Top 10 Career Paths After Studying Transportation Design
Mobility is a crucial topic in today's day and age. Humankind is travelling faster, further, and more frequently than ever before. Consumer vehicles are increasingly luxurious, smart, and efficient. At the same time, we face limited natural resources, increased pressure on urban space, and climate change.
Transportation companies today not only need an engineer to design their vehicle but skilled design professionals who can understand the aesthetics of automobiles, technical designers, and consultants for deeper analysis of the automotive industry and more. Urban transport and mobility in the present age are more about comfort, technology, experience, swiftness, and all of this at an affordable price. There is also the concept of sustainable mobility and e-mobility that has got the interest of people which has, in turn, made manufacturers invest more in these new-age technologies.
What does the profession entail?
Transport design focuses on creating models for vehicles. While transport design is often focused within the automotive industry, it can also encompass the creation of aircraft, spacecraft or marine vessels. Within the field, an emphasis is placed on creating vehicles that are innovative and solve problems currently seen within the transportation industry. Other concepts involved in transport design include style, comfort, branding, safety and function.
Working in transport design, you might focus on improving the aerodynamics of a vehicle, designing a safer vehicle or creating a vehicle that gets better gas mileage. You could study topics related to automotive design, surface moulding, ergonomics, manufacturing and sustainable technology to aid you in the design process.
What are the career opportunities?
These are the top 5 roles Transportation Design Graduates can expect to start their career in.
1. Car accessory designer: If you are not into designing a transport prototype that is fine. You can always use your creative instincts in making a car look better aesthetically. Seat covers, shades, cushions, consoles, and the list goes on where you can use your skills in the final making of an automobile.
2. Automotive Exterior Designer & Interior Designer: Colour and finish play a very important role in transportation design. A colour and finish designer can make or break the image of a brand and the car model. The final look of a car is what appeals to a customer. The designer is required to research colour and material trends. The professional is responsible for carefully suggesting colours for the exterior as well as the interior of the cars that resonates with the brand image as well as appeases the audience at large.
3. Digital sculptor: Digital sculptors are similar to clay modellers, the only difference here being in the name itself, the designing happens digitally. The process uses mathematical data to produce 3D models digitally which further helps in the vehicle design and development.
4. Clay modelling and prototyping: With time automotive clay modelling has gained a lot of importance. Clay models help to visualize a particular concept and turn an idea into a tangible product. These prototypes are then further showcased to manufacturers for final decisions on production.
5. Heavy vehicle designer: While there is a need for designers for cars and bikes, there is also a great demand for designers for commercial and industrial vehicles like semi-trailers, freight trucks, passenger buses, vehicle carriers etc. Electric trucks, e-vehicles are gaining popularity and have opened up career avenues for professionals.
6. Virtual Reality Designer: Virtual reality car designers can significantly cut both project cost and time by visualizing the exterior of a vehicle virtually instead of creating a new physical mockup in 1:1 ratio each time they make some changes to a prototype. Furthermore, a design team can implement car exterior modification in real-time using virtual mock-ups.
Additional career paths
7. Airplane Designer
8. Watercraft Designer
9. UX Designer
10. Entrepreneurs
How to ensure a successful career?
There are various paths that transportation designers can take but what it all boils down to are your education and network. It is pivotal to study from institutes that have the latest infrastructure and tools to help you learn efficiently. Gone are the days when clay sculpting was the only way to design cars. 3D computer design using new-age programs like Nuke, Houdini, 3DS Max, Maya, etc. are highly powerful softwares used by all leading professionals and institutes alike.
Equally important is to have a network of mentors and working industry professionals who can introduce you or refer you to any job openings that you may be interested in. It is always best to enrol in colleges or institutions that have working professionals as their faculty as that way, you build your network from day 1 of school.
Lastly, let loose of your creative ability. Don’t stop at the bare minimum; work towards going beyond and exceeding expectations.
Check out our Transportation Design program that covers Emerging Materials, Composites, Aerodynamics, Fluid Dynamics, Automotive Engineering, Automotive Modeling, and more. Transportation design courses in Canada have become extremely common with the rapid growth in the automotive sector, but these subjects are why we vary from traditional transport design courses.