Blog designophile
By Michael DiTullo - January 2, 2012
A student recently asked me how I got my first professional job as a designer. It reminded me of a particularly difficult journey I hadn’t thought of in years. Looking at my resume my path seems almost predestined. It was easy for me to almost forget how difficult it was to transition from student to professional. It almost didn’t happen at all.
My last year in design school, I was doing sponsored projects for both Nike and Nissan. The Nike project was going extremely well and resulted in Nike flying me out to their headquarters outside of Portland, Oregon a couple of times to meet with the team and David Schenone, then the head of footwear design. A few months out from graduation, Dave made me an offer to come out to Nike full-time. Arrogantly, I asked if I could defer my decision until after graduation so I could weigh all of my options. I wanted to finish up my project for Nissan and I was hoping it also might turn into an offer.
Little did I know that many companies were having a difficult year. In fact it was one of the worst sales quarters Nike had ever seen. I wrapped up the program with Nissan and they expressed interest in me coming there, but they wanted me to get a couple years of experience first. Nike informed me that I was at the top of their list, but they had a 6-12 month hiring freeze. Interest from other companies like Seadoo and Bombardier also cooled when they readjusted their budgets.
Blog designophile
By Michael DiTullo - November 5, 2011
Last week we had John Maeda, President of the Rhode Island School of Design and author of "The Laws of Simplicity" in the frog San Francisco studio. John presented to a group of RISD alumni and frogs about how the school is responding and influencing the world around it, as well as to update us on an initiative he is spearheading called "STEM to STEAM". STEM represents a movement to refocus education in the United States on the specific fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. STEM to STEAM seeks to add Art to that formula, something I entirely agree on. The problems that will challenge us in the decades to come will not be the same as yesterday. Creativity is not a silver bullet, but coupling it with our more traditional focus on left brain learning will surely yield new results.
Before the presentation, I sat down with John in our studio library and we talked about what he is passionate about, as well as trading a few RISD stories. There are several RISD alum at frog spread throughout the world including Executive Creative Director Nick de la Mare (MID'95), and Creative Director Jonas Damon (BFA'93 ID). I myself am an alum (BFA'98 ID). Check out the video, which is a bit of a sneak peak into the type of content that will be covered in Designmind's upcoming "Passion" issue, and please, support STEM to STEAM!
