5 ms·

If you are a designer, this is absolutely the best thing you can do to sky-rocket your market value over night: Create a concept design from a popular product

If you are a designer, this is absolutely the best thing you can do to sky-rocket your market value over night: Create a concept design from a popular product and put it on a slick landing page. It shows that you, as a designer, are proactive and think beyond designing standard stuff (like webpages or mobile apps). Moreover, you are not limited by any client restrictions[1] which hurt your work (and portfolio), you learn 3D modelling if you haven't yet (it's not hard just time consuming), if you are lucky with social news sites you get so much free promo and finally, it's the eye-catcher on any CV. [1] A classic and recommended post if we talk about clients restricting designers: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

xmmx 10y ago
What do you think the equivalent move is for front end developers?
lanewinfield 10y ago
I might argue that you're right on most counts, but there's one project type that'd be a step above that: creating a side project that stands entirely on its own. It has the effect, like you had said, of being not limited by clients and learning new skills. But on top of that, you'd show yourself as an independent thinker and started closer to zero than standing on the shoulders of other companies (in this case, Apple) and making spec work. Again, not to say it's wrong, because I think you're very correct in thinking this is great for designers, but I do think this could be one step higher. (And, for the sake of argument, I'm completely ignoring what neither of us stated: that probably more than half the battle as a professional in this industry is navigating politics, which the skills for obviously cannot be conveyed through a spec or side project.)
sulam 10y ago
Just make sure to count your ports properly. :)
Apocryphon 10y ago
Reminds me of the designer who redesigned Microsoft's branding [0], and got a job there [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195208 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085915
skolos 10y ago
How much time would it take for a professional designer to put something like this? What tools would you use? I'm not a designer and just curious.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Depends on if you want it to just look good or if you want it to be technically feasible from electrical, thermal, and manufacturing standpoints. Taking all of that into consideration would easily take 10-100x more time than just a novel visual prototype. Even look at Razer's triple-screen laptop from CES; they had one which worked, and one which looked pretty. Getting that last 10% of fit, finish, and feasibility takes a long time too.
- codazoda 10y ago
  If I used Fusion 360 (free for personal use) to design this, it would probably take me tens if not a couple hundred hours. Maybe you can get pre-made parts, like the memory chips, heat sinks and stuff. Like another commenter said, fairly easy to do, but it takes serious time and creativity.
- Unbeliever69 10y ago
  Why do people say this stuff is easy? It takes time and a lot of practice to understand the nuances of materials, lighting, how light interacts with various materials, cinematography, and not to mention the ins and outs of 3d modeling software.
astrodust 10y ago
Don't forget to find hosting that doesn't buckle when you get front-paged.
- wyaeld 10y ago
  that's called a static site :-P
  - astrodust 10y ago
    It really depends on the server. You can crush even something as resilient as Nginx serving static files if you try hard enough.
    - seanp2k2 10y ago
      Sure, but it's orders of magnitude faster than dynamic sites. Additionally, stick CloudFlare in front of it and it's 100% fine for 99% of sites :)
DoodleBuggy 10y ago
You might be right. But if you're a consumer, these kind of concepts do nothing but frustrate because it: 1) sets totally unrealistic expectations 2) is total fantasy And lesser informed people often think these are real if they see them. I recalling having had multiple people tell me about the "iPhone holographic keyboard" from some silly concept porn a few years ago...
- nerfhammer 10y ago
  > is total fantasy Oh come on, can't we imagine things that don't exist for fun?
  - rbanffy 10y ago
    Yes, but suspension of disbelief is hard (and even harder for us here). The objects you design need to be able to do their jobs or have convincing explanations for why they look like what they do. Moebius got away with a spaceship shaped like Dumbo from Disneyland's Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride because the technology that surrounded it was so advanced that a spaceship shaped like that was no big deal. Seemed perfectly doable.
  - andai 10y ago
    No.
    - andai 10y ago
      Where's that sarcasmark when you need it!
  - DoodleBuggy 10y ago
    Sure, that's why it's called fantasy.
2ion 10y ago
The guy who did minimallyminimal.com did this several times, and it (probably) got him hired at Microsoft. It was interesting to see the progression of quality and scope of his work as I was following the blog since quite a long time before it took off.
