I have a friend who is an industrial designer...and damn he works more hours than I do....and I work alot of fricking hours. However
last week i ran into him and he was telling me he bought the Mrs one of the screaming read Audi's like $65,000.00 worth of car. I said to myself...shit I paid $88,000.00 for my old stone house and an Audi isn't in the picture real soon.

Go work for IDEO. Supposedly they have lots of fun and make mucho dinero doing it.

thats the 3rd time someone mentioned ideo to me....hmmm

They kick a lot of ass, but on the other hand they probably get 200 applications a day. So life isn't really as simple as, "Go work for IDEO."

The stuff I liked best in your portfolio was the design/build furnishing/ fit-out pieces. So maybe you're feeling conflicted because you want to inhabit this space between architecture and ID, and its hard to tell how large that space is?

ahhh....... interesting

when I get back from Nova Scotia we should talk, as I've been asking the same questions myself... weird.

I've said this once and I'll say it again: exhibit design.

The work will be at the human scale, deal with spatiality, and it won't have to meet any building codes. Companies pay really stupid amounts for exhibit design. Plus, it could lead you anywhere. Let's say that you end up designing an exhibit for an industrial design company - if somebody notices your work, you could just end up with a job, or side jobs.

If you want to make it in ID, you don't need any more classes. They may help, but that depends on what exactly you want to do. Your craft is good enough to get a job at a decent ID firm right now.

Shit. My dad used to make furniture (mostly steel, concrete, tiles, etc) and he never took an art course, design course, business course nor a day of college in his life. If he can do it, so can you.

The only way to find out is to try. Sitting on your hands and stewing about it won't get you anywhere.

And if you really need to know, then yes, IDers typically make much better money than architects.

i did talk to a few exhibit houses.... i was doing engineering for one of them a few years back...... i would just have to work on my form-z skillz..... seems like that's what you have to know to be a designer.....

seems like i'm been throwing a bouncy ball in a small room and it keeps hitting me in the head....... life goes on....

tooo many ideas

i'm currently getting rid of alot of my extra b.s. stuff just in case i decide to make a big move.....

it's on of those things where you think you might be doing things right.... but not really sure where it's going....but you just keep doing it..... then you look back and try to figure it out.....only to ask yourself..... why?

i'm in a similar situation, but the other way around. i got my bachelors in product design and now i'm getting my masters in architecture. ideally, i'd like to be able to do both in the future....working for a multi-disciplinary firm like ideo, design continuum, etc. would be a dream.

kal,
you have a list of other firms you can post...... i'm trying to put a list together

i know of some exhibit houses
exhibit works
exhibit enterprises
george p johnson
h.b. stubbs

I found 243 exhibit design companies in the US.

http://www.designdirectory.com/

i went through that...... most of the links i clicked on were old and gone.... i'll search it again...... i did notice that the larger exhibit houses werent on there either....hmmm

you are right, it's hit and miss. But there are still hits worth checking out. Wasn't sure if you'd seen that or not.

you should go work for salma hayek's brother, sami.

www.samihayek.com

He does everything. Plus, you might get to meet her, too. It's worth the move to LA ;)