tells you something fishy could be going on, leave at once. Whatever you do, don’t make emotional decisions, make evidence based decisions. Sometimes it is the nicest sounding, trustworthy and re-assuring clients that are the ones that might be taking your work without remuneration. Make your decision based on facts by looking at the past record of your dealings with the client, and also what others have experienced.

Clients who may have no future intention of your work

aka Don’t Care Dave

It gives industrial designers great joy to see products make it to market and get developed. But sometimes your client might not have any intention of pursuing your design no matter how awesome it might be. This may sound crazy but follow along. Sometimes businesses may use your design work to literally steal your initial concepts and then develop upon your own design in house, cutting you out of the larger picture. Sometimes people hire industrial designers to do work just to show concepts off to their boss to make it look like they are doing something. Now depending on what your design morals are this might not bother you, but if you want to feel like your work has some value to this world I recommend investigating the businesses track record and observe how their product development systems and procedures operate. Also if they get you to sign a confidentiality agreement that assigns ownership of the design to them at the projects completion, and they choose not to do anything with your design, but you feel there is commercial value in the design that is able to be exploited, consider putting in clauses in these contracts that allow you to pursue designs that are trash-canned by your clients after a certain expiry period.

As any contracter would know it is extremely difficult to find new industrial design work whilst your working on another project. Where on earth do you find the time to get more work while you’re doing work!? You should always consider the longevity of a client and what future work prospects they may or may not be able to offer you after the projects completion. If you are doing work for an entrepreneur or innovator it is likely that once you have finished their pet project they will have absolutely nothing for you to do. However if you are doing work for a large manufacturer and they recognise that you provide a real value for money service, it is very likely they may contact you about more work in other departments or projects they have going.

Clients that wont allow you to disclose your work

aka Tight-lipped Timothy

One of the great delights of being a designer as appose to other professions is that once a job is completed you can then show off your brilliant work to the world and woo in future clients. But sometimes clients will get you to sign a stringent confidentiality agreement aka non disclosure agreement whilst will make you unable to publicly disclose your creative genius even on your own website or printed portfolio. This may not seem like a big deal, but what if you have 5 projects in a row with these types of contracts in place, what on earth do you say or show to your prospective clients about what you’ve been working on recently. It is extremely frustrating locking up your Picasso in the cupboard. Consider this.

Clients who offer you unreasonable contractual terms

aka Slave-driver Sam

It goes without saying, make sure your contracts are fair. Make sure your not doing too much work without enough pay, or if you are working too long on a project without enough pay. If you are unsure as to how long a project might take, or if you believe the client might scope creep on you, it is perhaps wise to charge the client per the hour rather than a total contract fee. Make sure you have a log sheet where you document the amount of hours you worked and what activities took place in this time. If you are not an expert at contracts I recommend this resource: http://www.amazon.com/Business-Legal-Forms-Industrial-Designers/dp/1581153988/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1281349413&sr=8-1

FINAL ADVICE – DOCUMENT EVERYTHING AND USE CONTRACTS!

My over-arching advice is in the first communications you have with your prospective client you need to quickly assess their suitability. The more you get sucked in, the more damaging the consequences could be for your design business. Now although this article portrays clients as being pure evil, I assure you 85% of clients you will get will be perfectly normal and reasonable people who will treat your work with reverent respect. However, it is important to recognise that there are people who either purposely or unwillingly, may try and manipulate your work, break contracts and be generally unreasonable to deal with. Evidence of this is all the hundreds and thousands of court cases jamming the district courts each year over the above matters. Furthermore, follow your instincts, and if necessary seek independent and neutral advice even if it is from friends and family, as they will not have the bias of being in the project and not know what the clients behavioural attributes are like. Sometimes it is the Mr. Niceguy on the phone that can be the most devious of them all. Please in the comments tell me your experience of bad clients and what your advice for others is!

Article by Bala Email - Twitter: @baladesigner @embody3d – Check out January Design on Facebook – 30.06.2010

This week we celebrated World Industrial Design Day. It is more than relevant for designers from all over the world to get together and celebrate. See what is common to all of us. And what is different.

I am writing this from Gurgaon, a satellite town of New Delhi, the capital of India. INDIA, for the benefit of the uninitiated, is the Asian country with a billion plus population, you can no longer ignore. I have been practicing industrial design in India for almost 24 years now and belong to the early generation of industrial designers who helped establish the profession in India.

