My Design Career

Task 4: Design Career

Post in your blog an essay of about 500 words, articulating why you would want to become a designer. Include some detail on what stimulated you to consider this career, why you have chosen to study industrial design at UNSW, and what you think your future will be like in design.

Design has always been something that has fascinated me. For a long time I always wanted to do architecture, for the simple reason that I liked technical drawing and was always interested in the way that a house was created and structured. However, I never really practiced designing and drawings houses, and would more often draw cars, which I guess is a typical boy thing to do.

For as long as I can remember I have drawn, and particularly drawn cars. It was not until about year 7-8 that I really started to follow this passion and began to become more technical in my methods. I would often draw car profiles, taking ideas from the many cars I would see in the two to three car magazines I would get a month. I had A3 books constantly being filled, and the back of my school books and diaries full of sheets with sketches on them.

In year nine I chose Technical drawing as an elective and absolutely loved it. I came first in both nine and ten for this particular subject, and remember the proud moment when I received 99/100 for an architectural assignment (but slightly frustrated that I lost one mark for forgetting to colour something in). This again rekindled the idea of doing something with technical drawing as a primary focus once I had completed my schooling. In year nine we learnt the basics of perspective drawing and at that point I began to learn how to do perspective drawings for cars. With the help of my teacher Mr Goodman, as well as the Duke of Ed program that required me to draw, I continued to work on my skills.

At this point in time I began to search for courses to pursue once I completed high school. There were many to choose from I soon discovered. Architecture again was the course I thought I would follow at any university, but I then discovered Industrial design, and realised that this would be a good fit if I wished to do car design as a career. Having seen it offered at UTS, I also found it at Monash University in Melbourne, which I thought would be fantastic as the elective in third and fourth year could relate to transportation design. However, I was not quick prepared enough in organising an application and therefore missed that opportunity.

After a few issues with my HSC, I ultimately chose UNSW as my university for a number of reasons. Firstly I achieved the entry requirements for UNSW, secondly because I did not feel very excited or feel a willingness to explore attending UTS (the thought of entering the ugly tower block would have to be enough for anyone to shy away). UNSW also accepted and considered the additional activities I completed whilst at school such as Duke of Ed and competitive swimming as part of my enrolment. Thirdly the atmosphere I experienced when visiting UNSW at the open days last year was amazing, and became very fond of the campus and the environment.

The simple reason I want to become a designer is that it allows creativity and skill to be demonstrated. There is certain excitement you get from completing a project that you don’t get from writing essays and doing hours of maths problems. You’re not limited to sitting behind a computer screen for the entire day; you can physically express yourself through your work.

And in this day and age, design is becoming a serious career, because future designers of the world will be required to understand people better and understand the impact that design has on everything. I think that for design in the future, humanity will have to take a step back in order to progress forward, that design will need to be simplified and that excess and technology be toned down a bit. It’s nice to have technology and advancements, but the fundamentals of design seem to be slipping away in the process. It’s a matter of getting back to basics.