Post by Michael D. Nicola on Jul 9, 2006 13:06:58 GMT -5
From The Globe and Mail, July 29, 2006
ONE ON ONE INDUSTRIAL DESIGN PROGRAM MANAGER, HUMBER COLLEGE
'Designers don't think like engineers'
Michael Vaughan
Canadians who have made it as automotive designers have until now had to learn their skills outside the country.
Typically a kid in Canada who wanted to design cars might start off at an industrial design program at a community college in Canada, but from there would have to go to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit or to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., or maybe even the Royal College of Art in London. Each of these would cost the student about $50,000 a year in tuition.
Since 2001, Humber College in Toronto has offered four-year bachelor's degrees in applied technology. The industrial design degree can be taken with an automotive design option in the third and fourth years. The first class of Humber's aspiring automotive designers graduates next year. The design program takes in about 50 new students annually, and the tuition cost is about $5,200 a year.
Ken Cummings is the program manager of industrial design at Humber. He has an honours degree in industrial design from Art Center College of Design and a masters degree in adult education from Central Michigan University.
Cummings started his career in the automotive field with Chrysler Corp., and has worked as a consultant for a variety of clients, including General Motors Corp. and Japanese makers Toyota Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.
Vaughan: Several universities are graduating automotive engineers, but as far as I know Humber is unique in graduating automotive designers. What's the difference?
Cummings: Designers don't think like engineers. Engineers have a tendency to think a little bit inside the box.
In the next 10 years, we'll have a huge paradigm shift in terms of where transportation and automobiles are going. The solutions we've done in the past, where we tweak things, is not going to work any more. We're going to have to look for whole new ways of doing things, and that's what we're trying to prepare our students to face.
Vaughan: So how do you do that?
Cummings: We look at the whole-car design for one thing, the entire concept.
It takes a blend of design, technology, business and liberal arts studies to understand consumer and corporate needs. So the program develops both creative and business strengths. There's a great deal of marketing in it. There also a great deal of business in it. Students have to take a broad range of humanities subjects as well.
Vaughan: You know the famous design schools that turn out the famous designers today. How does Toronto's Humber compete with them?
Cummings: We have the ability to go from art to part, and that's something that other schools don't have.
Our students do research and studio work using advanced computer workstations, and get hands-on experience in well-equipped labs.
Our students have the passion for automobiles, but they also know the business case. They understand the technology that takes it from a sketch all the way through to moulding.
So they can walk into an engineering department and talk the same language as engineers. No more tossing it over the wall. It shortens those development times. Designers have to have technical savvy.
But speaking of "famous" schools, Humber is included with Art Center College of Design, College for Creative Studies, Coventry University and Hong Kong Polytechnic in an ambitious information technology project that connects the schools with each other and a corporate sponsor -- say Britain's Jaguar Ltd. -- and works in real time on the same design.
This would be a visual teleconference format at first with screen images, then moving to full 3D holographics. The first-stage pilot is scheduled to start next winter between Humber and Coventry, where the hub is located. Humber doesn't have to be in California or Cologne to be on the world circuit.
Vaughan: I've seen your students down at the design forum that the Canadian International Auto Show puts on.
Cummings: Every year we take our students to the Toronto auto show, where they get a chance to meet famous automotive designers by entering the international design competition.
Plus the students have created www.humberdrive.com to showcase their work. They have received critiques on their work from the head designers of both Nissan and Japan's Mitsubishi Motors Corp. using this site.
Vaughan: Is that how you keep them connected with the real world?
Cummings: Between their third and fourth year, we get our students out working in design jobs, including many working for automotive companies.
All design students do a thesis project. For this thesis, they must have a corporate sponsor who is at arm's length from the faculty. So that helps give them a sense of reality because the corporate sponsor will tell them whether their design will sell or not sell, whether it can be made or not made.
Some times the students aren't far enough out; they're too conservative, and the sponsor will say we already did that last year.
Vaughan: So you think your designers will be job-ready?
Cummings: A lot of the major companies won't accept people without a bachelors degree. Our graduates will have that degree.
In addition, they'll be certified on design software so employers know they will be able to do the job. I'm sure we'll achieve 80-per cent-placement.
The college has long offered an excellent diploma program. Our diploma helps build our degree, there's no doubt about it. When you've got a good reputation with that, you have a good stepping stone to move on to the future.
Vaughan: How many students entered the program, and how many will make it through?
Cummings: We started with 44. We have 30 in our third year now, with about 12 in automotive and 18 in product.
