Hasta La Ideas

Industrial Designer, Upholstery – Baker
Kohler
Hickory, NC

Baker Furniture, a division of Kohler Company, is a leading manufacturer and retailer/wholesaler of high-end furniture. We are seeking a highly creative, innovative, self motivated, collaborative designer, to join our team as a Staff Designer. As the Industrial Designer of Upholstery, you will create and develop innovative concepts and products through the design process for all Baker Furniture product categories. You will contribute to the growth of the Product Development department through design expertise and collaboration with external celebrity designers. You will determine appropriate approaches to concept development by executing design research, product concept drawings, physical modeling, and product presentations.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

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Linda Tischler, senior writer for Fast Company, has a very candid piece in our Hack2Work Special, entitled “How To Pitch Me” where she breaks down all the dos and don’ts for getting your design firm noticed by the business press. Here’s a taste:

1. DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, send me unsolicited files over 1MB. My inbox is already the bane of my sys admin’s existence, and your file could be the straw that crashes the whole thing. If that happens, my BlackBerry’s out of business, and you land on my list of pitch pariahs for all eternity.

2. Come up with a searchable subject line. Give me an easy way to find your strand of gold among the dross.

3. Make that first line a zinger. I read a lot of pitches on the subway, on my cell. Long-winded pitches, with the lede buried somewhere in the third ‘graph, are gone before I reach 14th Street.

4. For god’s sake, read the magazine before you pitch. We do not, nor have we ever, run announcements of someone’s promotion to SVP.

>> Read the rest of Linda’s piece here
>> Check out more more shortcuts & advice from Hack2Work: Essential Tips for the Design Professional

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We’ve just launched a new special called Hack2Work: Essential Tips for the Design Professional. Filled with hundreds of tips, tricks, lifehacks and advice for practicing designers, the feature covers everything from office politics to office snacks, from essential books to essential software, and from intellectual property and design research to design conferences, working with the press, sustainable practice, and creative hiring.

Hack2Work is divided into 5 sections: CLIENTS, OFFICE, STAFF, PROCESS, and PROMOTION, each dealing with an essential facet of design practice. Here’s a partial list of some of the items you’ll find:

+ How to Make Your Client’s Logo Bigger Without Making Their Logo Bigger, by Michael Bierut
+ Why Does the Firm Own Everything I Do? Intellectual Property & You, by Katy Frankel
+ How to Get Invited to Speak at a Design Conference, by Alissa Walker
+ Check Please: How to Learn About Your Clients From Their Table Manners, by Liz Danzico
+ On Being T-Shaped, by Tim Brown
+ 19 Books Every Design Professional Should Own, by Andy Polaine
+ The Definitive DIY Guide for Professional Designers, by Christy Canida
+ Core77’s Guide to Unconventional Office Plants, by Lisa Smith
+ 5 Keys to Successful Design Research, by Steve Portigal
+ How to Pitch Me, by Linda Tischler

Plus: Your Guide to Last-Minute Package Shipping, Tips and Advice from a Professional Recruiter, How to Work the Social Web, and much, much more.

SUPER BONUS! Core77 is proud to introduce “COG + ROCKSTAR”—a series of new Core-toons from the amazing Lunchbreath and Fueledbycoffe—exploring the nuances (and nonsense) of what it’s like to be a design professional through the eyes of COG (loveable, diligent) and ROCKSTAR (enviable, dubious) as they navigate the terrain of design practice.

Dive right in at core77.com/hack2work. There truly is something here for everyone—fun, useful, irreverent, surprising—Hack2Work is ultimately a celebration of design…and its practitioners.

Summer’s over. Hack 2 Work!

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Check out the new 1 Hour Design Challenge: The Future of Digital Reading. For this competition, we’re extending the time limit to 90 minutes, so you’ll have a bit more time to do your best design work! Watch the video for a quick intro:

THEME:
One Hour+ Design Challenge: The Future of Digital Reading

DOORS OPEN:
September 9, 2009
9 PM PST (4PM GMT)

DOORS CLOSE:
October 14, 2009
9 PM PST (4PM GMT)

BRIEF:
What will reading look in the future? Will we be using printed books, rectangular electronic devices, embedded technologies?This competition challenges designers to envision a rich future digital reading experience, based on a defined set of design research.

Recently, Portigal Consulting undertook an exploratory research project on reading, books, and digital reading devices, entitled Reading Ahead. Here’s what they found:

• Books are more than just pages with words and pictures; they are imbued with personal history, future aspirations, and signifiers of identity
• The unabridged reading experience includes crucial events that take place before and after the elemental moments of eyes-looking-at-words
• Digital reading privileges access to content while neglecting other essential aspects of this complete reading experience
• There are opportunities to enhance digital reading by replicating, referencing, and replacing social (and other) aspects of traditional book reading

And here’s what they suggest for your design explorations:

• Include the sensual
• Support the social side of reading
• Consider the varied modes and rituals of reading
• Develop an ecosystem

HOW TO ENTER:
Watch the video pitch above, get familiar with the Reading Ahead research, and check out the slideshow below for more:

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Featured Forum Topic of the Day:
How to find an ID job
by MDesigner in design employment

As an employer we have been frustrated with the poor applications that we have received recently. Here are some of the most major errors we’re seeing: Poor grammar, Individual jpgs sent as samples, Calling when the ad says no calls…

>>Read and Reply

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