Developing Design Skills, Solving Design Problems

06

Jul 2010

My name is Larry Erickson. I am the Paul and Helen Farago Chair for the Transportation Design Department at CCS.

Looking at developing ideas, especially now in transportation design, is a great opportunity not only for us but for the student too.  They may see a problem that exists for us in a different way; they may see their own problem in a different way. I think there’s a wonderful opportunity when you get people from another country.  We’ve got a wonderful mix of students, two from China, and two from Korea, one from India, and one here from the U.S.  This opportunity to bring different backgrounds, different insights, and to exchange those with other people from other parts of the world is just one of the most wonderful things about education.  And especially when you bring in the companies that contribute through sponsored projects or through exchanges with the students, the dialogue can be fantastic.

The professional experience for the students, before they came into the program, is not a prescribed path.  Design problems don’t exist in just this one little narrow band.  Design problems have to do with real world experience, have to do with common sense; they have to do with what it’s like to be collaborative, what it’s like to be resourceful, and how you get data.  Design creativity and the fundamental pieces are part of this program such as the research and the business. Sometimes that research and that business comes about in ways you hadn’t anticipated.  And the program offers them the opportunity to come in, develop those skills and, in some cases, go back to the industry they came out of in a different role.”

The Paul & Helen Farago Chair of Transportation | Larry Erickson

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Coming Back to CCS

24

Jun 2010

“My name is Henry Chang and I am a graduate student in Transportation Design.  I graduated from the undergrad program at CCS a while ago and I had my own career. I’ve always wanted to come back and get a master’s degree but CCS didn’t offer one until this year. I happened to find out that CCS started a master’s program and it fit my needs, so that’s why I chose CCS.

I’m from San Francisco, California and since I’ve graduated from CCS I went to different places as a contractor doing alias work and also design work for a design firm as well as auto studios. I’ve done my own projects and did a little bit of work for a movie,  I did a lot of stuff before I came here. Design and Alias work was my specialty.

Like everybody else, I’m looking long term and I’m looking for work.  Eventually I’d like to go into teaching as well and as far as I understand it, if you want to go into teaching, you need a master’s degree. That’s one of the things I’m looking into for the long term.

When I was here the first time around, I always felt that CCS was very strong in technical issues. The College is well known for people who do good renderings and they’re well known throughout the United States for their Visual Communication (VisCom) skills.  That’s the reason I came here.  I was looking for the same kind of stuff. I know that CCS specializes in transportation and they’re still one of the top schools in the world for teaching VisCom and technical issues with cars.

On top of that I was looking more for other things, where as an undergrad you do more technical stuff but I know as a master’s student you are going to do more of the human related issues, such as being a manager and you’re able to develop products.  Those things, for this stage in my career, were the things I was looking for.  I was very familiar with the faculty and they’re very hands-on, which is one of the big reasons I chose to come back here.

Right now we are working on a GM project. It’s called designing the next electric vehicle (EV). We are looking into the EV market as a whole. The EV market is very new so we don’t have one yet but we are going to look into the Hybrid market as a template and try to figure out how to grow the EV market.  Right now the Hybrid market, in itself, is very small. In the future we are guessing that the EV and Hybrid are going to be more mainstream. We think more people are going to drive those cars. In order for us to prepare for that, we need to design the next generation of cars to meet those needs.

I was out of school for a long time and I came back to school so for me it’s a more personal challenge to get used to school life again.  Thankfully I’ve been very fortunate that the program is new so the staff is very accommodating and they try their best to make sure their students succeed no matter where they came from so it worked out perfect for me. They are there to help me succeed and it’s really been great. I think the master’s program at CCS is exciting, it challenges you and at the same time it’s been great.”

MFA Student (Transportation Design) | Henry Chang

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The Designer of Today

21

Jun 2010

“My name is Maria Luisa Rossi and I have a master’s degree in industrial design from Domus Academy in Milano.

Being a designer, you need to be an optimist and you really need to think about a different solution.  The designer of today is no longer making just a beautiful design. They are researching, they are making strategies and then they are designing a beautiful design.

In my program there are two different classes and there are two semesters dedicated to business practice.  The students will not be experts in finance but they are going to understand the ABCs of business. They are going to try to study cases of design business success. What we are trying to do in my program is simulate the normal practice in the design work industry.

The use of technology in the design process and in everyday life is so important right now that you really need to get more people to work in the project. It’s much more complicated than it was before.  There is not one object that doesn’t include interaction or economy so you really need to have very strong team skills in order to work right now in the industry.  It’s very important for us to simulate this in class.”

MFA Design Chair | Maria Luisa Rossi

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