How long have you been at Sony/Ericsson?
4 years

What is your official title?
Design Producer, Industrial Design

What products do you work on?
A Sony Ericsson industrial designer works on a range of mobile communication products. It consists of mobile phones, phone accessories, and future concepts of how people can use and experience communication and connectivity.

What do you see as being a benefit working for such a large international company as Sony Ericsson?
Sony Ericsson truly has a global design team that works very closely with each other. Even though we are a large corporation, our design team consists of a core group of 120 designers spread across 8 design studios in over 6 countries across the world. Each project we work on generally involves a global team giving us a real global perspective and inspiration. The benefit of having such a close global team is that we really get new, different, and unique perspectives from each and every designer and design discipline.

As a designer at Sony Ericsson, we get to see the product from the birth of the idea all the way to production and sometimes beyond. As a corporate designer you really see the full process and impacts that your decisions make in the development cycle.

What do you spend most of your design time doing? (sketching, research, computer modeling, etc.)
Most of our time is spent balancing conceptual work and negotiating real-world constraints in development with our engineering counterparts.

In the conceptual phase we do sketching to get basic ideas out onto paper and explore a few thoughts. Most of our work quickly moves into 2D CAD renderings done in Photoshop or Illustrator. Because of the size constraints of a mobile product and the characteristics of its form, 2D CAD renderings are necessary, and an efficient way to quickly express the finite detail, size and shape of an idea.

The rest of the project time is working on creative solutions, with our engineering counterparts, on real world constraints of physics, manufacturing, technology, and the logistics that begin to play into a real product. It's not the fun part of design, but here is where the great ideas translate into great products.

We have surface designers that do most of our heavy 3D modeling and translation into 3D. Each individual industrial designer may create some basic form and block out surfaces to confirm an idea, but we leave the surfacing to those who do it 24-7. We create it, they help us build it right.

Can you break down your time use for a typical project for us? (research x%, sketching x%, form development x%, etc.)
It's hard to say. We do a bit of everything all the time and it usually intertwines with each other. When we are refining one project, we will start concept for another. Between concept and development our time is split approximately 30/70 although the fast pace of the industry and need to get product out often makes the concept % lower. Research and trend analysis is just part of the job and is fit into our time and schedule where it's needed and required.

What changes do you foresee happening in your company's industry in the next few years?
This is an interesting question, the iPhone obviously has completely changed the mobile market and turned it on its backside. Now most manufacturers are playing catch up. Because the economy is down, we'll see less products coming to market in the coming years and many of the companies will collect their creativity and innovation and incubate.
I believe within a few years we'll see a new breath of freshness that will come into the mobile industry when things begin to turn around. The economic turmoil now will force companies to relook at their strategies and core values, and rethink how they want to move forward in innovation.

Now for more of the fun stuff:

What has been your most satisfying "design" moment?
When someone has an honest smile of surprise and wow using a product I designed. Nothing can be a more positive reaction than a true honest smile.

What do you want to design, but haven't yet?
True wearable technology. By bringing the innovation in apparel and fabric technology with communication technology I think there is an untapped new opportunity to make something innovative. This is not just attaching your music player into your jacket, but real merging of communication and apparel.

Who/what is your biggest design influence?
I think it is everyday life and dreaming and thinking of what the future holds for us. Wanting to make something new and or solve an everyday problem is engrained in a designer. My influences also come from personal interests in music, art, and culture.

If you weren't a designer what would you be?
I'm actually not sure, I was on a path towards being a doctor before I found out about industrial design.

Thanks Elliot for your time.

Biography:

Elliott Hsu graduated from University of Illinois with a BFA in Industrial Design. Previous to Sony Ericsson he worked 6 years in design consulting at HLB in Chicago. He's now going on strong on his 5th year at Sony Ericsson here in the Triangle area, and lives with his wife who also is an industrial designer. A two designer household makes for interesting debates and dilemmas when picking out furniture. : )