In-House Manufacturer
The products these designers work on are specific to the manufacturing services their company offers to clients. It takes a clear vision and an understanding of how to carry out the technical know-how.
I am an in-house designer for a corporate packaging company that focusses most of its efforts on sales and operations. By this, I mean everything we do supports our factories. My role focuses mostly on the beginning of a project—the ‘new opportunity.’ Because I am not involved in the whole process of taking concepts to production and then to market, my main focus is visualizing and prototyping new ideas.
The Faerch Group/Studio prototyping shop. Photography provided by our Women In Industrial Design Board Member & United Kingdom-based Industrial Designer, Mona Sharma.
Mona Sharma, our WIID Board Member & Industrial Designer at the Faerch Group, Packaging in Cambridge, England, UK.
A little about Mona Sharma, UK-base Industrial designer & Our lovely Women in ID Board Member + resident blogger.
Mona is an Industrial Designer, keen to create products that are honest, simple, and enjoyable. She graduated with a first-class Masters in Design (Industrial Design) from Sheffield Hallam University and following on from internships working on designs for habitat such as at MUT Design in Spain, she is now based in Cambridge, England in the United Kingdom, working at Færch—a European market leader of thermoformed food packaging. Her day-to-day work involves creating and presenting innovative concepts to major food retailers, suppliers, and brands.
Whilst developing core design skills within research, visualization, and prototyping, she has also learned a lot about design strategy, marketing, communication across many mediums to an international audience, as well as developing the team’s creativity along the way.
Mona also enjoys freelance opportunities—she recently launched Buddy, a light design with Gantri who is based in San Francisco, California, which has been a great project and experience to see through from initial research, all the way to production. In her own time, she can be found at a potter’s wheel, creating graphics for The Noun Project, visiting galleries, making pasta, and practicing yoga or trampolining. Mona is also a Board Member & Virtual Panelist at Women In Industrial Design.
“I am involved in presenting when it is an extensive project that is better-explained from the designer’s perspective as opposed to the client manager’s.”
Project boards and prototypes in our design studio at Faerch. Photography provided by our Women In Industrial Design Board Member & United Kingdom-based Industrial Designer, Mona Sharma.
At our company, the job roles reflect different stages of a traditional design process. For example, new ideas are modelled to production accuracy by a technical design team and then prototyped by another, all in-house.
There are also account/client managers dedicated to a ‘portfolio’ of clients. They generally handle the project from beginning to end and take on all the interactions with the clients. I do not interact with every client. Though, I am involved in presenting when it is an extensive project that is better explained from the designer’s perspective as opposed to the client manager’s.
Gaining a technical understanding of the manufacturing equipment is a necessity. Photography provided by our Women In Industrial Design Board Member, Mona Sharma via the Faerch Group in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom.
Since turnaround times in the packaging industry are relatively short, design and style changes are frequent.
At Faerch, The design department offers three levels of concept presentation:
The LIBRARY: the quickest option, where we put existing ideas together—we catalogue every new design.
The BESPOKE: takes a little longer, where we come up with new ideas.
The CATEGORY REVIEW: takes the longest; this is where we carry out market and trend research, user and product analysis, and then new concepts.
“You can jump from one project to the next and not get bored.”
You get to focus on creative thinking and concepts without getting too bogged down on technical accuracy. If that’s not your thing—this is more an option than a requirement. You don’t have to worry about how you will take a new idea to market. You don’t always have to directly liaise with the client because there is inevitably someone else on the team to do the talking for you if you wish.
Because of the packaging industry’s pace, there are always new projects coming in; you can jump from one project to the next and not get bored.
We have libraries of existing ideas that clients can chose from. Photography provided by our Women In Industrial Design Board Member, Mona Sharma via the Faerch Group in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom.
“With KFC, we went into their kitchens to see the background work and all the effort that goes into preparing ‘fast’ food. ”
Photography provided by our Women In Industrial Design Board Member + Virtual Panelist, Mona Sharma via the Faerch Design Studio in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom.
Last year, I worked on quite a few different ideas for Kentucky Fried Chicken. They are one of the most fun clients to work with in terms of packaging. They are very receptive to the ‘out there’ concepts and more likely to take them into production than others. Many clients want exciting ideas and then tone it down as a design goes through all the stages.
With KFC, we went into their kitchens to see the background work and all the effort that goes into preparing ‘fast’ food. We launched a few designs into production over the course of the year, which is pretty quick!
“We have to design specifically for the machines, production processes, and factories. We have to know of all the technical constraints. ”
The realities of working in a corporate packaging company, especially one that focusses on just thermoforming as a method of manufacture, are that it is very niche, and there is not always room for all the creativity. We have to design specifically for the machines, production processes, and factories. We have to know of all the technical constraints. A lot of design work can end up being more back-end heavy than front-end heavy. It is fast-paced with many stakeholders; you don’t always hear feedback on your ideas. Many visionary ideas are not turned into reality because clients chose an easier and quicker path of adapting an existing design.
THANK YOU, MONA, FOR GIVING US A GLIMPSE INTO YOUR CAREER & WORK AS AN INSPIRING WOMAN IN DESIGN.
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