I spent the last week in the Bay Area with some of my classmates from the BYU industrial design program visiting a variety of design consultancies and corporate offices. Silicon Valley is known internationally as the tech center of the world, but would you have considered it a design center? People think of Paris, London, and New York, which all have a great deal of fashion and apparel, but in Silicon Valley, with the number of tech companies and start-ups making physical and digital products, there is a great need for industrial design.
The following companies generously took time out of their schedules to sit down with 10 students and talk about their unique process, company culture, and past projects: Timbuk2, HTC, Pixar, New Deal Design, Astro Studios, Huge, GoPro, OHIO Design, Heath Ceramics, Lunar, Studio O+A, and Whipsaw. To give you an idea of the density of design in the Bay Area, most of these visits were within a few blocks of each other. If we’d had more time to do visits, we easily could have done visits for a few more days and continued to hit some of the biggest names in industrial design such as Frog, IDEO, Ammunition, Smart Design, Apple, Google, Pebble, etc.
“Bay Area start-ups often trade equity in return for design services and support.”
One of the things that was most interesting to me was how many of the places we visited discussed the variety of work they take on, from corporate clients seeking to diversify their product line to start-ups trying to launch their first product. Many entrepreneurs without any knowledge of how to design or manufacture their ideas are coming to consultancies for help. Lacking the funds to pay for design work upfront, these start-ups often trade equity in return for design services and support. Design consultancies take great risks accepting equity in companies instead of pay for work, so they are very selective about the projects they take on and the people they work with using this model.
“It is an opportunity to share your work, get feedback, and even interview…”
For the last day and a half of our trip, we attended the Industrial Designers Society of America(IDSA) 2015 West District Conference in San Jose. This is an annual conference attended by students and professionals looking to network within the field and hear about cutting-edge topics in design from other industry professionals. It is an opportunity to share your work, get feedback, and even interview for positions that companies are looking to fill in the near future.
Overall, the trip was incredibly valuable. It helped me to understand better what it is like to work in a design consultancy. I connected with influential designers at companies and firms that I am interested in working at. I will likely pursue an entry level position at a few of the places that we visited as well as at companies that sent representatives to the IDSA conference.
The role of industrial design is growing, and I feel that I am entering the field at the right time and place to be an influence for good.
