the interviews

It's that time of the year again where everyone is scrambling to get an internship for the summer, or the next semester. What are some questions employers ask during the interview process? I've had some really difficult ones, and some surprising ones too. But I recall going into a phone interview with a list of prepared interview questions (I think she was trying to get rid of me) and having the interviewer not ask me a single one I was prepared for.

so, here's a list of THINGS THEY MAY ASK..
1. What are your skills?
2. Where do you see yourself in a few years?
   a. What do you see yourself doing/ what kind of work?
3. What kind/type of design do you like to do?
4. What is your favourite part of the design process?
5. Do you follow any blogs? If so, which/what?
6. What was your role in your previous job/design internship?
7. Can you speak any other languages?
8. How do you design? (maybe provide a scenario)
9. What do you do on your spare time?
10. Do you have any hobbies, if so what are they?
11. Tell me about yourself (I hate this question)
12. What are your weaknesses?
13. What was the most challenging part of your last semester/ previous projects?
14. How did you find us?

...Anyone else have anything to add?

In general, they just want to know you as a person and see how you react to things as well as what you know about your field and the company you are applying to.

Best of luck!

Cork Competition! - Call for Entries

Boisbuchet has an open call for entries for new applications for cork products or the improvement of existing products with cork.

Submission: 4 page pdf (details on website)
Deadline: June 30

Winners will be selected to attend a workshop to create prototypes, and a final winner will be selected with an award of 10,000 €. All the rights remain with the designer.

Have fun!
DETAILS HERE!

Studio is finished

Here is a shout out to all the third years that had their last third year studio review today, and all the fourth years that handed in the final report today (after much grief to get everything printed).

You may have noticed that the blog has been dead this past week or so, but that has been due to a crazy amount of work here at the school, finally coming to an end today for those of us in third year.

Coming up we still have a bit before we get to leave for the summer. Many of us still have exams. Around the school, in the next two weeks, we have our final pin-up, year end dinner and finally the annual grad show. So school isn't quite done, but I think we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

(^^^  I wish that was our summer!)

Free Universal Construction Kit

It has arrived.  I can truly die happy.

The Free Universal Construction Kit promises to make all construction toys compatible through their FREE ready-to-print adapters.  That means Lego, K'nex, Tinkertoys, and many many more of our childhood favourites can live together in harmony.

http://fffff.at/free-universal-construction-kit/

The Free Universal Construction Kit from Adapterz on Vimeo.
Thank you F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab gods.

Australian Update

Sorry I’ve been kind of neglecting you guys since I’ve been here. Moving to a new country takes a lot of work (setting up banking, cell phones, internet connections, etc. etc...boring stuff).

I’ve been in Adelaide, Australia for a little over a month now and am in my 4th week of school at the University of South Australia (UniSA). I’ve enrolled myself in 3rd year studio: focus on usability design, ceramic production techniques, and furniture for manufacture. 

First off, our studio actually has windows! I was really excited about that. The atriums on our campus are also all outside, since they don’t really have to deal with the same weather conditions that we do. It’s really cool, but also very strange.

Oh, hi Justin!

Studio:

• Worth double credit (like 1st semester 3rd year at Carleton)
• 2 projects in parallel:
• redesign a mobile projection unit (a cart with a projector, a laptop, and all the fixings)
• redesign a stud finder (focus on model building for iterations. Foam and simple electronics.)

Thanks to the stud finder project, I’ve learned to solder in the last 2 days. Built myself a snazzy circuit board too so I can test the feedback and usability of my models. 

The lights and speaker can all be inserted into foam models so I can use the
control board to replicate actual functions during user testing.

Ceramic Production Techniques:

• Basically a mix of techniques (like from mass pro) and an arts course
• I play with clay and mix up glazes

Furniture for Manufacture:

• Pretty much what the title says
• First project was a research project on a designer and one of their designs. We did our video on Hans Wegner’s Papa Bear Chair.
• Final project will be to design and fabricate a full scale stool.

So that’s a little update on ID life in Adelaide. If you’re interested in reading a bit about what else has been going on down here outside of school feel free to visit my travel blog, because Australia is freaking awesome.

-Linette

Third Year Birdhouse Review

After a few weeks or hard work, the third year ID students presented their finished birdhouse projects. Most students created full scale models, with a select few creating scale models. Students were divided into research groups centered around a local canadian bird and then came up with individual solutions to the design opportunities they found. 

Rylan presenting his Purple Martin Community birdhouse. 

Iris Wang's Children's Birdhouse (left) and Paul Chamandy-Cook's Refuge Birdhouse (right), designed to accomodate the needs of both blue birds and chickadees. 

Call For Entries Design Competition

SWITZERCULTCREATIVE.COM

MODERN LUXURY; SUSTAINABLE FURNITURE DESIGN

FIRST ANNUAL DESIGN COMPETITION

Call for Entries – Registration is Open

ENTRIES WILL BE ACCEPTED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 1, 2012

Winner will be announced November 30, 2012

1. Submit your entry on the Official Entry Form provided.

2. Attach a description of your entry using a maximum of 200 words.

3. Each person may submit up to 3 individual entries. Each entry must be accompanied by a completed entry form.

4. Each submission must be accompanied by up to 6 image files of your project. Please note: use only low resolution jpeg images (72 dpi) maximum 150 kb each file, image size maximum is 818 pixels.

For further information LIKE our Facebook page www.facebook.com/SwitzerCultCreative and request an entry form by sending an email to:

renee@switzercultcreative.com

www.switzercultcreative.com

2012 internship opening - designaffairs

designaffairs has openings for a 6month internship starting Feb/March 2012. But you know what that means... six months later, the spot will open up and you can intern there! They also have several branch studios and is an interdisciplinary firm that covers aspects of design strategy, industrial design, branding, user interface design, and moooore.

The requirement says the internships are for highly motivated and top notch students that are in the 5th semester. I have no idea what 5th semester is, so just apply anyway if you think you meet the former criteria haha.

Industrial design (Feb/Mar 2012) - Munich, Erlangen
User interface (Feb/Mar 2012) - Munich
Usability (Mar/Apr 2012) - Munich

good luck!

http://www.designaffairs.com
under agency >  jobs

2nd Year Studio: Reusable Water Bottles

Second year students have been working hard on their first studio project of the semester; designing a reusable water bottle for a specific user group of their choosing. Completed in four stages -- identifying use scenarios, creating concept sketches, low fidelity prototyping, and making final visual appearance models -- the class developed products for a wide range of uses. See a handful of projects after the jump, and don't forget to check out some of the finished models in the display case near fourth year studio.

Trunk Swap 2.0

Hey guys, it's Trunk Swap time again! In case you didn't come to the last one, prepare for delicious food, awesome trades, prof donations, and chill music or maybe a movie in the background :)

There are a few ways to do this:
 1. You bring old stuff you don't want anymore (clothes, small items, big items .. stuff you'd sell at a garage sale) and trade / sell them to other people who will love them more.

 2. Bring art / design / other work that you'd like to sell (or trade) so we can support our own! (please contact us, if there is enough interest we can reserve a separate space for your work!)

 3. Bring delicious food! Please contact Sam M or Zoe D in first year to organize if you'd like CIDSA to make the profit off your food! :D

 4. Just show up, browse, and hope that people will accept cold hard cash (they will!)

 5. Any combination of the above! We'd love it if you came, the more the merrier!