So what is the design scene in India? As I join the list of writers in Embody 3D, I thought I could write about the preparation for the Commonwealth Games (CWG), scheduled in Delhi in October 2010. I could have written about the various facilities that are coming about in and around Delhi, their design features or the benefit of the CWG to a city like Delhi.

Another thought I had was to let the world know more about NID, (National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad) that is all set to begin its Golden Jubilee celebrations this month. May be for another day.

But finally what caught my attention was an innocuous email, purportedly written by Steve Jobs to a customer, who probably stood in line and bought the latest iPhone4. The mail was a response to the customer complaining about dropped calls on the new iPhone4. He apparently wrote: “ You are holding it all wrong..”

WHAT? A predictable uproar ensued.

Let me make a few things clear before I begin: I am an avid Mac fan, no no, make it a Mac-addict. I bought one of the early Macs that were available in India in 1995 which had a 250MB hard disk (YES!) and a 16MB RAM and have been a devotee to Mac ever since.

As an Industrial designer, I yearn for clients who would be enlightened like Apple, who put design above everything else and give designers demi-*** status.

Apple had always given due regard to design and their business can be truly called “Design Led”.

But since when has design become more important than the customer? Industrial design should try and create a memorable user experience and not frustrate the customer like this.

Industrial design is about ergonomics that defines how a product will be used and not about how the use should be dictated.

Industrial design is all about locating controls and components that make as much user-sense as visual-sense.

Industrial design is as much about making the product a delight-to-use as much as it is visually exciting.

Steve Jobs knows this more than ever. Jonathan Ive knows it too. Then why will they react like this to a genuine customer complaint?

One of the characteristics that define Industrial design is that the process is iterative and the product gets improved, based on feedback. If anything, Jobs should thank the customer for helping them with feedback that will ultimately better the product.

Ive could do well to understand the basics of what was taught in his industrial design school. And propagate it.

It can be the ultimate tribute on “ World Industrial Design “ day.

Bala

Don’t forget to check out January Design on Facebook!

Our good friends at Form Loves Function have published a great design checklist for when designing injection moulded parts. The list is such a great starting point for this process that I thought I would publish it as an educational resource on Embody 3D. I commend the Form Loves Function website to our readers it is certainly worth checking out! Please see the below original article below by Big Joe.

Article by Form Loves Function – 24.06.2010

Designing plastic parts is deceptively complicated. There are many factors to consider along with the obvious part function, performance, and cosmetic requirements. The checklist below outlines most of the important factors affecting performance and cost for any given application. Not all of these items will be applicable to every part you design, but going through this list will undoubtedly give you a better understanding of your part and what it needs to do. This understanding will undoubtedly help you make changes to optimize the part design.

It’s a long list but don’t let that dissuade you. Every item on the list will affect part cost and performance.

Injection Molded Plastic Part Design Checklist (in no particular order):

