“A lot of the magic comes from hand sketching where, because it’s imperfect, you often misread someone else’s sketch. Your brain auto-fills something that they weren’t even thinking. It’s that sort of ambiguity really leads to a lot of interesting different ideas. Someone might be thinking that they sketched something one way, and you interpret it completely differently. Out of that, you get a whole new concept.”
In this episode, I sit down to chat with Ben Hoffman, an industrial designer at Branch Creative. We dig into various aspects of his design process – which he’s applied to everything from printers to humanoid robots. Outside of his design work, Ben also collects a variety of creative hobbies. We get into music, film photography, and talk about an array of other creative ideas.
Follow Ben: Personal Instagram | Design Instagram
Show Notes
In this episode, we talk about:
- Ben’s role and experiences as an industrial designer, working on diverse projects from home goods to humanoid robots.
- The specific project involving the design of a humanoid robot aimed at factory work, focusing on making it appear friendly rather than intimidating.
- The creative process in industrial design, including the stages of image gathering, sketching, and using CAD for design refinement.
- Discussion about the balance between form and functionality in design, with examples from Ben’s experiences.
- The dynamics of teamwork in design, particularly the process of converging and diverging ideas within a team setting.
- Insights into Ben’s personal hobbies, such as photography and music, and how these pursuits intersect with his professional life in design.
- Ben’s design thesis where he designed multiple film cameras aimed at exploring the unique aspects of film.
- The exploration of large format photography, its process, and the unique results it yields compared to other formats.
- Ben’s approach to music, focusing on experimentation and
- A broader discussion on the nature of creativity, including the concept of recontextualization in art and design.
Resources and Links
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