INDUSTRIAL DESIGN STUDENT
"I SEE DESIGN AS A GOAL-DIRECTED DISCIPLINE AIMED AT CREATING CHANGE"
I see self-directed learning in the same way. Because the change I aim to achieve in the case of self-directed learning can be linked to the goal of becoming a professional Industrial Designer. Without a vision (end goal) and learning goals, my development won’t have any direction.
Setting learning goals serves as a guidance towards my end goal, my vision. As I am developing, my vision might shift or change, and my learning goals will follow. As I keep on developing my self-directed attitude, I am becoming a more competence Industrial Designer.
In this self-directed learning process, reflecting is crucial, because it will encourage critical thinking, self-awareness, and continuous improvement. In the process of reflection, individuals take time to retrospectively assess both successful aspects and, more importantly, areas requiring improvement. This will redirect and improve future learning.
Reflecting is not only crucial during the self-directed learning process, but during an iterative design process, a designer is constantly reflecting to refine their ideas/concepts. Designers can use various creativity techniques and change their perspective, to create new (and refined) ideas.
This visual shows how I see the cycles in the self directed learning process. All the cycles are guided towards the goal of becoming a professional Industrial Designer.


development as an Industrial Designer
To give my learning a direction I set personal learning goals for each quartile. To achieve these learning goals I worked on several tasks within the CBL-project 1 that fit my goals best and worked on personal projects for further developing.
Q1 and Q2:
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Getting a clear idea of what a design process looks like (Design-Research processes).
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Follow a Human-centered design approach (HCD-course).
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Developing my sketching skills (Sketching course).
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Developing my 3D-modeling skills and try to make realistic computer renders.
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Prototyping (3D-printing).
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Improving collaboration and working in a team (professional skills).
At the end of Q2 I received the following feedback (on my PDP) from my PI&V coach:
“In the final paragraph you describe your PDP. In this section you describe many intentions, but do not make that specific as a goal. “
After receiving this feedback, I worked on describing my intensions in more detail and making them more specific as a goal.
To achieve the following goals for Q3, I worked on several assignments for the Creative Programming course, Creative Mechanical Engineering course, and Creative Electronics course. To further develop myself I worked on a personal design project.
Q3:
1. Set more specific goals, making my self-directed learning process less vague.
2. Take prototyping skills to next level (Engineering approach). Combine hardware and software in prototypes. Learn to work with CAD software (Fusion 360). Make interactive prototypes. Gain better understanding of manufacturing processes.
3. Improve my reflections (PI&V, PDP, and writing for this portfolio).Write better reflections, resulting in better future learning.
4. Get better at planning (professional skills, general goal). Be more structured.
EXPERTISE AREAS
CREATIVITY & AESTHETICS
I believe this expertise area focusses on innovative thinking (creativity) and the importance of visual appeal (aesthetics). I see innovation as creating and implementing new ideas that lead to new and/or improved products, services, and systems.
At the start of the first semester (Q1), most of my personal learning goals were related to 'Creativity & Aesthetics'. One of these personal learning goals was:
Developing my sketching skills
I followed the Sketching course in which I started with learning basic techniques and eventually worked on improving my sketching skills in the areas of cheating perspective, framing my work, and setting scenes.
I practiced my exploratory sketching skills during CBL-project 1 and during personal design projects. While doing this, I realized that sketching is perfect for communicating your ideas/concepts to others. Because making these ideas/concepts visual makes it easier for others to understand them, visuals are universal.
Sketching also improves my ideation processes. In the start of an ideation process, I usually have one or more ideas in my mind, but these ideas are unclear.
Making simple sketches helps me to make these ideas/concepts more concrete and visual. Which results in a better understanding of these ideas/concepts. Making it easier for me to reflect and iterate on these ideas. Resulting in a more desired ideation process.
In the future I will again use sketching during the ideation process and for communicating my work to others (other designers, engineers, clients). I want to sketch more during the ideation process. While brainstorming during CBL-project 1 I think I could have made a lot more sketches. I believe making more sketches during future projects will help me create more ideas and improved iterations.
Usually, I share my work with others when it is (almost) done. In the future I will try to share my work (sketches) in an earlier stage of the ideation process and ask for feedback. Doing this will give me different perspectives and I think this could also help me make more user centered decisions.
In the images below, some (exploratory) sketches I made during different projects are shown.



aluminium chair design
scanner exploration for 'CBL-project 1'
cheating perspective
USER & SOCIETY
I believe this expertise area focusses on understanding the user’s needs and the societal impact of design choices. A designer uses research methods to gather insights, adapt perspectives, and consider ethical and cultural contexts. The expertise area of ‘User & Society’ aims to create meaningful value for individuals and to influence daily life. The user is being kept in mind in every step of the design process.
During the ‘Human-Centered Design’ course I learned that the ‘Human-centered’ approach is a design approach that is developed to supplement the ‘Design-centered’ and ‘Engineer-centered’ approaches.
As an Industrial Designer I believe it’s my job to approach design from all three perspectives and combine them in the correct ratio, depending on the situation.
Using the perspective of a designer, making sure that I am creative and generate innovative ideas/concepts that are visually pleasing. Using the perspective of an engineer, making sure that these ideas/concepts are possible to manufacture. And using the perspective of the user, making sure that these ideas/concepts are not only creative and realistic, but will also meet the interests and needs of the user.
The visual below gives a simplified overview of the three design approaches.

