Project:
As an industrial designer in the 21st century I believe it’s a must to be internationally orientated, therefore I’ve chosen to go on an internship in Asia, Singapore. The company, Inovasia Design, is one of the few design firms in Singapore. The company is specialized in consumer electronic product design, and has recently started to do spatial design. I’ve participated in both spatial and consumer product design.

Team:
At Inovasia I worked with a multidisciplinary team of professional full time designers. The head of inovasia design, Peer M Sathikh, has trained me in the art of industrial design, and has thought me about cultural differences in Asian design firms.

Date:
I’ve worked in Inovasia for 20 weeks, from September 2006 till February 2007.

Results:
During this internship I’ve learned different tools, and overall experience from working closely with industrial designers, in a totally different environment.

I’ve experienced that the design process shows many similiarities with the design processes in our education, however the Singaporean designers seemed to be much more specialized, and less all-round educated. Every designer in the company has it’s own specialty and most of the designers have little technical know-how.

Next to cultural experiences I’ve also learned sketching skills, my company coach, Derek Lim, has taught me some basic techniques that allow me to create presentable product sketches.

Spatial design is something we don’t pay attention to within our education at Industrial Design in Eindhoven, however when I did my internship I learned a lot about, from technical drawings, to concept generation, and from artworks to construction workers, I’ve seen it all in Singapore.

During this spatial design I also got the chance to work on a part of the interior myself, so I’ve designed a display corner, glass construction and a display shelve. Both these parts of the interior were constructed when I was doing my internship, so I got the chance to supervise, help and learn from this process.

As a part of the spatial design process, I got the assignment to make a material sample board. The purpose of these display boards are reference for the contractor and the authorities, since they have to approve the materials used and the layout of the interior design.

Next to the spatial design, I’ve also worked on a furniture design project, where I had to model a 1:1 size chair. This was the biggest model I’ve build using simply foam. Although the techniques used were pretty straightforward, the practice has improved my skills.

This project is closed to the public due to confidentiality agreements.