- dakmau 10y ago
  He was also a top student at one of the best industrial design schools in the world, and had some stellar internship experiences.
rebelidealist 10y ago
Reminded me of what Dustin Curtis did for American Airlines. http://www.flipthefunnelnow.com/dustin-curtis-%E2%80%93-dear-american-airlines/ http://www.flipthefunnelnow.com/dustin-curtis-%E2%80%93-dear...
- appleiigs 10y ago
  I liked AA employee's response: ...the thing I most wanted to get across—simply doing a home page redesign is a piece of cake. You want a redesign? I’ve got six of them in my archives. It only takes a few hours to put together a really good-looking one, as you demonstrated in your post. But doing the design isn’t the hard part...
GuiA 10y ago
Heh, I work in a design studio and would temper your statement. Yes, having something like this in your portfolio certainly can't hurt - and having it frontpage HN is most certainly a good thing, exposure wise. But when we interview candidates and do portfolio reviews, a project like this would be one of the things I'd be the least interested in. It does showcase the designer's creativity and skills at using 3D software, but it doesn't give you any sense of how they can work in a team, with clients, with real specs/requirements to follow, etc. It's kind of like the kind of designs that architecture students do in school: sure, the end designs might look very cool, but they don't represent capacity to work with the real world architectural process in any way. One of the skills I value the most in a designer is the ability to really think through the various sub-aspects of a problem under different angles, come up with many alternatives, etc. A concept design like the one posted does not show this at all. If you are a designer, your portfolio should only have one conceptual piece of this sort at the very most, and it shouldn't be its main focus. A designer's main skill should be providing solutions or insights into real world problems, and this doesn't solve any meaningful problem other than "make something that looks cool and will never exist".
- radley 10y ago
  It's pretty clear you and he are at opposite ends of the design spectrum. He's an experienced conceptual designer perfect for video games, i.e. Art Center. You're more academic and instructional, i.e. MIT. Both are legit. PS - it's pretty clear he's just having fun with the Mac specs. Only kneejerk HNers are taking it as a serious product pitch. He's designed beautiful guns, vehicles... why not a Mac that makes Ives look seriously plugged-up?
  - aggie 10y ago
    The thread is discussing the value of this type of conceptual presentation to a design portfolio. 'Conceptual designer' by your definition would basically mean 3D visual artist. That's not quite 'design' as it's being discussed here, though I wouldn't call it academic or instructional either. For design work, the final product rarely demonstrates the skills needed to be a good designer in real business settings. Hiring managers want to see the process that led to the final product.
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
> Moreover, you are not limited by any client restrictions But you must still limit yourself to sanity and physics. Too often, designers don't have a clue what's actually going on behind the scenes, and embarrass themselves. This example puts 16 TB3 ports on a computer, because "consumers want it to be very expandable" and "2 columns of 8 looks pretty". It also adds two graphics cards but buries the connectors into the floor rather than making them externally accessible. Concept cars by designers may have faults such as zero visibility from the drivers seat, have aggressively high front bumpers and low hood lines that look designed to kill pedestrians, utterly lack necessary things like exhaust pipes, crumple zones and spare tires, or have absurd specifications ("500 miles from the 2 cubic foot battery pack!" "600 HP V12 under the rear seat!") Your target (other marketing departments) may not care. But it's also very possible that they encounter these limits as a part of their daily work, and will care, judging you for your lack of domain knowledge. Definitely create some concept work for your portfolio. But don't stray too far from the realm of the possible.
- radley 10y ago
  Ugh - did anyone take a look at his portfolio? He designs for video games so of course the specs are exaggerated. He did something fun and most of HN is railing on him. The same criticisms ought to be said here - if you're going to criticize, first take a look at the whole picture and don't jump to conclusions.
  - AznHisoka 10y ago
    But part of me thinks he's an armchair product designer. Anyone can create a cool looking mockup. But what about the actual thing?
    - adamlett 10y ago
      Anyone, huh?
  - smhost 10y ago
    I agree that the ad hominems are unfair, but bad design is bad design regardless of authorship.
Unbeliever69 10y ago
Trust me. This 3d modeling, material design, lighting, etc. is NOT trivial, lol. AND its time consuming!

