And the winner is …

What began as an offer for one industrial student to receive a one-year, paid internship at VTech turned into one student being offered a job following graduation, and two others being offered six-month, paid internships!

VTech’s senior design manager David Waterman announced Jesse Bizzoco and Austin Brown as the recipients of the two VTech internships, and offered Ishmael Adams a position on the VTech design team.

Ishmael and Jesse celebrate the VTech news!

Austin’s all smiles after learning he’ll be back in Hong Kong this fall.

Bizocco and Brown, both juniors, tentatively head back to Hong Kong this fall to begin their six-month internships. Adams, who graduates May 31, may start his two-year contract with VTech on American soil while his Hong Kong visa and living arrangements get set up overseas.

Professor Peter Fossick embraces Ishmael, Austin and Jesse after learning the exciting news.

Unexpected hiatus

You know you’re not in Savannah anymore — or even Hong Kong, for that matter — when suddenly your Internet access is strangely limited to certain sites and the blog you’re responsible for updating daily unfortunately doesn’t make the cut.

Such is the tale of what happened after we arrived to Shenzhen, China May 19. All set up in the five-star room at the Goodview Hotel, I excitedly logged on to wireless Internet without having to pay for access like I did at the YMCA in Hong Kong. What I did not expect was the “Big Brother”-esque moderating of Internet traffic.

During our three and a half day stay in Shenzhen I continued to document our journeys, and journeys they were. From crazy bus drivers to some of the factories responsible for our everyday consumer products, we took Shenzhen by storm.

Now officially back in the United States, and literally sitting on the ground in the Newark Airport, I am finally able to start posting our travels from the last few days. Thanks for your patience, thanks for reading, and enjoy the rest of the blog!

~Emily

Gold Peak Electronics factory in Guangdong

After a morning with TTi’s Leon Yoong and a traditional Chinese lunch at an area hotel, the SCAD industrial design crew headed to Gold Peak’s factory facility for a tour. Built with the company’s high-end brands such as KEF and Celestian in mind, the immaculate factory is filled with natural light.

Looking out from the inside of the Gold Peak atrium in Guangdong.

Taking a look at the scaled-down model of Gold Peak’s factory and staff apartments.

Jesse and Julie show off their dust-proof shoe covers in Gold Peak’s sound quality room.

South China Morning Post interviews Jesse and Marcus

By Emily Green

On Thursday, following the VTech presentations, industrial design students Marcus Perez Cervantes and Jesse Bizocco met up with reporter Miranda Yeung from the South China Morning Post–Young Post for an interview about being [American] design students, visiting Hong Kong and working with VTech.

The interview began with Marcus and Jesse’s photo shoot along the Kowloon harbor, behind the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, while Yeung spoke to industrial design professors Peter Fossick and Joel Wittkamp.

SCMP Young Post is a biweekly edition of the SCMP geared toward young adults. We will post the run date and link when the article is set to run.

Until then, here are some snapshots of Marcus and Jesse’s SCMP photo shoot. Way to represent SCAD, guys!

International networking at the InnoCentre

First, a recap. In the last three days, we’ve met with some of the top-level design management at companies such as Gold Peak, Techtronic Industries, Hasbro and VTech. Each has taken time to talk with the industrial design students, answer their questions and have a good laugh every now and again.

Of all the companies we’ve visited so far, each has expressed genuine interest in keeping in contact with the students. Business cards have been flying from hand to hand, along with offers to review portfolios and perhaps even additional internship opportunities. *NO word yet on the students chosen for the VTech spots.

The incredible networking opportunities just keep coming. Today, we spent an entire workday at the InnoCentre. The InnoCentre is a building that houses “incubation” chambers (or rooms if you’re not English!) where new designers are starting their careers. Reminiscent of shopSCAD is a bookstore within the InnoCentre where products designed by “incubatees” are sold.

A nonprofit group, Hong Kong Design Centre, provides some of the spaces to the new designers in order to further nurture the design skills of more recent graduates. Some more established designers — take Kan and Lau Design Consultants, for example — have offices in the building as well.

Here’s a list of the folks we met with today:
Annita Mau, corporate communications, Hong Kong Design Centre
Stanley Chan, project manager, Hong Kong Design Centre
Gigi Ng, client services and marketing manager, SensesGROUP
Leo P.H. Chan, practicing artist and creative director, On Your Mark
Catherine Lui, art director, Fish – shoppers based design
Kent Wong, product development director, Sunhing

The big day: VTech

The big day finally arrived. A little nervous, yes. Excited? Of course.

