Materials knowledge was wafer-thin and the habitual comment, ‘we don’t know what he wants’ was tedious. What do YOU want? ‘Designer should be a verb not a noun!

There is apparently hardly any opportunity for students of British Design Courses to be acquainted with volume manufacturing environments or working Industrial Designers. Maybe our shrinking industrial economy is to blame but the Universities are also guilty of irresponsibly low staff-student ratios and myopic syllabuses. Three problem areas accrue from this series:-

1. An over reliance on superficially contrived drawing with little visual analysis and hardly any early stage 3D development;

2. The wrong software for 3D development and presentation, (why use a limited 2D package, (illustrator), to describe a 3D object when there are excellent simple 3D packages like Rhino or Solidworks, which can be used creatively and will fully describe and analyse form while giving properly dimensioned 2D drawings or CAD files for formal modelmaking.

2. An over dependance on ‘found’ images and objects rather than relying on creative ability, sculptural sensitivity, technical and anthropometric knowledge and a love of humanity.

When are British Universities going to deliver the courses our students deserve and have already paid for?

would doing it in a french accent make it better?