xmmx 10y ago

What do you think the equivalent move is for front end developers?

lanewinfield 10y ago

I might argue that you're right on most counts, but there's one project type that'd be a step above that: creating a side project that stands entirely on its own. It has the effect, like you had said, of being not limited by clients and learning new skills. But on top of that, you'd show yourself as an independent thinker and started closer to zero than standing on the shoulders of other companies (in this case, Apple) and making spec work. Again, not to say it's wrong, because I think you're very correct in thinking this is great for designers, but I do think this could be one step higher. (And, for the sake of argument, I'm completely ignoring what neither of us stated: that probably more than half the battle as a professional in this industry is navigating politics, which the skills for obviously cannot be conveyed through a spec or side project.)

sulam 10y ago

Just make sure to count your ports properly. :)

Apocryphon 10y ago

Reminds me of the designer who redesigned Microsoft's branding [0], and got a job there [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195208 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4195208 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5085915

skolos 10y ago

How much time would it take for a professional designer to put something like this? What tools would you use? I'm not a designer and just curious.

seanp2k2 10y ago
Depends on if you want it to just look good or if you want it to be technically feasible from electrical, thermal, and manufacturing standpoints. Taking all of that into consideration would easily take 10-100x more time than just a novel visual prototype. Even look at Razer's triple-screen laptop from CES; they had one which worked, and one which looked pretty. Getting that last 10% of fit, finish, and feasibility takes a long time too.
codazoda 10y ago
If I used Fusion 360 (free for personal use) to design this, it would probably take me tens if not a couple hundred hours. Maybe you can get pre-made parts, like the memory chips, heat sinks and stuff. Like another commenter said, fairly easy to do, but it takes serious time and creativity.
Unbeliever69 10y ago
Why do people say this stuff is easy? It takes time and a lot of practice to understand the nuances of materials, lighting, how light interacts with various materials, cinematography, and not to mention the ins and outs of 3d modeling software.

astrodust 10y ago

Don't forget to find hosting that doesn't buckle when you get front-paged.

wyaeld 10y ago
that's called a static site :-P
- astrodust 10y ago
  It really depends on the server. You can crush even something as resilient as Nginx serving static files if you try hard enough.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    Sure, but it's orders of magnitude faster than dynamic sites. Additionally, stick CloudFlare in front of it and it's 100% fine for 99% of sites :)

DoodleBuggy 10y ago

You might be right. But if you're a consumer, these kind of concepts do nothing but frustrate because it: 1) sets totally unrealistic expectations 2) is total fantasy And lesser informed people often think these are real if they see them. I recalling having had multiple people tell me about the "iPhone holographic keyboard" from some silly concept porn a few years ago...

nerfhammer 10y ago
> is total fantasy Oh come on, can't we imagine things that don't exist for fun?
- rbanffy 10y ago
  Yes, but suspension of disbelief is hard (and even harder for us here). The objects you design need to be able to do their jobs or have convincing explanations for why they look like what they do. Moebius got away with a spaceship shaped like Dumbo from Disneyland's Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride because the technology that surrounded it was so advanced that a spaceship shaped like that was no big deal. Seemed perfectly doable.
- andai 10y ago
  No.
  - andai 10y ago
    Where's that sarcasmark when you need it!
- DoodleBuggy 10y ago
  Sure, that's why it's called fantasy.

