About

I’ll be honest. This whole ‘about’ section freaked me out for a long time. I believed that this should be the place where I am defining what kind of designer I am, what my main interests are, and my preferred projects. I found it an impossible thing to do and I was perplexed, until I finally figured something out: Why do I have to?

When applying for my first design course a tutor explained: “When starting into a new design project, the first thing to do is to gain at least 80% of the knowledge of your customer.” This formulates the reason why I wanted to make design my everyday business quite precisely, because it means that, as a designer, I am enabled to work on anything I am interested in, and that in a way just as creative as scientific.

So what kind of designer does this make me? Who should hire me and who should not?

For me, design is a manner of working, a way of thinking. It is about asking the right questions, investigating them scientifically, delivering the answer creatively, and learning all the way through. I cannot define what projects I will be working on in the future. The fields covered by design are just too wide, different and versatile, and so are my interests. However at some point I want to give you an impression of my knowledge, experience and abilities and I think I do that best by giving you a glimpse of my past.

Education: I attended a HTL, which is a school form only present in Austria and might be best described as a technical college for machine engineering. I am studying Industrial Design at the Kunstuniversität Linz in my final year and at the moment I am attending a study abroad term at the University of the West of England, Bristol at the course of Design: Process, Material, Context.

Design relevant work: I worked with a local lightning design firm, an international plastic profile producer, and in design engineering for a multinational company of the heavy industries. During my studies I took part in various third party projects of all different kinds, really.

Apart from that I am always following my second passion: photography. My works in this field could compete in various occasions and got published in magazines such as the English Digital Photographer.

Social experiences: I spent most of my summers with environmental NGOs such as the Sea Turtle Protecting Society of Greece to preserve nesting beaches and raise the public awareness. Research around, and preservation of coral reefs as well as community work in the South Chinese Sea was subject of my volunteering with Blue Ventures and at the Red Cross Austria I worked as paramedic and ambulance driver.

As always there are various projects with a relatively short run-time coming up at the moment. However since spring 2011 I am investigating the relationship, the connection we share with water on a psychological and conscious level. Various works in this context can be expected in the future so stay posted and sign up for my blog. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Sincerely

Thomas Essl

          Bristol, November 2011

 

PS: For more details about my professional past you might want to have a look on my LinkedIn profile.