To use this 'Human-centered' approach, I need to be able to understand the user. Understanding the user can be done by various data gathering methods, like interviews, questionnaires, and observations.
During CBL-project 1 I should have used more of these data gathering methods to create specific personas for the users of our educational game. These personas give a representation of the different user types that might use the product/service/system. During CBL-project 1 (and in general), the use of personas helps me as designer to understand the user’s behavior, needs, experiences, and goals. Which makes it possible to make design decisions based on the user.
When designing the scanner (which was a physical product part of an educational game), the usability and user experience were a significant part of the process. However, in the future I want to put more focus on user research during the design process, because I feel like I did not combine the three approaches in the correct ratio during this project. This results in a new learning goal for P2: Focus more on the 'Human-centered' approach during the design process.
TECHNOLOGY & REALIZATION
As an Industrial Designer it is crucial to demonstrate your ideas/concepts using relevant technologies. To design interactive products, services, and systems it is important to build prototypes and choose to integrate the appropriate technologies/mechanisms. A competence Industrial Designer must also be able to communicate with engineers from different disciplines and understand the basics of their field of work.
In Q3 my development in this 'Expertise Area' kickstarted with the ‘Creative Mechanical Engineering’ course within CBL-project 2. During this course I learned about different materials and manufacturing processes, like injection molding, forging, milling, turning and different types of welding.
During this course I also worked on a ‘reverse engineering’ assignment, which helped me get a better understanding of different materials and how products are assembled.
For this assignment I fully disassembled a Braun mixer, made a bill of materials, created an exploded view of the product, and made orthographic and isometric drawing of one of the components.
In the process of doing this I learned that different components support each other and that some components fully depend on (one or more) other components. I have not designed products with more than 3 components yet. In the future I would like to challenge myself to design more complex products with multiple components (that depend on each other). To achieve this goal, I will have to do more research on engineering, and I would like to create a deeper understanding of manufacturing processes.
In the images below the disassembly, orthographic drawings, and CAD-model are shown.

disassembling

orthographic drawings of component

cad-model I made
While creating the drawings for one of the components I also improved my (Fusion-360) CAD modeling skills.
The 3D-printing assignment was perfect for further improving these CAD modeling skills. The assignment gave me an opportunity to get more familiar with 3D-printing and optimizing 3D-modeling for printing, which is a great skill to have. 3D-printning is a (relatively) easy and fast way to make your designs tangible. I believe that prototyping is a crucial step in the iterative design process, because making tangible representations of your design; will create a better understanding of the product, allows for better user testing (resulting in better feedback), and helps with communicating your design within a team.
The ‘infill chair’, for this design I created a minimalistic chair (with a comfortable curve in the seat and backrest) in fusion 360 and I let the slicer software do some magic. Slicer software creates an infill of the model to reinforce the printed chair. Because I like the way these different infill patterns look, I wanted to create a chair made of only the infill. See the images below for the result.

different infill patterns

3D-model in slicer software

3D-printed chair
BUSINESS & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
As stated in my vision, I strive to be a professional Industrial Designer that balances creativity with technical expertise, ensuring that my designs are not only visually pleasant but also functional, feasible, and marketable.
Although I don’t have much experience within this Expertise Area yet, I see the importance of it. To create products, services, and systems that are marketable I need to have a basic understanding of economic and financial models.
Starting a design studio is in essence the same as starting any other company, this requires knowledge concerning entrepreneurship, intellectual property rights, and business ethics.
I plan to develop in this Expertise Area by learning from other designers/entrepreneurs and possibly choose an elective course that is related to Business & Entrepreneurship.
MATH, DATA, & COMPUTING
As an Industrial Designer you are often dealing with data, especially during research. I can now use various data analysis techniques from the ‘Foundations of Data Analytics’ course, to interpreted data and make meaningful visualizations from gathered data.
During the ‘Creative Programming’ course I learned the basics of computer programming with a creative and design-oriented focus. Click here to read more about my experiences during this course.
Image below shows a visual I made during this course, using computer programming.

2024