After being contacted by the senior lecturer in Product Design, Simon Lambert – Paul was asked to give students an overview of his career so far. It was an opportunity to outline his successes, challenges, opportunities, and offer some advice for those keen to follow a similar path.
Paul’s work was first noticed during a student showcase called ‘New Designers’ at the Business Design Centre in London. Following the exhibition, he was offered a job in toy design – creating small plastic characters for major fast food and cereal brands. However, after re-evaluating the environmental impact of his work, he segued into furniture design, external environments, street signage, and, eventually, wayfinding. He joined Endpoint in 2015.
Applied Skills
After the main session, in which Paul was asked about transferable skills, internships, and putting a portfolio together, he offered some smaller tutorials – discussing more practical aspects of his work, such as the technology used, and core skills such as hand sketching and creative concept generation.
Overall Paul was impressed by how career-focused the students were, and by their desire to get the right kind of skills and experience – giving him an opportunity to mention initiatives like our internship programme.
Paul said “De Montfort was one top place to do product, furniture, and industrial design 20 years ago. It’s great to see that’s still the case. I remember the course being a lot of hard work but great fun. The facilities the students have now are amazing! There’s some great talent coming up too, which is fantastic.”