PHILIPS DESIGN

Eindhoven, The Netherlands

A year-long internship.

Since working at Philips Design in their innovation team, my confidence has grown so much and my passion and excitement for design has become more prominent. I have found my love for designing for people with innovative methods, products and technologies. I love the busy working life, but more importantly, I love the fact that every day I am still learning so much and building on my skills and developing new ones. I can’t wait to keep studying and learning in the future. With a Masters and maybe even a PhD on the horizon. 

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Developing the basis of my design skills has shown me the value of having a strong foundation of understanding; you can’t design an effective solution without knowing your users, and having the ability to work and design with electronics and to be able to code gives me the freedom to create more. As designers, we tell stories all the time, not just one written in a book. We are visual people; telling stories of users through personas and user journeys, through sketches and photographs of ideas and products and in person through the presentation of our projects. Everything we do tells a story to others.

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My year at Philips has helped me set the bar of my expectations of what design is, its role in society and my own goals so much higher than I could have ever imagined. 

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As designers we aren’t just artists or engineers, we are the perfect mix of both. The amazing people at Philips have taught me this. We are inquisitive, constantly asking questions and searching for answers, carrying out primary and secondary research. We go out into the field and talk to the people we are designing for. We constantly evaluate, test and re-evaluate, until we are that bit closer to perfection. We bring to life the whole solution and not just products; we look at the whole picture and not just the ‘hero shot’. We design the user interaction, the service, the soft and the hardware; we think about it all. We tell stories

I now have a fresh and new perspective on design and how the world works. I am much more prepared for my final year than I was last year, and now I am ready to take on the challenges ahead.