Industrial Design
I took some industrial design and furniture design classes while seeking my degree, and have used these skills a little bit. If you need someone who can understand how digital integrates with hardware, who understands the hardware layer of technology and networking, and can read and interpret communication protocols, I may be your man.
A brief summary of some of what I have done:
Coordinate with mobile telecom SEBU (subscriber equipment), provide graphics and coordinate on colors, functions of softkeys, etc.
Created detailed style guides for vendors to modify their hardware (such as key functions, labelling) to comply with mobile operator requirements.
Led team for industrial design exercise, creating e-reader prototypes, with multiple competing versions, including creating static shop samples. Worked with overseas manufacturing to create final product.
For a wearable device, overall design assistance to coordinate with the application controls, and assisted in technical aspects of hardware such as moving from motor vibrate to transducer vibrate, greatly reducing power requirements and adding much more fine haptic profiles.
Created, or consulted on, packaging design and instructions for several different physical products including consumer and industrial electronics, installed mechanical systems, construction supplies, and employee benefits documentation.
Identified the need, found an existing device manufacturer, and connected the engineers to them. The org was able to start selling a simpler, wireless-only device of 1/10th the physical volume of the previous models, without the need for accessory cables, and at 1/4 the cost. This became by far the best selling device in the class.
Designed stickers or parts of stickers for devices, improvements that helped identify the device when synching or to improve connection and use, and coordinated the brand for consistent labelling, use of type, and icons between all media.
Created designs for overlays, and determined button/light placement – with tradeoffs to meet existing BOM – on electrical system control panels including generators and transfer switches.
Selected colors that coordinated well for different physical materials. For example, on-screen, ink, paint, and molded plastic are in four different color spaces; there’s no such thing as a color that looks the same in all four of those so had to create a scheme that used specifically different but complimentary colors for each instead.
Created color conversions from SAE lighting standards, set up for transparency, to printed inks and on-screen display.