Eight weeks into spring quarter and just two days shy of having spent a full week in Hong Kong, the industrial design students — Jesse, Marcus, Jacob, Ryan C., Julie, Matt, Will, Pat, Drew, Ryan, Ish, Bradley, Dan, Austin and Carl — presented their final design concepts to VTech designers David Waterman and Joshua Fischer. And, safe to say, they blew away their captive audience.

David remarked that the work of the collective group is the best he’s seen of any student work from any college in the world. The adjectives “impressive” and “professional” repeatedly preceded comments on the students’ presentation skills, process sketches, research and concept ideas.

The group made SCAD history as the college’s first-ever student group to travel internationally and present to a real world client. As professors Peter Fossick and Joel Wittkamp said later in the afternoon, while being interviewed along with Marcus and Jesse by the South China Morning Post (Young Post), it is the first of [hopefully] many future class experiences like Hong Kong.

During an evening reception for some of our company hosts at Felix’s, David Waterman explained to a reporter from Hinge Magazine the necessity for design students to experience a class project such as the SCAD and VTech.

You guys ROCKED!!! Thank you for this amazing trip… HON

In their own words: Bradley Bowers

By Bradley Bowers

China can design. That was the thought running through my head as I listened to presentations today. China can design systems; China can design sexy products; China can even design brand identities and resurrect old faithful brands, like Hoover.

China has up its sleeves countless tricks the likes of which the world has not seen since the age of old master designers. The designers of yore, the Frank Lloyd Wrights of the world, the Eames’s, Jean Prouve and so on would look at the China of our current world and grow gitty with anticipation; they would see it, the wonder that China holds.

If good design means being cohesive from start to finish then Leon Yoong, director of industrial design at TTi, knows good design. The designers at Gold Peak also understand what it takes to make design affordable, accountable and essential. It seems, according to both Simon and Leon, directors at GP and TTi respectively, that good design starts with good research and a deep understanding of the client, the customer and the market.

If this foundation isn’t there, then can you really call yourself a designer? It seems to me that in this day and age there are too many people calling themselves designers when they merely push lines around a page and call it done.

Today was refreshing. It strengthened a flame in me that was starting to dwindle, a flame that asked: Is the world moving away from people and towards systems and can we right the wrongs of our past? Today’s presentations may not be the end all, be all solutions to my questions but it put a few thoughts at ease.

Yes, China is the new frontier, and yes, China is the future of design. I am proud that one day I’ll be able to say that I was there when the world looked for a solution and found it sleeping in the green hills of China.

Bradley’s portrait atop a piece of furniture designed by Freeman Lau, whose studio we visited at the InnoCentre May 16.

Hasbro toy studio visit

Possibly the most entertaining visit we will make — getting to play with toys at Hasbro with our host, Kenny Ho. He and his group are in charge of designing new toys and updating some classics such as GI Joe, My Little Pony, Super Soaker and Nerf toys

Peter striking a GQ pose before we left for Hasbro.

Hasbro’s Kenny Ho tells us about what it’s like designing toys. For everyone who imagines this job would be a total blast, you’re absolutely right!

Matt, Marcus, Jesse, Ishmael and Julie can’t help themselves around an entire table full of toys. A collective favorite? The latest and greatest Super Soakers, which Kenny was pleasantly surprised to discover appealed to the college-age market.

Joel gets technical with a Hasbro designer about the Nerf gun, while Jacob and Carl observe.

They gave US a gift, and all we did was show up!

Parting shot from a highly entertaining morning with our new friends at Hasbro.

In their own words: Drew Dapore

By Drew Dapore

Today we went and met with the designers at Hasbro, the toy company. Kenny, their design director, gave us an awesome presentation about their company and design process. It was really interesting to see how the toys that most of us played with while we were younger (and many of us still play with i.e. Nerf guns) were designed.

Kenny took us through a little bit of their initial sketching phases but mostly showed us how they go about finalizing their designs through prototyping and manufacturing analysis. The Transformers projects were amazing. I am still not sure exactly how they figure out and decide how and where to put joints and all of the moving parts to make it actually work and still resemble a figure.

After going to Hasbro we went over to a store called GOD Warehouse. Their name stands for Goods of Desire. They make furniture and lighting along with other household items. While we were there they took us on a tour through their showroom and showed us a few of their products. It was interesting to see how the designs of contemporary furniture in China compare with the designs of contemporary furniture from other places around the world.

-Drew

Professor Joel Wittkamp, Drew and college photographer Hon Low sport the snazzy SCAD polos while riding our favorite mode of transportation, the MTR.

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