My Design and Industry 505 Biography_Fall 2011

                      This is my image representing my feelings on tycoon companies
                                that leave no room for the little guys out there.  
                                            Support your local underground.


My name is Sundeep Sidhu, but I go by Sonny.  I am a student at SFSU studying product design, or what many like to call-Industrial Design.  I just like the sound of "product designer" a little more, after all....products are what we design.  My motivation to being a product designer is really car design.  I have been drawing cars since I was in the 3rd Grade, at times it's what I have loved to do most. Like now.  I love drawing. However, I do not focus all of my attention on drawing cars anymore.  Now I spend a lot of my free time trying to learn more solid techniques in designing.  Color theory, perspective drawing, markers, and trying to get better and better at the computer programs I use such as SolidWorks and Adobe CS5.  

I have found in the recent year that design is a constantly evolving study.  I purpose that I will have lived my entire life, still not having learned how to do everything I wanted to do in design or drawing. I am constantly trying to keep up.  But honestly, it isn't work to me, I love drawing so much that I find it immensely entertaining to keep learning about design. 

If you're wondering,  I am using the words "design" and "drawing" interchangeably because I still love to do design the old fashion way.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t use the latest technology.   I invested in a Wacom 12wx tablet this past year so that I can actually draw on my computer and preserve what I love to do, while mingling it with the modern mediums of design such as Adobe Photo Shop, Illustrator, and InDesign.  My favorite program to use is Autodesk’s SketchBook Pro 2011, it is a great program to use for drawing with a tablet. 

As I said before, my true passion is Automotive Design.  It is the pinnacle of design (before it really gets all messy with math and physics, like aeronautics).  Since I have grown into being a designer by profession, I have widened my interests in design.  I really enjoy Science Fiction design, Furniture design, lamp design and even your general “modern” product design itself.  Kareem Rashid is a very interesting designer in my opinion.  Although his designs are very hip and “in”, I really like his use of colors and of course, his use of shapes.  I have really grown an interest in Scott Robertson lately.  I’ve invested in buying a couple of Scott Robertson’s DVDs recently, so I can learn some things in my spare time.  I spend a lot of time on Coroflot.com and I really admire many of the designers on there. 

            For the last 6 months I have been working as the Art Director for a Mixed Martial Arts magazine named “Vincit”.   My job is to do the layout for the magazine, I do some advertisements in the magazine as well as ads on the side for companies in the magazine.  I have done 2 issues and am in the process of completing the 3^rd issue (It is a bi-monthly magazine). I put a great deal of time into the magazine, using the program Adobe InDesign mostly, as well as some work with Illustrator and Photo Shop.  The magazine is available online at www.vincitmagazine.com as well as on the shelf at many Health/Nutrition shops.

            Aside from the magazine I have an internship at California Model & Design in San Francisco. It is a model making shop that primarily builds prototype models for outside companies.  It is a good opportunity for experience, although it is getting a little outdated to do things the way Cal M&D does things.  Everything is done in a shop, by hand.  The present techniques are CNC routing, SLS and SLN modeling which they do none of.  The best thing Cal Model & Design does is painting.  Since their model making is outdated with today’s field, they survive through their stellar paint matching ability.  Some of their best clients include Clorox and Fuse design in SF. The most useful thing I am learning by working here is how the machines work, how things are done.  Just because most things are automated doesn’t mean that they aren’t still done by the same machines.  You still have most of the same limitations.  To me, learning with your ordinary shop tools is to learning with CNC or SLS tools as learning to sketch is to learning design using computer programs.  All of this advanced technology is still based off the foundation of the latter. 

            So why do I do all this?  Because I want to be a great designer.  Designing is what I love to do, and I am so happy to be going into it as a profession.  My hope is to truly be a great designer.  I hope to go to Graduate school at College of Creative Arts or the Academy of Art (If I can sell a Kidney), and I want to further my education.  I fell like I wasted a lot of time in my life and I really enjoy learning at this stage in my life so I don’t just want to do it to have another degree.  I want to be the best designer I can be.  I want self-contentment.  I want to be as good as I envision myself.  Live up to my expectations of myself.  I want people in the field to come to me for my advice because they respect and honor my abilities.  I want to have many great ideas in my life, and see them through. I want at least 1 patent in my life, to leave my mark in history.  Designers are a small, close-knit community, I just want to be known within this world, I don’t care to be famous or filthy rich (but I do want to be comfortable, don’t get me wrong).

I want to be a success…

But most importantly I want to be Happy.

The 6 key words I would use to best describe myself are.
-Observant/Aware
-Open
-Witty
-Smart/Sensible
-Appreciative
-Motivated