They get a bachelor of applied technology degree. It combines the rigour of a regular university degree, but adds the specialty and vocational relevance of a diploma.
ONE ON ONE INDUSTRIAL DESIGN PROGRAM MANAGER, HUMBER COLLEGE
'Designers don't think like engineers'
Michael Vaughan
Canadians who have made it as automotive designers have until now had to learn their skills outside the country.
Typically a kid in Canada who wanted to design cars might start off at an industrial design program at a community college in Canada, but from there would have to go to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit or to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., or maybe even the Royal College of Art in London. Each of these would cost the student about $50,000 a year in tuition.
Since 2001, Humber College in Toronto has offered four-year bachelor's degrees in applied technology. The industrial design degree can be taken with an automotive design option in the third and fourth years. The first class of Humber's aspiring automotive designers graduates next year. The design program takes in about 50 new students annually, and the tuition cost is about $5,200 a year.
Ken Cummings is the program manager of industrial design at Humber. He has an honours degree in industrial design from Art Center College of Design and a masters degree in adult education from Central Michigan University.
Cummings started his career in the automotive field with Chrysler Corp., and has worked as a consultant for a variety of clients, including General Motors Corp. and Japanese makers Toyota Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.
Vaughan: Several universities are graduating automotive engineers, but as far as I know Humber is unique in graduating automotive designers. What's the difference?
Cummings: Designers don't think like engineers. Engineers have a tendency to think a little bit inside the box.
In the next 10 years, we'll have a huge paradigm shift in terms of where transportation and automobiles are going. The solutions we've done in the past, where we tweak things, is not going to work any more. We're going to have to look for whole new ways of doing things, and that's what we're trying to prepare our students to face.
Vaughan: So how do you do that?
Cummings: We look at the whole-car design for one thing, the entire concept.
It takes a blend of design, technology, business and liberal arts studies to understand consumer and corporate needs. So the program develops both creative and business strengths. There's a great deal of marketing in it. There also a great deal of business in it. Students have to take a broad range of humanities subjects as well.
Vaughan: You know the famous design schools that turn out the famous designers today. How does Toronto's Humber compete with them?
Cummings: We have the ability to go from art to part, and that's something that other schools don't have.
Our students do research and studio work using advanced computer workstations, and get hands-on experience in well-equipped labs.
Our students have the passion for automobiles, but they also know the business case. They understand the technology that takes it from a sketch all the way through to moulding.
So they can walk into an engineering department and talk the same language as engineers. No more tossing it over the wall. It shortens those development times. Designers have to have technical savvy.
But speaking of "famous" schools, Humber is included with Art Center College of Design, College for Creative Studies, Coventry University and Hong Kong Polytechnic in an ambitious information technology project that connects the schools with each other and a corporate sponsor -- say Britain's Jaguar Ltd. -- and works in real time on the same design.
This would be a visual teleconference format at first with screen images, then moving to full 3D holographics. The first-stage pilot is scheduled to start next winter between Humber and Coventry, where the hub is located. Humber doesn't have to be in California or Cologne to be on the world circuit.
Vaughan: I've seen your students down at the design forum that the Canadian International Auto Show puts on.
Cummings: Every year we take our students to the Toronto auto show, where they get a chance to meet famous automotive designers by entering the international design competition.
Plus the students have created www.humberdrive.com to showcase their work. They have received critiques on their work from the head designers of both Nissan and Japan's Mitsubishi Motors Corp. using this site.
Vaughan: Is that how you keep them connected with the real world?
Cummings: Between their third and fourth year, we get our students out working in design jobs, including many working for automotive companies.
All design students do a thesis project. For this thesis, they must have a corporate sponsor who is at arm's length from the faculty. So that helps give them a sense of reality because the corporate sponsor will tell them whether their design will sell or not sell, whether it can be made or not made.
Some times the students aren't far enough out; they're too conservative, and the sponsor will say we already did that last year.
Vaughan: So you think your designers will be job-ready?
Cummings: A lot of the major companies won't accept people without a bachelors degree. Our graduates will have that degree.
In addition, they'll be certified on design software so employers know they will be able to do the job. I'm sure we'll achieve 80-per cent-placement.
The college has long offered an excellent diploma program. Our diploma helps build our degree, there's no doubt about it. When you've got a good reputation with that, you have a good stepping stone to move on to the future.
Vaughan: How many students entered the program, and how many will make it through?
Cummings: We started with 44. We have 30 in our third year now, with about 12 in automotive and 18 in product.
They get a bachelor of applied technology degree. It combines the rigour of a regular university degree, but adds the specialty and vocational relevance of a diploma.