Industrial design, in addition to having an eye for good aesthetics, involves understanding intrinsic needs, and translating them into products that can deliver actionable results for the user !
Sujith Sunny, our next pathbreaker, Lead Industrial Designer at Innominds Software Pvt Ltd , works across a range of products such as wearables, smart devices, healthcare, and precision tools – from high-level concept generation to CAD hand-off and production support.
Sujith talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about realising the impact of industrial design when he ventured into a studio project at Arizona State University, where he designed a device that could help people with restless leg syndrome fall asleep and stay asleep. It involved a lot of research, talking to subject matter experts, testing solutions.
For students, explore a lot, try to absorb as much as you can when you have access to information; ask questions and make a fool of yourself. There’s more to gain by asking questions than staying silent and NOT knowing.
Sujith, what were your initial years like?
I grew up in Kochi, Kerala till I was 18. My mother always encouraged me to learn new things, although at the time I would complain about it. My mother pushed me to join summer vacation classes for Table tennis, basketball, roller skating, arts etc.
Also since my grandmother was a good cook, I was always interested in being a chef (being creative with the ingredients, the plating) and when I brought that up with my parents, Desi Asian as they were, did not allow for it and pushed me into engineering. I think that did enable a path of exploring the creative side of engineering – kinematics and process flow optimisation. So, my master’s in engineering I focussed on that and thus fell into the New Product Development (NPD) which is a part of hardware design.
What did you do for graduation/post graduation?
I moved to UP for my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering (sad to say the university wasn’t the greatest and all I did was get good grades and no knowledge or wisdom of how beautiful engineering is). I was fortunate enough to travel to the USA to get two master’s degree – MS in Mechanical engineering (Michigan) and Master’s in industrial design (Arizona). I now practice industrial design full time.
What were some of the influences that led you to such an offbeat, unconventional and uncommon career in Industrial Design?
My current career of being an industrial designer was heavily inspired by my first work experience at Icarus Design studio as a mechanical designer. I got roped into many activities of industrial designers there. The activities included qualitative research, ergonomics study, rapid prototyping of ideas etc
Icarus Design is a product development studio that mainly focussed on healthcare clients like GE, Siemens and the likes. Clients would come to the studio with a larger problem or objective and it was up to the studio to go out into the field and research with health practitioners and users to see how to translate that objective into actionable results like a product (portable ultrasound, for instance).
I was hired as a mechanical designer that took surface models from industrial designers and made them ready to be prototyped and/or manufactured. The CAD models from industrial designers for the most part were not designed to adhere to manufacturing norms and rules, and it was my job to do that.
Like I mentioned before, the undergrad engineering course did not give me a clear direction about what I wanted to do with my mechanical engineering degree and I also always wanted to go to the US to learn from one of the universities and experience life from a western POV. I chose masters in engineering because one, I did not know a field known as industrial design existed. When I chose my masters in mechanical engineering, it was mostly to go in depth about kinematics and production technology. My mentor at Michigan Tech, had a practise where the students under him would go to different companies and pitch our services to them. It was there that I got to know the existence of a field called NPD that involved problem solving from the get go, rather than ‘we have already solved a problem, now let’s figure out how to make it’. I realised I wanted to be part of the team that did the problem solving for people rather than just trying to figure out ways to mass manufacture the solutions.
I did not get a scholarship but worked part time in the university to cover for my expenses. My family paid for my tuition.
Also, my industrial design peers definitely helped. Then when I was doing my master’s in industrial design, I chose a graduate mentor, Dean, who I would pester when I had doubts of how to go forward with an idea or got stuck somewhere in the process.
I really saw the impact industrial design could bring when I ventured into a studio project for the last semester at Arizona State University. I designed a device that could help people with restless leg syndrome fall asleep and stay asleep. It involved a lot of research, talking to subject matter experts, testing solutions. I was awarded a graduate design award for this project, so that also helped.
Restless leg syndrome (RLS) is a neurological problem that makes your leg move involuntarily. And it happens while you are trying to rest or get some sleep. So people with RLS find it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. I developed an Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) therapy to counter the effects of this. I made rapid prototypes and tested it with 2 to 3 people suffering from RLS to document if my proposed solution worked for them and thankfully it did. It went nowhere besides as a studio project but I was happy with the outcome.
How did you plan the steps to get into the career you wanted? Or how did you make a transition to a new career?
After my 2nd masters degree, I worked as Industrial Designer.
Apex tool group is a conglomerate that manufactures hand tools and power tools. The industrial designer’s job is to develop new tools based on research of value engineering (bringing down cost of existing tools in manufacturing stage) tools.