1. - What is the function of the part?
2. - What is the expected lifetime of the part?
3. - What agency approvals are required? (UL, FDA, USDA, NSF, USP, SAE, MIL spec)
4. - Will the part be implanted in humans? If so, biocompatibility is your first concern.
5. - What electrical characteristics are required and at what temperatures? Some material properties of concern: Electrical Resistivity, Surface Resistance, Dielectric Constant, Dielectric Strength, Dissipation Factor, Arc Resistance, Comparative Tracking Index.
6. - Will the part be used in an optical system? Some material properties of concern: Refractive Index, Gloss, Haze, Transmission (in desired spectrum, ie IR, visible, etc.)
7. - What temperature will the part see? And, for how long? Some material properties of concern: Coefficient of Linear Expansion, Specific Heat Capacity, Thermal Conductivity, Maximum Service Temperature, Deflection Temperatures, Vicat Softening Point, Glass Transition Temperature, Flammability, Glow Wire Test.
8. - What chemicals will the part be exposed to? Most material manufacturers test their materials with common chemicals. Contact individual suppliers for the results of their chemical compatibility testing.
9. - Is moisture resistance necessary? Some material properties of concern: Water Absorption, Water Absorption at Equilibrium, Water Absorption at Saturation, Maximum Moisture Content.
10. - How will the part be assembled? Can parts be combined into one plastic part? Will one plastic part need to be divided into two or more?
11. - Is the assembly going to be permanent or one time only?
12. - Will adhesives be used? Some resins require special adhesives.
13. - Will fasteners be used? Will threads be molded in?
14. - Does the part have a snap fit? Glass filled materials will require more force to close the snap fit, but will deflect less before breaking. Some material properties of concern: Flexural Modulus, Flexural Yield Strength.
15. - Will the part be subjected to impact? If so, add rounds to the corners to minimize stress concentration. Some material properties of concern: Izod Impact, Charpy Impact (Unnotched), Charpy Impact (Notched).
16. - Is surface appearance important? If so, beware of weld lines, parting line, ejector location, wall thicknesses, surface texture, draft, and gate vestige.
17. - What color is required for the part? Is a specific match required or will the part be color coded? Some glass or mineral filled materials do not color as well as unfilled materials.
18. - Will the part be painted? Some paints require a primer which may attack the molecular structure of the material. Some paints require a thermal cure so you will need to verify the material will withstand the oven cure temperture.
19. - Is weathering or UV exposure a factor? Some material manufacturers test their materials for UV exposure. Contact individual suppliers for the results of their UV testing. If no testing has been done, plan on doing the UV testing yourself. UV exposure is often overlooked and be very detrimental to the physical properties of the part.
20. - What are the required tolerances? Can they be relaxed to make molding more economical?
21. - What is the expected weight of the part? Will it be too light (or too heavy)?
22. - Is wear resistance required? Some material properties of concern: Rockwell M Hardness, Rockwell R Hardness, Coefficient of Friction (Static), Coefficient of Friction (Dynamic). Surface finish is also a factor so adjust draft to allow for the desired finish within the tool and plan for no ejection on wear surfaces..
23. - Does the part need to be sterilized? With what methods (chemical, steam, radiation)? This requirement is similar to chemical compatibility. Some materials are tested and results published by material manufacturers, others will need to be tested for your specific application.
24. - What is the worst possible situation the part will be in? (For example, will the part be outside for an extended period of time and intermittently put in water, or maybe see a constant high load while submerged in gasoline.) Parts should be tested in the worst case environment.
25. - Will the part be insert-molded or have a metal piece press-fit in the plastic part? There are tooling, process, and residual stress implications of insert molded features and press-fits.
26. - Is there a living hinge designed in the part? Be careful with living hinges designed for crystalline materials such as acetal.
27. - What loading and resulting stress will the part see? And, at what temperature and environment? Will the loading be continuous or intermittent? Some material properties of concern: Ultimate Tensile Strength, Tensile Yield Strength, Flexural Modulus, Flexural Yield, Elongation at Yield, Elongation at Break, Tensile Creep Modulus, Deflection Temperture..
28. - What deflections are acceptable?
29. - Is the part moldable? Are there undercuts? Are there sections that are too thick or thin?
30. - Will the part be machined? Some materials are more amenable to machining than others.

This list is intended to be a starting point for plastic part design and is not a comprehensive design guide. Your part in your specific application may have requirements not listed here. If that’s the case, please leave a comment. We would love to hear about it.

Wondering where to start? Matweb and IDES are both excellent resources.

Comments are happening on the new Form Loves Function Discussion Forum.

Unlike the picture above in this article I am not going to paint consumerism as the embodiment of all evil. In fact consumerism is a very good thing, for without it many of us would have no jobs. We can’t afford 6.5 billion people just making food and constructing houses on this planet. In this article we are going to look into the inertia of business in adopting environmentally responsible product measures. We will investigate societies value of products and how it isn’t a sustainable practice. Finally we will explore how some businesses use sustainable design not as a way of helping the environment but in a way that actually helps destroy it. This article is a real mixed bag of issues and considerations of the sustainable design movement. Please comment I would love know your thoughts!

Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter – 27.03.2010

The Sustainability Conflict

The issue of environmentally sustainable product design challenges the foundation of many thriving product lifecycle models. It really is a conflict of interest for many businesses who have traditionally aimed at giving consumers less and getting them to pay more for it. There is a large drive from these businesses for us to consume more, and consume more quickly so we have to buy their products more regularly. Do you remember what the top of the Coke can looked like 15 years ago? It certainly didn’t have the oval opening we see today. Or what about chip bags which seem to miraculously fill the container with 90% air and 10% chips? This excess packaging is a complete waste and could only be described as dubious advertising. These food examples however can apply across whole industries where industrial designers serve from consumer electronics, outdoor equipment, just about anything.

We really do live in a society of excess, a society of consumerism, which is terrible for the environment and probably the cause of obesity and other types of consumer gluttony. When was this line crossed between living within our means to the product savage consumer of 2010?

