How to find an ID job

As an employer we have been frustrated with the poor applications that we have received recently. Here are some of the most major errors we're seeing:

1.Poor grammar, lack of capitalization, typos, poor spelling, and no indication of which job they are applying to. Even if English is your second language, use spell check and grammar check! Ask friends to look things over. Craftsmanship is key.

2.Individual jpgs sent as samples. There is no way we are opening 10 attachments, period. Sorry. You've been rejected. Next!

3.Calling when the ad says no calls - this is a variation of the less common but more annoying version of the, "I'm just stopping by, can you see me now?"

4.No sketches or background material in your portfolio.

5.Not following pretty basic instructions in job wanted ad on how to apply

Here are the ingredients to a great application: Cover letter, Resume, and Samples
Cover Letter - research the company and write a personalized letter. This can be the email that you attach your resume and samples to. Please tell me in this letter which job you are applying to - DUH! I don't care why you want to move to my city (I don't care that your girlfriend live here) but I do care about why you think you are right for my company.

Resume: Please keep this to one page unless you have tons of experience. Sponsored studios don't count as experience, sorry. Include a graduation date. My last post was for a true junior designer. I had juniors trying to appear as if they had 3 or more years of experience. I disqualified those people. Too bad. Be honest.

Samples could be a teaser or a complete portfolio:

Teaser: 1 project with support work or 3-4 projects in final form

Complete portfolio: Should consist of 3-4 projects (minimum 3) from start to finish. You should document your thinking and decision making process from start to finish. We are looking for how much exploration and research you did, mechanical ability, aesthetics, and sensitivity to the user. We want to see the bad ideas you rejected as well as the really crazy ideas your instructor thought were too blue sky. We also want to see your mock ups. We are looking for your visual communication skills - this means sketching. If you can't sketch, it's still better to include your thinking than to not include it.

This is a forum discussion with people in the industry, PEOPLE who interview... LINK

Project 1 waterbottle with a second function

ok... so the breif was as follows; design a water bottle, which is easy enough, but the challenge here was to design a bottle with a secondary function...

A secondary function for a water bottle, hmm that was a tricky task. I was asked to design something that wasnt cliche, that wasnt a one hit wonder that someone would buy once for the novelity of it...

so fretting away, sketching like crasy trying to find a secondary function that would be somewhat equal in value to the products primary function being a water bottle.

I finally ended up with the idea of doing clothes pegs... i mean we all need them, dont we? its something that we use almost everyday. Also being humans we do need water, well why not combine the two. So hours of thumbnails later i ended up with HYRDA-PEG.

i mean we waste wood making traditional pegs, now we also have the plastic and metal pegs, why on earth wouldnt we just provide pegs with a purpose...

so i ended up with the following:

ID sketching!

Sketching is a tool we as product designers must have to be able to enter the industry. The ability to communicate is visually is an essential tool and skill which all designer must have. Here is a site which give great tutorials and walkthroughs on how to sketch and how to turn yourself from an average sketcher to an elite sketcher... this is the sites ideaology:

Ideology

So here’s the deal – John and I go way back. We went to the same college took the same classes, and have some of the same passions. We both love sketching, creating and teaching. That’s what IDSKETCHING.COM is all about.

John and I decided that it was about time we share our work and methodology with the general design/art community. We’re no masters by any means, but no such undertaking has been attempted by anyone in any way such as this. We came up with the idea to share and share alike. To have this site as a resource for all to use to better their skillset.

We believe in helping others and providing a resource for all to use absolutely free of charge. We believe that by helping others, you ultimately help yourself in the process.

Alot of time and energy has been put into the site and we hope that you’ll come back weekly for updates and monthly for our longer featured demos. Like I said, this is a massive undertaking. We have a small library to start with, but join us as we make this dream a reality.

LINK:http://www.idsketching.com/

YANKO Design web magazine

Yanko Design is a web magazine dedicated to introducing the best modern international design, covering from industrial design, concepts, technology, interior design, architecture, exhibition and fashion. It’s about the cutting edge and the classic, the new and the rediscovered. It’s all about the best.

Yankodesign.com reaches a rapidly expanding audience of approximately 590,000+ unique users, viewing 3 million pageviews each month with 18,000+ total daily newsletter subscribers making it the world’s most popular & influential online design magazine.

Yanko Design is on the list of Technorati.com’s top 100 most read blogs on the internet, currently ranked at 63 (out of 75,000,000+ blogs).

link:http://www.yankodesign.com/

How to Innovate!

This step-by-step method helps you invent new products or services using templates. Templates channel your creative thinking so you can innovate in a completely new way. It is not brainstorming. It is a structured process to focus your creative output.

The way it works is by creating a hypothetical solution first, and then imagining a problem that it solves. This is exactly opposite of the traditional way people invent. Usually, we start with a problem, then we try to invent solutions to it. That is not always effective because many times we do not know all the problems consumers have when using a product or service. When reverse the direction (SOLUTION-TO-PROBLEM), we uncover many new useful problems worth solving, and we have an innovative solution to apply to it. It's cool! And it works!

Follow these steps:

1. Select a product or service to innovate.

2. Create a list of its components.

3. Apply a TEMPLATE to each component. This creates a VIRTUAL PRODUCT. It is virtual because it does not exist. It should not seem to make any sense to you at first. That is okay...that is how the method works.

4. Take the VIRTUAL PRODUCT and think of all the ways it could be useful. What problems does it solve? What benefits does it offer? Who would use it?

5. Repeat the process using a different component.

6. Repeat the entire process using a different TEMPLATE.

Here are the TEMPLATES:

• SUBTRACTION: removing an essential component and keeping only what is left
• MULTIPLICATION: making a copy of a component but changing it in some way
• DIVISION: dividing a component out of the product and putting it back somewhere else, OR taking the component and physically dividing it
• TASK UNIFICATION: assigning an additional task to an existing component - giving it a new job in addition to its existing job

find more examples at:
http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/

online portfolio