An industrial designer’s job involves understanding business needs (for example the need to expand our tool offerings, improving on an existing tool to bring more value to our customers etc), translating those needs into products that can improve and or enhance our customer’s chore.
It can start with field research where we observe our customers in their work, see how they use the tools and see if there’s some way they use our tools in an ‘unintended’ way. Because this unintended way could be why our tools might not be offering some help that we wanted it to offer. Then we take these research notes and try to get to the bottom to see if we could design for those based on certain budgetary requirements set by the company. We can’t solve for all problems because scope creep will come and when we try to solve all problems, it may not solve these problems well.
Then we get on to concept ideation where we sketch ideas and present to the larger design and marketing team to get them on board with our thoughts and solutions. Then based on feedback we refine those ideas and finally have a CAD model that we 3D print to scale to test it out ourselves or pass it on to a trusted user to gain more feedback. Then after that it goes to the engineering team, where we work along with them to have it designed to be tooled up in China for mass manufacturing.
A project I worked on – https://www.sujithsunny.com/crescent-level
At Nymi, I follow the same principles where the wearables are designed to be worn comfortably on someone’s wrist and also look good wearing it. Ergonomic and anthropomorphic data needs to be studied here to understand how it can be worn comfortably. A wrist of a man from north America is very different from a wrist of a woman from south east Asia. So industrial designers have to take all of that into account when designing a wrist wearable. At Nymi, I am in charge of production quality, assembly line setup ( so that our team in Indonesia can assemble the internal electronics as efficiently as possible), producing marketing renders, deciding the color material finish of the wearable, selecting the material that is bio- compatible ( to make sure there is no irritant in the material chosen), the overall user experience of the wearable all the way from when and how they wear it, thinking of how sweat accumulates when worn for more than 8 hours etc.
Nymi project description – https://www.sujithsunny.com/nymiband
How did you get your first break?
Apex Tool Group in Charlotte, was my first gig as an Industrial designer. I had a good manager that supported my growth. I had a number of colleagues, much more talented and experienced than me, that I could learn from and get critique from.
What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?
Most of the time in my job, challenges come in explaining design’s worth to marketing. Because most decisions are made by the sales and the marketing team, it’s up to you to present your ideas with weight and tenacity to ensure your voice is heard. Also, as a designer you learn more on the field with the actual users of your product than reading a few reviews online. So whenever you can, be OUT there in the field and dirt.
Where do you work now?
I work as Lead Industrial Designer at Innominds Software Pvt Ltd
Innominds helps organizations accelerate their MVP development with its agile engineering methodology, rapid prototyping platforms, low-code platforms, and cloud-native platforms. This enables organizations to efficiently validate their product ideas, assess their market viability, and refine their product features.
Examples of products – Nymi Band (security wearable)
Client list – https://www.innominds.com/clients
More about Innominds – https://www.innominds.com/new-product-introduction
Some of the products Innominds worked on (FYI – I was not involved with these projects) –
What problems do you solve?
Anywhere ranging from ergonomics, material selection, mass manufacturing production assistance, assembler training.
What skills are needed for this job? How did you acquire the skills?
Good eye for aesthetics – the only way to get that is to create a mental and visual library for yourself to know what looks good vs okay. Look at work of other designers, follow them on social media, keep tabs of the design culture out there, what is the flavour of the month etc etc.
What’s a typical day like?
Meetings, sketching and CAD work, and lots of learning about miniature electronic components.
What do you love about this job?
As this is my first foray into a wearable consumer electronics space, there was a lot to learn in space management for small IC components.
How does your work benefit society?
Well specifically Nymi Band helps pharma companies streamline their authentication process and solve a lot of health and safety rules they have to adhere to, in those facilities.
Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that was very close to you!
I really saw the impact industrial design could bring when I ventured into a studio project for the last semester at Arizona State University. I designed a device that could help people with restless leg syndrome fall asleep and stay asleep. It involved a lot of research, talking to subject matter experts, testing solutions. I was awarded a graduate design award for this project, so that also helped.
Your advice to students based on your experience?
Explore a lot, try to absorb as much as you can when you have access to information. Cold email people you think could help you.
But one thing I would advise is to ask questions and make a fool of yourself. There’s more to gain by asking questions than staying silent and NOT knowing.
Applying for internships and working on small projects can help you upskill. You don’t have to do a lot. Take one skill you want to build and make that a project.
I think first is absorbing as much as you can from what is there online. Because this is a generation that has access to DIY platforms, YouTube, Github etc. Try learning new things as much as you can and form an opinion and then test it out in the wild by asking people about it.
Future Plans?
Still thinking about it.
As of now, involving myself in a few side projects to become a better M-shaped designer.