Changing Societal Product Values

Although the process of transforming consumers to make responsible decisions might seem counter-intuitive to many business models, but sometimes we need to make tough decisions to benefit wider society. Our expectations and demand for new and exciting products is absurd and unimaginable even 20-30 years ago, and is simply not sustainable. We demand the newest and the best products instantly, they must be well built, beautifully packaged, more powerful and of outstanding quality. But like us products get old, they loose their strength and efficiency and they bare the marks of old age and wear and tear.

Consumers need to understand that a scratch on their Ipod doesn’t warrant the replacement or the repurchase of another Ipod.

We need to champion and value all things old again, and praise their users for being environmentally concerned. These people should not be considered the epitome of lower society for keeping their Ipod Classic, nor should they be viewed as lacking good taste, just environmentally aware.

For generations we have valued antiquities, but because of mass production you just get the impression that modern products aren’t going to be treasured a century from now. But what if we could treasure these products until death do us apart? What if a scratch on a product wasn’t viewed as an imperfection but rather as a trait of old age or a symbol of uniqueness? When a product has an outdated aesthetic what if we treasured it as an artefact of time and place and not disbanded it to landfill? What consumer and designer are you going to be? But of course this whole statement is crazy. Isn’t it?

Systems Approach To Sustainable Design

Of course just asking consumers to buy less and do more with what they have is an unequivocal paradox. A viable alternative is a systems approach to sustainable design. A successful example of this concept is the desktop computer. Some consumers have boxes and motherboards even a decade old, but have replaced and upgraded internal components as necessary and when new technology becomes available. Designing components that can be easily disassembled or upgraded is the best way to extend the life of your product. This process will surely pass on cost savings to consumers as they don’t need to purchase the complete product over and over again. A bad example of this is supermarkets. Every product you purchase whether it is a bottle of coke or shampoo you end up throwing out all the packaging. If one applied a systems approach to this ritual, one would have shoppers return to the supermarket with their empty shampoo bottles and simply refill them. Ludicrous perhaps, sustainable definetely.

Recycling

A better known alternative is just making products that can be easily recycled. But of course it is one thing to design recyclable products and another for consumers to be responsible and discard this waste appropriately. Sometimes out of shear laziness consumers discard this waste into general rubbish and it ends up in landfill. But most of the time there are simply no avenues to dispose some product even though they contain highly recyclable materials. For example sometimes we see recycling systems where you can hand in your old ink cartridges or mobile phones. But what about vacuum cleaners and the other thousands of products that lack equivalent disposal systems?

I found a fantastic website called gazelle.com in which you can sell all your old electronic products to, and if they can’t reuse your products they will recycle all the components. It doesn’t do every product in the world but it’s a start by giving incentives to consumers to be environmentally responsible.

Durability

Increasing the durability of your designs can extend the life of your product, particularly products that don’t suffer from planned obsolescence like a toaster for example. Utilising stronger materials, more durable fasteners and designing stronger geometric forms are great ways to do this. Industrial designers must analyse the limiting factor of a designs durability, as they say a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. For example there is no point designing a super durable solid steel toaster with a body that can withstand a millennia if it has a heater that breaks down after a couple of months. Likewise back onto the Ipod, what’s the point of designing an ipod touch that has a mirror back which is highly susceptible to scratching if users have to constantly get it replaced. Of course it is probably just to please a few girls who like to do their makeup on the bus.

Sustainable Design and Ethical Advertising

By far the most frustrating aspect of sustainable design is watching businesses demand consumers to upgrade to the latest and greatest because their latest rendition is ‘better for the environment’. We see this all the time, whether it is fridges, airconditioning units or cars. But one must look at this practice holistically. Is the practice of a consumer purchasing a brand new ‘environmentally friendly car’ (yes think of all the raw materials, thousands of components and manufacturing and transportation energy) actually result in a benefit or a loss for the environment? As designers we must analyse what stage of the product life cycle does our product have the most environmental impact. For example, is the largest environmental impact of your product design occurring from the raw materials to create the product, the manufacturing, the assembly, the consumer use stage or the end of life stage (recycling, landfill, dissassembly etc.)?

If your product is a lawnmower where the majority of the environmental impact comes from the use stage (fuel consumption for the mower and emissions) then one could easily justify the need for consumers to purchase a whole new lawnmower. However if your product designs largest impact is raw materials like a piece of furniture, then it is completely unethical to demand consumers upgrade their product because the newer model has environmental savings. It is of course absolutely fine to advertise these green credentials to consumers who are looking to purchase their first coffee table or desk.

