Donovan Lewis

I’m Donovan Lewis. I’m currently a first year student of Industrial Design at the University of Technology Eindhoven. I want that you, as a visitor of my showcase get an idea about what I have done until now to become a successful designer, as well get a good idea about who I ‘am now and who I want to become.

Thank you for your time and enjoy your stay!

- Donovan Lewis -

The choice of going to study Industrial Design was not difficult. The study fits my perfectly fits my interests. I also chose to study University of Technology Eindhoven (TU/e) as University to study at, because they are focused on creativity unlike other universities. The education system at TU/e give you the opportunity to be creative and develop yourself in a way you want.

First semester (B1.1) was a very successful semester for me. I really start to understand the design process and all the competencies by exploring the competencies by doing assingments and focussing on specific aspectes within projects. For example, I am now able to work with an Arduino which I couldn’t work with before and I now know what value incorporating users in your design process have. Beside that I was able to pass all my basic courses at once, where I am really proud of. After the assessment there was some feedback from my assessor. In this feedback there were overall three points of improvement or things I need to take more into account this semester:

Here can you find all the different activities I did which I believe helped me to develop as an designer and helped me to realize my vision.

Goals set in B1.1 for B1.2

I reached all of my goals which I set myself at the end of the Last semester. I believe that I have gained some knowledge in every competency, I passed the course Applied Physics and I collected more evidence. The last goal which says that I want to develop my writing skills is a goal which has always room for improvement, so that’s the only goal which I still could work on.

New Goals

Next year I want to spend more time in the field of graphic design. Graphic design is something I like and which I am interested in. You can find my other goals per competency in the growth section off my showcase.

Dreams

In B3.1 or B3.2 I really want to do an internship or an exchange in a country in the Pacific. Countries of interest are China, Singapore or Japan. I want to study or work in one of these countries, because their culture is very different than ours. I think that, because there are many differences between these two cultures. These differences will function as an eye opener when I come back to the Netherlands. I expect that I value things more or differently than before and that I will notice things in my daily life which I did not notice before. I think that this experience is interesting and instructive for designer and for “yourself”. Interesting for a designer, because you can use these insights to get a better understanding of people and the behavior. Also interesting for yourself, because you will get a better understanding of yourself.

This is visual impression of my competency development. Below this image you can find a competency description and reflection of every competency. I chose to don’t make a difference between core and Meta competencies as I did before, because I now believe that each competency is equally important. Also below these reflections you find a overall reflection on my development as desinger.

Overall reflection on the growth of this year

I followed the study Industrial Design at the University of Technology almost one year now. I still like this study very much and I am still convinced that this the perfect study for me.

When I started I expect to learn everything about industrial design to become a good designer. I thought that questions like, what is design, what makes something industrial design and so forth will be answered. We actually did start to seek the answer to these questions but besides that we focused far more on the designer itself. What is a designer, what does it takes to be a good designer, what skill does a designer need and so forth. I didn’t expect that this was the most important part of the study. But now, one year later, it seems rather obvious that this so important. You first need to understand what it takes to be a good designer before you can get to good designs.

Everything which I did this far went very well actually. I finished all of my projects, assignments and basic courses with a result I am content with. Of course, during all these activities also a lot have gone wrong. From example, teamwork to just wasting expensive material by poor design are just some things which happened. But you learn from these mistakes. Next time you will think twice before you want to do something similar.

The first few weeks of this study were very hard. Everything was new and a lot was very vague. “Do what you think is best.” was one of the many vague comments which I first couldn’t anything with. But after a while I began to understand that you can’t reason everything logical in this study. I learnt that being a designer means also often just do what feels right. The design process, which we as designers follow, isn’t a linear path where it is clear which decisions are the best. You often make a wrong decision which forces you to take a couple of steps back to try again. I think that the most important thing I learnt is that the design process is a non-linear working process which involves various factors, which are called design competencies, which influence the development and outcome greatly. I also think I got a basic understanding of each competency, because I believe I am capable to discuss and defend opinions and concepts with other designers and engineers.

My expectations were therefore met. Although I did not directly learn what good industrial design; I learnt what kind of attitude you need to have to be a good designer which comes to great designs.

I think that all what I learnt last year is just the proper basis to further build on. I want to develop coming year each competency further to a level which I would call familiar. You are familiar with all the competencies and you have a more than basis knowledge about these competencies.