2ion 10y ago

The guy who did minimallyminimal.com did this several times, and it (probably) got him hired at Microsoft. It was interesting to see the progression of quality and scope of his work as I was following the blog since quite a long time before it took off.

dakmau 10y ago
He was also a top student at one of the best industrial design schools in the world, and had some stellar internship experiences.

rebelidealist 10y ago

Reminded me of what Dustin Curtis did for American Airlines. http://www.flipthefunnelnow.com/dustin-curtis-%E2%80%93-dear-american-airlines/ http://www.flipthefunnelnow.com/dustin-curtis-%E2%80%93-dear...

appleiigs 10y ago
I liked AA employee's response: ...the thing I most wanted to get across—simply doing a home page redesign is a piece of cake. You want a redesign? I’ve got six of them in my archives. It only takes a few hours to put together a really good-looking one, as you demonstrated in your post. But doing the design isn’t the hard part...

GuiA 10y ago

Heh, I work in a design studio and would temper your statement. Yes, having something like this in your portfolio certainly can't hurt - and having it frontpage HN is most certainly a good thing, exposure wise. But when we interview candidates and do portfolio reviews, a project like this would be one of the things I'd be the least interested in. It does showcase the designer's creativity and skills at using 3D software, but it doesn't give you any sense of how they can work in a team, with clients, with real specs/requirements to follow, etc. It's kind of like the kind of designs that architecture students do in school: sure, the end designs might look very cool, but they don't represent capacity to work with the real world architectural process in any way. One of the skills I value the most in a designer is the ability to really think through the various sub-aspects of a problem under different angles, come up with many alternatives, etc. A concept design like the one posted does not show this at all. If you are a designer, your portfolio should only have one conceptual piece of this sort at the very most, and it shouldn't be its main focus. A designer's main skill should be providing solutions or insights into real world problems, and this doesn't solve any meaningful problem other than "make something that looks cool and will never exist".

radley 10y ago
It's pretty clear you and he are at opposite ends of the design spectrum. He's an experienced conceptual designer perfect for video games, i.e. Art Center. You're more academic and instructional, i.e. MIT. Both are legit. PS - it's pretty clear he's just having fun with the Mac specs. Only kneejerk HNers are taking it as a serious product pitch. He's designed beautiful guns, vehicles... why not a Mac that makes Ives look seriously plugged-up?
- aggie 10y ago
  The thread is discussing the value of this type of conceptual presentation to a design portfolio. 'Conceptual designer' by your definition would basically mean 3D visual artist. That's not quite 'design' as it's being discussed here, though I wouldn't call it academic or instructional either. For design work, the final product rarely demonstrates the skills needed to be a good designer in real business settings. Hiring managers want to see the process that led to the final product.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

> Moreover, you are not limited by any client restrictions But you must still limit yourself to sanity and physics. Too often, designers don't have a clue what's actually going on behind the scenes, and embarrass themselves. This example puts 16 TB3 ports on a computer, because "consumers want it to be very expandable" and "2 columns of 8 looks pretty". It also adds two graphics cards but buries the connectors into the floor rather than making them externally accessible. Concept cars by designers may have faults such as zero visibility from the drivers seat, have aggressively high front bumpers and low hood lines that look designed to kill pedestrians, utterly lack necessary things like exhaust pipes, crumple zones and spare tires, or have absurd specifications ("500 miles from the 2 cubic foot battery pack!" "600 HP V12 under the rear seat!") Your target (other marketing departments) may not care. But it's also very possible that they encounter these limits as a part of their daily work, and will care, judging you for your lack of domain knowledge. Definitely create some concept work for your portfolio. But don't stray too far from the realm of the possible.

radley 10y ago
Ugh - did anyone take a look at his portfolio? He designs for video games so of course the specs are exaggerated. He did something fun and most of HN is railing on him. The same criticisms ought to be said here - if you're going to criticize, first take a look at the whole picture and don't jump to conclusions.
- AznHisoka 10y ago
  But part of me thinks he's an armchair product designer. Anyone can create a cool looking mockup. But what about the actual thing?
  - adamlett 10y ago
    Anyone, huh?
- smhost 10y ago
  I agree that the ad hominems are unfair, but bad design is bad design regardless of authorship.

Unbeliever69 10y ago

Trust me. This 3d modeling, material design, lighting, etc. is NOT trivial, lol. AND its time consuming!