All in Series & Short Course

Important Design Considerations for Additive Manufacturing

This article examines the transformative impact of 3D printing across various industries, from aerospace to construction and even culinary arts. It offers practical design tips for optimizing your prints, such as adjusting support structures, infill percentages, and finishing techniques to enhance both functionality and aesthetics. Learn how to leverage these insights to elevate your projects and harness the full potential of this versatile technology.

Design Thinking Part 4: Framing and Reframing Design Problems

Problem framing is about uncovering the actual problem worth solving – which is often hidden to everyone when the design process begins. A key part of framing and reframing is to see the problem from various perspectives and to search for best match between the problem frames and the solution candidates. This article provides the basics of problem framing and positions it as the backbone of Design Thinking.

Learn to Sketch: Shading and Shadowing Cylinders

Until recently, how to shade and shadow cylindrical objects has been a mystery to me. I had known there should be areas on the surface shaded lighter and others darker, but I didn’t quite know where those should be. Understanding the physics and practicing the sketches in a detailed way (a few times) helped me lock in the core concepts. Now I can sketch them quickly without trouble. This article shares the physics and provides a step-by-step process for skill building.

The Eighth Face of Innovation: The Set Designer

Most people agree that the environment can have a huge impact on our state of mind, productivity, and innovation. The Eighth Face of Innovation, The Set Designer, knows this too. Even if we aren’t setting up the spaces for others, we can and should be aware of where we’re are choosing to work and make sure that workspace is what we need to maximize our creativity.

Connecting the Dots Backwards: Not Knowing What We Don’t Know, Part 1

Because we have so much information at our fingertips via smart devices and the internet many students complain at having to learn (especially memorize) anything. The common response by students is that this is a waste of time and that these things can always be looked up in the future. Well they certainly can. That isn’t the point I am debating. The problem is that you can only look up things that you know you don’t know.

The Sixth Face of Innovation: The Director

Directors bring their own set of experiences, styles, and personality to the studio but they all concurrently support the show’s mission and want to make a great product. Thus, an organization or team can have multiple directors even if there still is team leader (or executive movie producer on set). You might not be the leader on your design engineering team but there may still be opportunities to take on the role of Director.