It takes one **** of a scientist to even know what the largest impact on the environment your product is having, yet alone a product designer. For example how on earth do we really compare what the worst environmental impact of a car design is? What’s worse the steel containing the raw materials of iron and carbon to make up the shell of the car or the greenhouse gas emissions it discards? One can only imagine the complexity that would go into this type of evaluation. Including how much the car is driven, the amount of iron and carbon which is able to be mined from the earths surface and so on. To take the difficulty out of this evaluation I highly recommend a free online program called Greenfly which I have reviewed in a previous post.

It is ok for design firms and marketeers to champion their sustainability initiatives but they must be fair and transparent to consumers. Firms must paint the whole picture so consumers can make informed buying decisions. There is nothing more unethical about greenwashing consumers in one advertisement whilst secretly adding more virginised materials into landfill.

The last few days I have considered what Industrial Designers really need when it comes to a rendering program. Just recently on Embody 3D we did a poll surveying the most popular CAD programs used in industry, and a large portion of voters cast their ballot for Solidworks. So I thought I would find the best rendering package for Solidworks on the market today.

Unlike many other rendering software critiques on the internet I thought instead of just judging a program by how good it’s finished renders are, I would judge the programs on a whole bunch of criteria relevant to Industrial Designers in a working environment.

Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter – 30.04.2010

The criteria included:

Value 1 -The time to setup the scene of the render should be fast.

Value 2 – The actual render process should be as fast as possible (in a working environment no more than 10 minutes per render).

Value 3 – The render should look realistic and give clear results that a designer can use to communicate to his/her client.

Value 4 – The designer should get an instantaneous and realistic preview of what the final render will look like before he/she clicks render. It shouldn’t be a constant trial and error back and forth process.

Value 5 – There must be a comprehensive amount of built in or available materials and scenes for the program.

Value 6 – It should be easy for the designer to add materials or edit existing materials/environments for the program.

Value 7 – It must be fault proof, so that it is customisable but not so customisable that if you put a decimal point in the wrong spot of an input field the render shouldn’t end up being a plain black or white screen.

Value 8 – It must have an intuitive and aesthetically simple user-interface design.

Value 9 – Feature-wise it must be good value for money.

I tested out the main 4 programs that work seamlessly with Solidworks. Two that will immediately spring to mind include Photoworks and Photoview 360, however I was able to get my hands on a pre-release of Keyshot (formerly known as Bunkspeed Hypershot) as well as the established premium program Maxwell Render. I grabbed a chassis of a motorbike from 3D Content Central and applied some different metal and plastic materials to the model. I rendered the images using a Mac Pro with 2 x 2.8 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 10GB of DDR2 Memory and a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Graphics Card.

The Results

Please note that the above results are a qualitative not quantitative indicator of the programs performance. If one was to value one aspect, for example, final render quality in high esteem that particular user might take favour in one program over another.

Photoview 360 (2010 Version) – Solidworks

Render completed in 4:30. The render was clean and reflected the original render preview I was given. Some of the metal materials appeared a little plastic-like in appearance and other metals rendered a little rubber-like, but overall the render quality was excellent. Scene setup and tweaking was approximately 3 minutes.

Photoview 360 is a separate program that imports Solidworks files for render.

Positives

- Apart from Photoworks, Photoview 360 has the largest amount of built in materials and environments.

- Photoview has a great interface which is easy to use and achieves great render results. It is perfect for students or professionals who just want to get work done fast and effectively.

Negatives

- Rotating a scene in Photoview is really laggy (even when on the lowest preview settings) – the fact Keyshot has found a way to move and rotate Solidworks 3D models around faster than Photoview is just poor on Solidworks behalf. Although it must be stated that Keyshot does convert your Solidworks files into its own 3d format.

- There is no decal management, and sometimes when it imports decals from Solidworks the results can vary. Sometimes a decal might be too light or too dark and this can be very frustrating.

- Applying materials to whole parts or bodies is easy, but when you need to put a material on a part that is inside something (like a display cabinet) it becomes very tricky as one has to hide and unhide parts to get inside it. There desperately needs to be a list view of all the parts and bodies (like in Solidworks) and you should be able to drag and drop materials onto them accordingly rather than having to drag and drop materials onto the model itself.

- The render engine is smart but not smart enough, if your model happens to take up 90% of the screen it will take the same amount of time to render this image as it would to render the same model if took up 10% of the screen. Keyshot is a lot better at allocating processor resources to the areas of the render that require it rather than spending time on the consistent background colours and environments.

