After Bucks Creative careers in product design
Product Design at Bucks has a long tradition of producing talented and creative product designers. Using our excellent workshops in wood, metal, plastics, ceramics and textiles we believe in hands-on prototyping early and often, backed up by a sound technical and theoretical background. Industrystandard 3D CAD software and rapid prototyping facilities are combined with traditional workshop practices, and testing and laboratory facilities to give you a strong working knowledge of materials, processes and technology. Understand – Explore – Create – Evaluate You will work alongside students from many other design disciplines, giving you opportunities for team working and shared experiences which reflect how you will work after graduation. Live projects, competitions, study tours, industrial visits and visiting speakers help to keep you up to date, inspired and motivated. The BA courses focus on people – users, behaviour and humanistic factors; the BSc course is focused more on technology – materials, manufacture, and emerging technologies. Product Design graduates from Bucks are now working at Microsoft, Dyson, BMW, Nissan, Panasonic, McLaren cars and Jonathan Coles Lighting and many other innovative design and engineering companies. The transferable skills that you will gain on these programmes will open up many other creative careers for you in associated design disciplines such as digital graphics, furniture design and lighting design.
George Peryer
Studied BSc (Hons) Product Design Currently working as a CAD and product designer at Bisley. I have worked at three different companies since leaving Bucks. I started at the architects Shepherd Robson in the print room and drawing office, working my way up to a technical sales engineer at Soundsorba where I was more involved in sales alongside the development of new products. I’m now settled as a Computer Aided Design (CAD) designer at Bisley. Being in the heart of Clerkenwell, one of London’s largest design districts, our biggest event of the year is Clerkenwell Design Week in May every year, where we unveil some new products we’ve been working on. Bucks gave me the background and skills necessary to get to where I am now. We learned about the full process of design, from the conception of an idea through to the point of manufacture, which meant I was able to speak confidently in job interviews. The CAD skills I have learned have also played a huge part in getting me where I am today. We were taught several different programmes which I have then gone on to use at work, and I have also picked up new software easier as I have the background knowledge from the course. I’ve always been one to let my imagination run free which has led to some very wacky designs. My time at Bucks has helped me to have a broader understanding of the whole design process which, allows me to think ahead to solve problems before they occur.
It made me approach designing from different viewpoints and helped me to hone my wacky ideas into functional, quirky designs. Having worked in the industry for a few years, I realised the most valuable thing I learned was how to prioritise my time between different projects. As a designer I have many different projects on the go, all with differing deadlines, so having projects at University which ran simultaneously definitely helped me to plan my time efficiently and deal with the challenges this brings. We had lots of further opportunities throughout my three years at Bucks. In my first year I had the opportunity to design a 3D logo on Creo for Pipeline Supplies, which was great, as I experienced a brief from a real company and was given feedback from their perspective. As my time went on we had many more live projects from a range of design companies so we were able to take previous comments forward to the next brief and constantly improve. The best part of Bucks for me was the final end-of-year show. It was brilliant to take a look at how far we’d all come in our three years and see just how much hard work we had put into the course and that in the end it had all paid off. All the late nights, early mornings, countless researching, designing, re-designing and the hours spent in the workshops were worth it!
Harry Ingram
Studied BSc (Hons) Product Design Currently a product designer at Origin Global. Bucks provided me with all the foundations to pursue a career in design. Throughout the course we looked at various aspects of design practice, theory and design skills with a large amount of hands on practice. My current job relies heavily on the use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) work, design for manufacture and an understanding of engineering maths and design analysis. Since graduating, I started in a role at my current company, a world leader in their field, that allowed me to gain knowledge of the company’s products and design process. From there I developed into a role where I was designing individual parts before moving to design and developing a whole system, in this case a new window system. Before I started at Bucks I appreciated products and their design at face value; however as I gained knowledge through the course I began to appreciate the design at a deeper level, to consider the customer and user requirements, the cost and environmental effects, as well as the production and manufacturing processes of that piece.
The most valuable thing I learned on the course is probably deadline discipline and planning and scheduling my work. Developing skills in time management and being able to produce creative work to deadlines is useful in any industry you go in to. We completed a range of live projects with local, national and international companies that gave me the confidence and design experience to apply for my current job. By keeping in touch with the course leader I was able to keep him aware of any opportunities at the company to help give following students the first stepping stone out of university and into a design career. Since leaving Bucks and finished the degree I have also completed an MA in Design Management which is now helping me to develop skills in the management side of the design process. The best part of my experience at Bucks was all the hands on experience we got and learning many physical skills which allowed me to gain a better understanding of the design process, materials and manufacturing techniques, and how these are applied in the design profession.
