Competency development
Here at Industrial Design, every student gets a change becomes an unique designer with his own vision, identity, skills and strengths. On this page I will describe the growth I went through during in the different expertise areas during my first year here at Industrial Design.
At the end of the first semester I wrote my goals for the next half of the year, and after, in my Personal Development Plan (PDP). You can read this PDP below
Furthermore, during the second semester of my first year, I had several meetings with a tutor (Dennis Rietveld) in which I learned about self-directed learning. Below you can also read my Tutor Advice. Here Dennis will tell you more about his impression of me.
Read my Tutor Advice Read my B1.1 PDP
Growth
Scroll down to read about my development in the different expertise areas
during this first year and in particular Project 1
You can read more about this project below
Read my Project 1 report ‘Play to learn, Learn to play’
Technology & Realization
I started my project 1 with only paper prototyping as pre knowledge about this expertise area, but my growth was tremendous. I helped to build over 5 prototypes, which enlarged my knowledge about e.g. materials and how to operate the devices in vertigo.
I conquered my fear of the big machines in vertigo for woodworking and am now able to work with most of them. Which I consider essential for an ID student.
We made multiple prototypes from all kinds of different materials to find the perfect on for our product. This learned me a lot about how to with these materials and what their properties are. This knowledge will help me make better prototypes in the future.
Courses and extracurricular activities
- Creative electronics
- Cultural Sensitivity
- From Idea to Design
Creativity & Aesthetics
I experienced a lot of growth in the expertise area creativity and aesthetics during my first year at ID and project 1. I put a lot ideation techniques I learned during the course ‘From idea to design’ into practice for the first time. I learned from this which techniques work for me and which don’t. I also used a matrix for the first time, which turned out to be extremely helpful! I will use this technique in every project from now on.
Another field I developed a lot in is video editing, I made or helped to make all the videos for project 1 and other courses I followed in Q3 and Q4. I learned a lot about the different features in Adobe premiere. I can’t wait to find out what else is possible in this program. I will find this out by practicing, which I will do a lot over the summer and in future projects.
In working with the other adobe programs, Illustrator and InDesign, I also improved. I made little ‘drawings’ almost every week and tried out all the different features. I made Logo’s for the products I developed these last quartiles in Illustrator and also made my reports in InDesign. It’s incredible how much you can improve after just one day of practice in these programs, I will keep working with them and keep improving.
Courses and extracurricular activities
- From Idea to Design
- Cultural Sensitivity
- Workshop Adobe basics
- Workshop Adobe Illustrator
Math, Data & Computing
This is one of the expertise areas where I grew in most this year. I developed and integrated my knowledge in this expertise area in almost all the courses I followed this first year. learning about math, data and computing makes me able to understand technology better, use it in my projects and communicate better with technological experts that I might encounter during my career.
Especially programming skills are essential for industrial designers. Although I started from nothing this year and am now able to do all sorts of things with Arduino I want and need to keep developing this skill.
Another skill I believe is important is my ability to work with sound programs as Audacity. Adding sounds to products is important and since most of my peers have little to no experience with sound editing I want to keep improving this skill I learned at the course ‘Sound Design’. I hope being a good sound designer will make me more valuable in future design teams.
Courses and extracurricular activities where I also developed this expertise area
- Sound Design
- Modeling
- Creative programming
- Calculus
- Physics
- Html workshop
Business & Entrepreneurship
With absolutely no experience or knowledge about this expertise area I started project 1. The main points of growth for me in this expertise area happened when I had to work with a business model canvas and had to give a business pitch in front of investors.
Working with the business model canvas was more difficult than I expected. I never knew so many aspects had to be thought of while bringing a project to the market. I did a lot of research to what all these things on the canvas were. This was a big eye opener for me.
Our business pitch was a complete failure, but the feedback extremely helpful. The most important one; use a lot of numbers! that’s what investors want to hear. I will from now on never forget this in future pitches.
Courses and extracurricular activities
- Lucid studio Tour to vanBerlo and Qwool
User & Society
During project 1 I developed this expertise area a lot. Especially in Q4, which all centered about users for us. In total I participated in 2 large user tests at a school and a big playground, multiple smaller user tests with potential users from my environment, and 4 interviews with experts about our concept. I learned that is often hard to convince a preschool to let you user test there. I developed a way to present our user test as something not only beneficial for us, but also for them. I learned that this way they’ll agree a lot sooner. I also learned that playgrounds are a perfect place to find children of all ages, but they also won’t participate if they don’t get something out of it. Lolly’s turned out to be a great deal for participation. All these little pieces of knowledge and experience will come in really handy in future user tests.
Courses and extracurricular activities
- USE basic: History and Ethics of Technology
- User-centered Design
- Cultural Sensitivity
- Studium Generale activities about psychology
Design Research Process
While learning about the design process (ideation, conceptualization, realization, and validation) in the course ‘From Idea to Design’, I never went through all phases until project 1. During this project I found out that the ideation phase is the phase where I excel in most. In the ideation phase one has a lot of creative freedom and I love how you can just let your mind wonder and come up with the most out of the box ideas. The phase where I still have a lot of work to do to improve is the realization phase. I’m not the best at programming or woodworking, but I’m growing. I believe this is the expertise area that I developed most during this first year and project 1.
Courses and extracurricular activities
- Workshop: Dealing with Scientific Info
Professional Skills
While writing my B1.1 pdp I stated that I wanted to lead project meetings more often. If there’s any goal I’ve reached, it’s this one. I took the lead in my project 1 design team from day one and leaded every meeting since. At the end of the project I asked my teammates for feedback on this and they only gave me positive feedback. I was described as calm, structured, organized and always had clear communication. Because of this positive experience I will most likely also take the lead in future design teams.
Other important skills I developed during project 1 are my pitching and presenting skills. I had set the goal to myself to pitch at least 10 times at both the midterm and the final Demo day. Both times this goals was reached. Before the Demo days I had also practiced my pitch with my team mates and friends their feedback really helped improving my pitch and I will also do in all my following Demo days.
Courses and extracurricular activities
- Workshop: Meeting skills
- Workshop: Pitching your Project
Vision & Identity Development
At the start of the year, I had a lot of trouble with my vision and identity as a designer. I did not know what my main interest was and I found it hard to explain what design means for me. However, after learning more about the different aspects of design and following various courses, I came closer to finding out who I was as a designer and how my personality influenced my professional identity.
I know my vision, and most likely also my professional identity will be forever changing. But as of this moment I’m really interested in social design, design for people. I want a close relation with my users and help to solve problems with my products.
I’ve learned this about myself at the hand of all the courses I followed this year, all the projects I did and all the design knowledge I’ve gained. It all helped me to see what I like and what I don’t like. I can’t wait to get even more inside in design in my following years in this study. I will make my vision more specific and identity more comprehensive as I keep growing as an individual and a designer.
Kyara Fasen 