Keyshot (Version 1.0) aka Bunkspeed Hypershot – Luxion

Render completed in 6:21. The render was clean and was extremely close to the original render preview I was given. The render quality is superb and without a doubt was the best render out of all the tested software. Scene setup and tweaking was approximately 2 minutes.

Keyshot is a separate program that imports and translates your Solidworks data.

Positives

- There are some great shortcuts to view different views of your model.

- Rotating the scene is incredibly fast there is almost no lag.

- You can even import existing material data from Photoworks! (this is still in beta)

- The program is very versatile in that it can import a whole range of different CAD file types (not like Photoview which is limited to Solidworks files).

- Keyshot renders have a variable render time, that is, if your model takes up a small part of the scene it will consequently only take a small amount of time to complete the render. Backgrounds render almost immediately which makes sense!

- The preview quality is exceptional, it far exceeds all other packages in not only quality but also in how close it matches the final render. The preview quality of the renders are so good I kid you not that it is sometimes best to not even press render and just click the quick screen grab option that is part of the program! Please click here to see the 1080P preview image captured from the program!

- Keyshot wont import decals from Solidworks, however its built-in material editor makes it extremely easy and fast to apply decals onto your model and adjust the alignment perfectly. Photoview 360 and Maxwell could certainly learn a thing or two from this great implementation of decal management.

Negatives

- You actually need to set the curvature quality and anti-alias settings within Solidworks (tools>options) before you import your model into Keyshot. If you leave your model on the default curvature settings, your circles will look like decagons in Keyshot. After the import process it should allow you to tweak the triangulation of the model; this should be an easy future bug fix.

- This is not really a negative but sometimes the live preview render was so good that it was almost as good as the finished render. So in that regard it is frustrating having to wait several minutes for a render to complete when the preview render was almost as good. I am still puzzled as to how they were able to make the preview image look so good ? It is puzzling me?

- Keyshot is expensive.

- You can’t adjust the perspective of the model, but you can adjust the lens settings of the camera.

Maxwell Render (2.0) – Next Limit

Render completed in 31:58. The lighting, shading and material accuracy of the render is the best out of all the programs. The metals had the same reflectivity and shine as real metal and didn’t look as plastic as Keyshot and Photoview 360. However the render took the longest period of time to complete and in some business environments half an hour might be a little too long per a render. Maxwell should be used a little differently to the other programs in that you should use it when you want one fantastic image rather than when you may want many low quality images. Scene setup and tweaking was approximately 9 minutes.

Maxwell Render is a separate program with a Solidworks plugin. Materials and environments are specified within Solidworks and once rendering initiates Maxwell Render launches as a new program.

Positives

- Maxwell Render has some advanced scene properties like ozone, temperature of the sun etc. Tweaking the properties is fault-proof; no matter what setting you have it on it will probably look good (unlike photoworks where small tweaks to numbers can dramatically enhance or destroy your final image). Maxwell Render also allows you to adjust the lighting of a render while the image is actually getting rendered!

- Once you have found good materials from the Maxwell website (which are free) it is by far the most diverse and extensive range of materials available by a long shot. There are even 3D materials like fur and grass blades which simply don’t exist on the other software packages!

- The material editor is fantastic in its mission but for more amateur users the settings are quite confusing as materials are built on several layers and the naming conventions would baffle a novice user.

- The interface is great, it reminds me of Final Cut Studio on Mac OSX with its dark sleek theme.

- The render results are great!

- Multilight is brilliant, it allows you to tweak lighting during a render and it even allows you to make cool lighting animations using a timeline.

- The plugin for solidworks is great, it is always nice to manipulate the scene and materials inside Solidworks.

- More advanced users can make great use out of emitters (additional spot/area lights and material illumination). This can be fantastic for creating very controlled lighting conditions.

Negatives

- The program doesn’t come with many built in materials and consequently you will find yourself initially spending numerous hours on the Maxwell site hunting down materials.

- Rendering even on Maxwell Render 2.0 for an industrial designer is a little slow. If one lacks patience renders will be noisy and lack clarity and contrast.

- You can’t add decals. This should have definitely been included especially seeing it is a plugin to Solidworks. So one must create a new Maxwell material with a decal on it. Mapping these custom materials/textures on your model and trying to get the alignment just right is a slow, terrible and buggy process. By the time you’re done one would just consider Photoshopping the decals on manually.

