INDUSTRIAL DESIGN: things I wish someone had told me before I graduated

If I could offer you only one piece of advice for your design career, empathy would be it.​ ​ The long-term benefits of empathy have been proven throughout design. Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own experience. But here it goes…

Nobody will ever ask what your grades were. Not once.

Your portfolio is your real degree. Build it accordingly.

If you want to get hired for a kind of work you have never done, make that work anyway and treat it like the brief was real.

Spec work is still work if it proves you can think.

Your classmates are not just classmates. They are future coworkers, referrals, collaborators, and the people who will remember your name later.

Companies are made of people. Learn how to talk to them.

Networking is not a dirty word. Isolation is.

Learn how money works. Learn how companies make it, lose it, protect it, and chase it.

If you can tie your design decisions to revenue, cost, risk, trust, or brand value, people will take you more seriously.

Do not design for awards. Design for the user and the business first.

If other designers clap but the product fails, that is not a win.

Being talented is not enough. You need judgment, taste, and the ability to explain your choices clearly.

And trust me on the empathy.