Bachelor Industrial Design

Throughout my bachelor of Industrial Design, the study focused on different expertise areas. These areas of expertise are as follows:

Creativity & Aesthetics
Technology & Realization
User & Society
Business & Entrepreneurship
Math, Data & Computing

Developing myself in all of these expertise areas ensures I am a competent and complete designer. Having knowledge of multiple fields of engineering allows me as a designer to take into account all parts of a design. This makes me a diverse and component designer which is able to work in multidisciplinary teams.

I developed myself in each of these expertise areas with several different projects I did and courses I followed. For a better idea of my style and capabilities, please have a look at my past work which I have done throughout my bachelor's.

Creativity & Aesthetics

This is an area of expertise that is focused on the design of meaningful and rich interactions with a product. Following the course, design and sensorial form gave me a deeper understanding of different senses which could impact a design. The course was separated into three parts each focusing on a different sensorial form. Form integration, sound design, and haptics. In the final assignment, I had to redesign two energy-saving products using two of these three senses. Playing with the different senses opened my eyes to another part of your design I had never thought of.

Doing the course cardboard modeling also made me look deeper into interaction with a product. Making a hot beverage machine with no ordinary buttons, but rather more extravagant interaction to get a warm drink.

To get to a physical product, an important part of the design is also the aesthetics. With the course exploratory sketching, I learned how to make good quality design sketches. These will help to show different concepts in an easy way.

For the course Aesthetics of Interaction I also had to develop a rich interaction made into a wake-up experience for people.

Technology & Realization

This is an area of expertise that is focused on bringing your design to life. Using skills in prototyping to bring your design from the digital world and make it physical so people can interact with it. My main development is in the usage of Arduino and electronics. I have done several courses and projects all using Arduino to power the prototype and bring it to life. These projects and courses learned me the basics of electronics and programming setting a solid foundation for my knowledge of electronics. The second important things are my skills in 3D modeling and the mechanical side of design. With the course creative mechanical engineering, I learned to use Solidworks to create 3D models and I learned the basics of mechanical engineering principles. This helped me set a strong foundation for my knowledge of the mechanical side of design. Next to this, I have also followed two consecutive courses about game design. They learned me the principles of game design, as well as a good bit of coding. Setting a solid foundation for my knowledge in software. With this selection of courses and projects, I have a basic knowledge of three core subjects in engineering. Mechanical, Electrical, and Software.

User & Society

This is an area of expertise that is focused on design with the final user in mind. User-centred design is important because it focuses on the needs, wants, and limitations of the end-users of a product or service. By taking into account the user's perspective during the design process, the resulting product or service is more likely to be useful, usable, and desirable. When you as a designer come up with different ideas, doing a user test can prove to you if people agree with you or that a design needs to change because your assumptions or ideas were not correct. I have done several courses and projects where the user was the center point of the design, each of them using different methods of user testing and gaining the required feedback from people on how to improve the design.

Business & Entrepreneurship

This is an area of expertise that is focused on how to bring your design to the market. By following several courses on this subject, I have gotten a basic understanding of design with the business aspect in mind. Many students view business as a separate phase that only begins after a solid concept has been established. However, Introduction to business design thought me how business and design can be intertwined throughout the entire process. The course Design Management was another big learning point. This is a course that focused on your fictional design agency trying to get a design contract with a big company. It was tried to keep it as close to real as possible to learn not just the theory, but also to prepare you for real-world scenarios. This was done by simulation design briefings and presentations with your group. This is way more valuable than just making assignments as deliverables.

Math, Data & Computing

This expertise area is all about calculations, data, and how to incorporate the data and the insights it generates into the design. Data analytics for engineers thought me how to handle data. I learned how to process data in a structured and reliable way. A well-structured data set with good visualizations helps with understanding and interpreting the data. This is essential to gain any meaningful insights from the data. Also doing Calculus and Physics is required to have a good understanding of the world around you. Knowing how to do calculations on a design is a must. The course making sense of Sensors required you to first, gather your own data set. This then had to be analyzed in order to get meaningful insights from it. Learning how to properly gather and combine data is important because a messy data set will lead you nowhere.