Photoworks (2010 Version) - Solidworks

Render completed in 2:49. I knew even before I started this test that the Photoworks Render wasn’t going to look like the other renders. Photoworks is notorious for delivering sub-par render results. I do realise that if I spent more time tweaking the Photoworks render I could have potentially gained better results. But I shouldn’t have to adjust the colour of steel to cream so Photoworks can render it the correct colour of grey. Scene setup and tweaking was approximately 5 minutes.

Photoworks is native and included as part of Solidworks. Photoworks is actually an OEM product from V Ray.

Positives

- It’s built in and it is by far the fastest render engine out of all the programs.

- Light editing is the best in Photoworks although it has a poor interface.

- Changing perspective and adjusting cameras is simple and intuitive.

- Applying materials to specific faces, bodies, parts or assemblies was the quickest and easiest as it has an easy drop down list to apply particular materials.

- It is by far the best decal manager.

Negatives

- Render results are poor and unpredictable at times even for experienced users.

- No live preview so render results are a real trial and error process. There is a render region tool but this is a little slow to operate.

- Settings for rendering are scattered throughout the program (there must be 4-5 different places where you must go to to get your render just right). There definitely needs to be a central control panel! At the moment you need to go into the program options to change the curvature quality, apply materials in a different menu, apply environments in a different menu, decals in a different menu, general render settings in a different menu and then lastly output options in a different render menu – this is complete mess as you can tell.

- The interface despite being built-in is too slow.

- Whilst rendering Solidworks becomes extremely unstable and the rendering process is highly susceptible to crashing if a user is too ambitious in his/her render settings. RAM Memory timeouts are commonplace so it is essential to save your work before clicking render, especially when on a slow computer.

- Whilst rendering the whole computer is innoperable as almost the whole processor is utilised during the rendering process. Some would say this is great because it means renders are quicker, however in a design studio having a computer out of action during renders is simply not acceptable. A design manager would prefer a render to take another 5 minutes to complete rather than for a designer to not be able to use his/her computer at all for 10-20 minutes.

Observations

- Photoview 360 and Keyshot’s render engine are very similar in how they operate in that they work in pixel blocks and it refines itself layer after layer. The final render output of the two programs is also eerily similar in tone.

- When the settings on Keyshot are lowest it will beat Photoview 360. However unlike Photoview, in Keyshot you can really crank up the quality settings, and when all the settings are on high it is unbareably long (I am talking several hours). One will find that the difference between the low and high render quality settings on Keyshot don’t make a considerable amount of difference to the final render output. This is very different to the quality adjustment in Photoworks or Photoview, as when you change the anti-alias, ray tracing, illumination settings in these programs there is a substantial jump in quality.

- Keyshot’s live preview really feels like you have a finished render that can move around in 3D space the experience is fantastic! The quick screen capture button is a great feature as it allows you to grab the live preview renders and save theme as still images. This allows you to literally render 10 different angles of a model in literally 10 seconds and that is no exaggeration. Keyshot is almost worth purchasing the program on this feature alone. Another great feature in Keyshot is that you can do batch rendering so you can have a queue of renders all lined up, which is useful if you want to render overnight.

Conclusion – Looking Forward

If you don’t want to pay any money for an additional CAD program it would be a crime to use Photoworks as appose to Photoview 360. Photoview 360 is a quality rendering program and in the next release of Solidworks (2011) Photoview 360 will be integrated into Solidworks, so finally goodbye Photoworks!!! If you don’t mind waiting a little extra for superb render results and you require advanced customisation, Maxwell Render is your bet! If you want something extremely fast and good quality I would highly recommend Keyshot, but if you don’t have $1000 lying around, Photoview 360 is a fantastic rendering program despite its lack of features and at times laggy performance.

It is surprising that some of the newer programs like Photoview 360 and Hypershot still lack some basic features like adjusting the perspective and more advanced scene and lighting adjustments that can really enhance a render. All of the CAD packages need to come with better HDR environments and more realistic material textures. We all know a quality render depends not just on a good model and its associated materials but even more so on its surrounding environment. It is surprising that in the last 5 years these companies haven’t invested substantial resources into making some real professional HDR’s and studio lighting built into their software. Photoview 360 and Hypershot are half way there on their environments and Maxwell is half way there with their materials.

Next year when the better features of Photoworks like camera adjustment, scene tweaking, lighting and applying materials join with Photoview 360′s rendering engine, the next built-in version of Photoview 360 in Solidworks 2011 could make it the undisputed rendering package. However I really feel with the pace computer processors are advancing that Keyshot’s live rendering engine is the way of the future. A future where renders take milliseconds to complete rather than minutes. We are still a long way away from that perfect render but I am sure the next few years will be an exciting time in render technology and innovation.

