Eco-friendly Product Designer
This month, in honour of ‘Plastic Free July’, we are unpacking a career focused around making a positive impact on the environment through design: an Eco-friendly Product Designer. The role combines your design expertise with sustainability principles to create products that are not only functional and user-friendly, but also minimise environmental impact throughout their lifecycle. This is a great role for all the designers out there who are also passionate about championing sustainability in the design process. Could this be the role for you?
Job Description
Salary Range: £26,000 to £42,000
As an Eco-friendly Product Designer, you will use customer research to determine user needs and design solutions whilst incorporating sustainable concepts. This role will give you the chance to collaborate with a wide range of professionals, from engineers to marketers, you’ll be a part of each step of the process to maintain your vision is delivered effectively.
With a focus on sustainability in your designs, your expertise will be even more highly sought after as the world tries to move in a more eco-friendly direction. This is fuelled by the annual Climate Change Committee (COP) Conferences, which aim to adapt to the impacts of climate change and create innovative solutions to reduce or limit its effects.
Qualifications and Skills
If you want to plan out your future as an Eco-friendly Product Designer, you’ll need a passion for the environment, and maths and computer skills to help you design your products using software such as 3D CAD and Adobe Photoshop. After school or college, you’ll be able to build on these skills by gaining a BA (Hons) degree in Sustainable Product Design or BA (Hons) in Product Design and then go on to specialise in sustainability further into your career.
To support your success in this career, it’s good to build a portfolio of design ideas and attempts to showcase your talents and display how you have improved.
What can you be doing now
There are plenty of things you can do now to prepare for a career as an Eco-friendly Product Designer. You could improve your design skills through online courses to help you gain the basic skills necessary to use the software used by product designers. These courses will allow you to decide whether product design is the right career path for you.
You can also venture more into the eco-friendly side of this career by supporting local environmental groups, researching the sustainability of your everyday products and trying to come up with ideas on how they could be improved. You could even do this by making a conscious effort to recycle regularly. By doing these few things, you’ll have a greater awareness of materials that you can use in sustainable designs and build your awareness of eco-friendly products already available.
Design a greener future with a career in Eco-friendly Product Design!
