Makerversity Work Experience: Foyez Uddin

By Makerversity

We catch up with Foyez Uddin, who we first met on our Get Started with Product Design course back in August. He really impressed us throughout the week and continued onto work experience with two of our members businesses, Morrama and Mettle. Here’s everything he got up to whilst he was with us and what’s up next for him now he’s come to the end of his placements.

Hi Foyez! So, how did you find yourself at Makerversity?

I have always been creative which is why whilst browsing through the Prince’s Trust website, I was drawn to the Product Design course with Makerversity for one week. I thought … seize this chance to expand my creative-flow through exploring another field of design to what I have studied in Architecture.

What were your first impressions when you arrived?

At first I was very surprised! I didn’t expect to find a hidden studio lab, built beneath a historic building. That blew me away! I soon realised it was a space designed to provide professional makers (i.e. product designer, architects, artist and the list goes on) the chance to use the studio facilities for their projects. Which I thought was great, because it allows individuals to collaborate with each other and share ideas; also the open floor plan makes it accessible to view and encourage one’s work.

During the Product Design course, what did you work on?

Once I was selected. YES! We were given a brief, which was to design hybrid furniture, before I decided what my two furnitures would be, we went to visit one of the exhibitions upstairs in Somerset House, to gain some inspiration, that’s when it struck me! My two-chosen furniture would be a chair and a drawing table because I felt as a designer we needed a place to sit and ‘THINK’ creatively and when an idea sparks you’d be able to fold up the armchair into a table to draw up ideas.

Throughout the week I learnt essential skills from sketching to producing rapid drawings of our designs from 2D to 3D perspective. We also had inspiring talks from kick-starter companies working at Makerversity, delivering their expert knowledge of starting your own business. To wrap up the week we used the wood workshop to finish off these awesome rotatable tables designed by Fuzl to take home.

What made you want to stay on for a work experience placement?

I really enjoyed my time here and days just flew by. The entire atmosphere and the people working at Makerversity was fantastic! Met very awesome people during my time like Oliver who founded Fuzl, and the learning team Hattie and Charlotte made it a fun and enjoyable experience. So I wanted to see what it felt like to work in a studio at Makerversity with other vibrant individuals.

During your work placement who did you work with? What drew you to that company?

For my work placement I was lucky enough to work with two different companies, Morrama and Mettle. They both have a similar background in providing excellent design development for creative start-ups. Mettle also focuses on App software for users. I was interested in working for them because both offered the opportunity to be involved in producing a lot of conceptual ideas for their current projects. This is something I enjoy doing – coming up with innovative ideas. Lastly I get to build up a mini portfolio of work. Yahh!

So, thinking back, do any favourite moments stick out? And what was the most challenging?

I enjoyed every moment of my time working for Morrama and Mettle! I particularly liked getting myself stuck in with the tasks, doing research for both of the company’s current projects, finding out the latest technology on the market, then sharing my findings with the team. For Morrama, I’d say producing a lot of packaging designs, getting feedback from the group and doing a final render on Illustrator was a highlight. With Mettle it was closely shadowing the team on projects, seeing how they worked, understanding the thinking process because it was so new to me, things like that!

The most challenging part with Morrama was trying to come up with a name for one of their kick-starter products. Who would have thought coming up with a name was easy? Its NOT! The solution was to write down lots of themes, and you then pull out names from that theme. It may sound simple but took a very long time.

With Mettle on the other hand, I had difficulties setting up the 3D printer especially feeding the material through a narrow tube, at times it would just snap off. Not great! Also having to wait patiently for the first layer of material to make a perfect mould, but it doesn’t always work, so I had to restart the whole process again and again. There were occasions when I had to keep asking Adam, the Workshop Manager, what to do. I appreciate the help man!

What did you learn about the working world and what came as a surprise?

To be honest I would be like – the day is over already?? That’s how quick time flew. Observing how people worked in a design studio, sketching, meeting clients, and generally being in a relaxed chilled environment – it never dragged.

What do you hope to move onto now your placements are over?

The first thing I will do is add my work experience to my CV! I would definitely like to come back here if I ever get the opportunity to make something creative through kick-starter, but in the meantime I’m looking into industrial or architectural design related jobs. Who knows … time will tell.

If you could offer advice to anyone wanting to get started in creative work, what would you say?

The best advice I can say is just go for it! There’s a quote that I would love to share by Bruce Lee …

“Life itself is your teacher and you are in a state of constant learning.”

So I would say in a creative field, you are continuously learning something new, from sketching to digital drawing or model making. So whatever creative projects you’ve done or are planning to do just keep working on it. NEVER STOP LEARNING. And explore new options. The best place to start is Prince’s Trust website, there are loads of creative courses for you to do and meet other people like yourself. I’m 100% sure you would find a course that best suits you, but the only way you can be sure is just hit the apply button and one of the friendly staff at Prince’s Trust will assist you. Don’t forget definitely you need to try the product design course with Makerversity!

Peace!