DOWNLOAD THE WHITE PAPER

Alas, no such glorious contraption exists (yet!). So, in lieu of becoming a quantum physicist (or whoever it is that deals with time travel and the like), I have decided to embrace my student readers in my weary, final year arms and pass on some golden knowledge that I wish I had known (or if I knew, had taken to heart) when I started on this journey we call Higher Education.

Article by Sarah-Jayne McCreath – Twitter – Blog –  17.03.2010

1. Plan Ahead

The number one thing I insist you do is try and map out what it is you want to get from your degree. This is also a great opportunity to practice your mind mapping skills, as you will use them ALOT over the next few years! What sector of Industrial Design do you picture yourself working in at the end?

Keep in mind that there is more to ID than just product styling and aesthetics. Over the course of your degree you’ll gain insight into many different areas of design, (research and development, human factors, interaction design, business and marketing), so it’s not essential to know exactly where your strengths lie at first, but it is a good idea to look at what your interests are now and choose minors or electives that build upon them. If you like reading and writing, you may want to get into research and theoretical subject areas. If you like getting your hands dirty or enjoy working with 3d software you may be leaning towards a degree with an emphasis on manufacturing.

Taking stock of what you like, what you are good at and where you want to end up will make it easier to carve out a more successful and fulfilling degree.

2. Get to Know Your Classmates

Knowledge shared is knowledge gained. I think that’s a phrase? Anyway, when you are in class, look around you. It may seem that the pale, foam model obsessed dude next to the window is a creep, but in fact, he may have some really interesting insight into that concept you are rolling around in your brain cavity.

Every student in that class is in the same position as you, and helping each other out is mutually advantageous. Getting other perspectives on your conundrum can open up a heap of options for you and your concepts. You’ll find that each person in the class has their strengths and weaknesses, so it’s a good idea to get acquainted so that you know who to go to if you have a specific problem. Maybe you need help with some ergonomic factors, and that girl in the 2nd row is a nut for Henry Dreyfus? Maybe you need help with some CAD issues and that aforementioned dude by the window is an ace at Solidworks?

Don’t think of it as using people, think of it as skill sharing! Besides, you might be awesome at something they need assistance with in the future! Also, you might make some friends.

3. Get to Know Your Tutors

Chances are, the people who are tutoring you have done quite well at the study you are now enduring, so take advantage of this. Find out what they are interested in, and they are likely to be happy to talk about it with you. This gives you a chance to employ their knowledge and also, to know what they look for in designs, leading to better outcomes on your marks. Once again, this isn’t using someone; it is grasping the opportunity to gain some insight into their field. Try not to go overboard and bug them too much, as they are probably PHD candidates that have bigger workloads than you, but don’t be afraid to ask questions. Be personable and open to suggestions. Again, you might make some friends.

4. Don’t Be Afraid of Your Lecturers

These people are not the under-lords of academic Hades. These people are passionate, well informed beacons of knowledge. But they are also mere mortals, who are usually happy to answer questions and give advice. They are in their position because they have a great insight into the subject matter at hand. If you are a recent high school graduate, or socially awkward, it can seem like they are unapproachable, grumpy authority figures. While respect should be given to them, it is also recommended that you actually try talking to them.

5. Share Your Ideas

Sharing ideas is not losing ideas (another phrase?). It provides you with great possibilities for feedback and advice. Talk to your classmates, tutors, lecturers, work-mates, friends and family and share what you are doing. It might seem weird to talk to non-designer types about what’s happening in your class, but in fact it can add a new perspective to your concepts. Non-designers are great sounding boards as they force you to explain your work in more articulate and simple terms, and can often provide really original insight. Don’t be afraid to be wrong, that just means you have an opportunity to gain some more knowledge.

Also, it’s a good idea to keep track of and share your work in an on-line portfolio. Sharing your concepts on-line means you have a wider net for catching feedback and comments, and it could lead to work opportunities in the future. It’s much easier to direct a prospective employer to an on-line portfolio than to have to hurriedly compile a huge PDF file in your final year and e-mail it off piece by piece. I recommend using Coroflot or Krop. Both are free to host a simple portfolio and look great. You could also put some work up here on Embody 3d!

And remember, above all else try to have fun with it. It may be your degree, but it is not your life work. That’ll come later. Who knows? You might even make some friends… with academic benefits!