Peter Sheehan

A few days ago, we had our seventh contemporary design culture class. For this class, we were gifted a visit by Peter Sheehan who is a fully-fledged product designer having worked as a design consultant for several years. During this time, there he had key input into the design of many products for global brands. He developed many tech products for Logitech while at design partners all of which enrapture the key aspects of his design. In 2011 peter left design partners to go out on his own as what he refers to as a free-range designer to take a wider view of design while continuing to do some mentoring and consultancy work.

The purpose of his visit was to come and talk to us pretty much about the whole design process and what his take on it is and how we can improve ourselves. I found it very interesting to experience what actually happens in the real world and how it is someone actually brings a concept through the stages and into a product. A perfect example for this is how he found inspiration for a mouse he designed from a pig’s ear.

Once he had finished his presentation he then went on to show us his style of sketching, even as he went through the whole class he stressed how important it is to keep a sketch book with you at all time so you can capture everything for later use, no matter how rough the sketches are. Before picking a product to design he flicked back through his own sketch book to find a concept he had scribbled down a while ago and now he was sketching it into a presentation.

The most interesting part for me was the task he set us which was to design a cover and stand for a tablet but it was to be done in about 20 minutes with the deliverable being sketch pages and a cardboard model of our final idea. I found it amazing as to how I could spend an entire day with a sketchpad with nothing to show for it at the end but when he set us that task I had a few pages of sketches and a model done out in know length, maybe it was the wish to impress him or maybe it was just the pressure gets you working harder. All in all I found the class very interesting to see the whole picture of what a product designer can be and what type of lifestyle they can live and the things they do too inspire creativity.