ID [PNW]

I've been teaching Adobe Illustrator to the Western Industrial Design sophomore students for six years now.  It's a powerful tool for doing design renderings.  Here's a few examples from last fall of some track bicycle frames.  The original line art is from the Teschner bicycle company.  I challenge the students to design the graphics, add reflections and shading, and play with different materials.  That way, they aren't spending time on the frame shape and can concentrate on the color and rendering.  The main Illustrator tools being used here are: the pen tool, adjusting the transparency and blending modes, stylize feather, blur, clipping masks, and lots of gradient manipulation.  These are all sophomores (2nd year students).   by Nolan Leh   by Elijah Hooper by Ryan Hume by Anna Perrela by Paul Linden

This a sample of 3 projects from Form Function, by Jason Morris and Western Industrial Design students; Erin Yoakum, Justin Lund and Phelan Miller. This purely visual short film shows an industrial design creative process that starts with abstract sculpture and ends with a functional object. Music by Moby. It premiered at The Doctober Documentary Film Festival 2009, Pickford Cinema, Bellingham, WA, US. Creative solutions are rarely found by using conventional methods. This short film shows a design process that begins with abstract form creation without knowledge of the designs purpose. The form creation is done with guidelines made by the instructor, who creates the rules to correspond with the designs objectives. Only after these abstract sculptures are complete is the designs purpose revealed. A selected form study is then evaluated for ideas and inspiration, which is refined applying the realities of the design functions. This film shows the sculpture spinning slowly and tra...

Above: mud thatched home for a family of seven in Uganda. Below: designer bedroom for one child in Paris. (lower photo from Dwell) How can an industrial designer make an impact on the poor of the world?  We might have some creative skills, we can visually communicate, and we can find unconventional ways of solving problems.  And one way is to immerse oneself into a different socio-economic culture, experience the problems to be addressed and work on designing a solution.  This is one obvious way, and it can be an incredible experience and make a real difference.  However, we can’t all do it, and sometimes flying to Africa and trying to make some helpful gadget has limited long-term sustainable impact.  Perhaps, instead of airfare half-way around the world, that money could go to supporting an orphan’s care?  Or building a well for a village, or a family’s medical care, or a child’s education?   These are very immediate needs for mo...