My Canvas

This collection encompasses 25 years of my career in the design field, it includes game design, graphic design, industrial design, product design, concept, sketches, illustration and soon architectural works.

A quick info about the process of designing a consumer electronic products.

I am typically involve in the entire process of product development cycle, meaning from conceptual arts to packaging design.

Any given project starts from having a market required documents with product specification. The document should have at least the design aim, the target market, suggested retail price and manufacturing timeline. This fundamental requirements applies across many discipline, just replace the terminology, i.e., in writing, writing aim  (Sci-fi novel), target audience (young adult), format determines the price (200 pages printed book), deadline (publishing).  It is so simple that many artist disregards it, but on my 25 years experience as a designer, having none is like working blind.

To familiarize myself, I will do extensive research, then I’d do a quick burst of sketches. From my concepts, I would then choose 2-3 design with varying shapes to expand. Meaning each shape I will draw quarter views, how it works, material suggestions and colors. I like to do this process quick so the momentum doesn’t get lost and I do not like slouching either, makes me mercurial, my team knows this. Then I will email it to client/boss, most of them like being involve at the earliest stage of product development.

Once a sketch is chosen, note, a lot of times, clients would request revisions. Most of the revisions are done in the drawing board with checklist from client’s request, this way I can avoid the “infinite loop” or the never ending revision.  I then proceed to creating isometric drawing in illustrator or any vector program, most 3D programs read vector drawings. This then serves as my absolute views and guide to extracting and modeling in 3D.

Preliminary Industrial design would take a week, or months depending on the complex structure of the device. I then send the finished 3D model to the engineers for validation. They will check for molding feasibility and minimized parts for cost efficiency. Revision in this case takes time too. Once done, STP is sent to the structural engineers and they will do their engineering mastery.  I usually make 3D prints of my design for tactile feel, ergonomic design takes a lot of sampling. Prior to desktop 3D printers, this process is expensive and painstaking. 

Then the fun parts begin, material design. I use keyshot most of the time for material definition and high resolution rendering. The marketing team also use this for the web and packaging and promotional campaign.

CNC prototyping takes sometimes, hence, I use the 3D printed device for packaging design. It starts from making a die-cut both the box and the inner parts. Many of my design doesn’t use plastic, all paper this, way it’s eco-friendly. The challenge is making simple carboard cuts with minimum folds, which I refer to as applied Origami. It should also stand the drop test, any broken or misplaced device meant back to drawing board. Also less fold means less time for workers and higher productivity. Graphic design is created afterwards, this is a whole different topic on its own. This complete process is very engaging, that’s why I love product designing.

In a large team , I would have different designers doing specific jobs. It’s unusual to find a designer that could do everything.  I was able to do this because I went into all design phase in my career.

Other works

Notice that I made several categories on this page, that’s because I do not only present product design here, I have done works in games, personal works, teaching materials, doodles and sketches and even packaging. Feel free to explore. I will be updating this page constantly. The main purpose of this website is also to have tutorial page where I could pass the new generation of designers or aspiring designers how I design products, from concept to actual product ready for manufacturing. Note that any tutorials that I will post here are probably different from what the design school is teaching, I am a working Industrial / Product designer, the ever changing world of manufacturing is usually faster than printing a text book, so stay tuned. Youtube link will be posted later. Video editing is time consuming. So bookmark my site!