James Fox
After Bucks I moved from product design to advertising as a career, from being the person who developed the creative ideas to a person who helps facilitate the process. The person between creative, strategy, production, client and other agency partners.
I then moved to a company called Anomaly – a New York business with offices in London, Amsterdam and Toronto. Here I learned a huge amount about integrated marketing and communications planning, far beyond tradional advertising. I spent my time leading their Converse EMEA business overseeing product launches and international market activations, I was part of a team who developed new products for Universal Music, lead the development and launch of a YouTube cinema film, and worked with ASOS.
Whilst Product Design and Advertising are in their own right different disciplines, the respect and understanding of the creative process as a whole, is still the same and something initially gained during my time at Bucks. You realise that working with a group of people, who all have differing but complementary skillsets is the best way to achieve something. Even more important is the relationship with those people, without it you’d get nothing done. Treat people respectfully and lo and behold you may get that OK-ish idea off the ground.
And I’m now at Lucky Generals and have been for a little over four years. I went from taking on new business responsibilities and account responsibilities, to taking on a greater leadership role within the company as managing director years ago. Since being here I have been lucky enough to work alongside the best talent in the industry across some of the worlds highest profile brands and entrepenurial businesses that exist today, whilst also having a hand in the running of the company itself.
I finished Bucks back in 2005 and joined design agency MCBD where a large proportion of my time was spent working on the countries largest and most famous FMCG brands from Premier Foods, to Government business that included The Department of Health.
The most valuable thing I learned on my course? Go to Amsterdam. Have a beer with your lecturers (not in a creepy way). Don’t make the course the be all and end all of your time at uni, it’s everything else that goes along with it that gets you the most from the experience. At the time, I genuinely wanted to be there more than anywhere else. My best mates are still all from Bucks. To this day I work with people who studied at Bucks. The course was fun. The lecturers treated everyone like grown-ups. My best memories of Bucks are being told that Audi were going to sponsor my final design project, and receiving a design award from Trevor Bayliss – legend!
Studied BA (Hons) Product Design Currently managing director, Lucky Generals luckygenerals.com.
From there I took on more digitial reponsibilites at a company called DARE, as the industries media landscape shifted dramatically from a heavily traditional one to the age of digital targeted marketing. I managed the company’s Diageo business launching a number of new products to market whilst running Bailey’s social and digital business too.
Lucy Davies
Studied BSc (Hons) Product Design Currently working as an application engineer at CCSL Solidworks 3D Solutions. I use many of the skills I learned at Bucks every day, the most important being able to complete a project from start to finish. In my last role I was involved throughout the whole lifecycle of our product from initial design work to FE (inite element analysis) testing, straight through to fabrication (including elements of CAD/CAM) and product completion. I was introduced to a wide range of subjects, which helped me show a broader knowledge base. I also felt that this perhaps gave me an advantage over someone who solely did an engineering based course. I now specialise in 3D modelling using Solidworks. I would probably not have gained an interest in this if I had not been introduced to it at Bucks. I have just changed my job role and now work directly for a Solidworks VAR on its technical team. As well as providing technical and software support and consultancy, I also provide training.
I think my course was good at pushing you to learn new things. I chose Bucks because it would give me the opportunity to learn new skills which I was not familiar with. Also it introduced me to CAD modelling for design work and CAM. I had previously not had experience with this. The most valuable thing about my course was getting an introduction to a variety of 2D and 3D CAD packages and applying these through live design and CAD projects. The course provided external opportunities, especially live projects in the second year, and we were also encouraged to find our own and to engage with industry for our final year projects. In my opinion, the best part of my experience was having a final design show to showcase our final projects and present these to the public, examiners and employers. I was offered a job from an employer who visited the show. It was good to see so many people taking an interest in your work and I thought it was great for building up confidence just before you need to go to job interviews.
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bucks.ac.uk This publication was produced by Buckinghamshire New University in February 2019, and is accurate at the time of going to press. We reserve the right to amend information without prior notice. Š Buckinghamshire New University 2019