About Colin.Colin is a graduate of GMIT Letterfrack having achieved a first class honors degree in Furniture Design and Manufacture. Colin has developed CAD, design, production and management skills from the renowned national center of excellence in Letterfrack. Colin enjoys exploring a multitude of different woodworking techniques and investigating new and innovative working methods with particular interest in the relationship between job satisfaction and mass production and creating ways for these to increase and develop together by analyzing data and stepping into the shoes of the worker carrying out each individual task. Colin also has a keen interest in software and its role in design, manufacture, organisation and co-ordination of projects and business, this ties into Colin's Major Project in GMIT Letterfrack where he evaluated project management software packages for the furniture and wood products industry and for GMIT Letterfrack. Colin now works in Lowden Guitars helping craft some of the best made Guitars in the world, some of which are played by the likes of Ed Sheeran, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Brady and many more.
"Being a Graduate of Furniture Design and Manufacture from GMIT Letterfrack, I have been guided along a path of finding who I am as a designer. Though I cannot say that I have achieved that completely, I have found my philosophy that I design by. I believe that as a designer you must be able to connect with the piece you are designing on a more intimate level than just your profession. Allowing past and present experiences in your life influence your design makes it more personal. It's this personal connection that brings out the best work, the best creativity and the best results. This connection results in the designer caring about the piece, loving the piece and wanting it to succeed as it represents more than the work of the designer, it represents who the designer is, his or her life and their passions and experiences. My passion reaches beyond design and lies also firmly in software. When the correct software is utilized properly it can have fantastic outcomes in our industry, just like every other industry. I have a keen interest in the use of data to constantly improve processes, production, design and quality. Data collected correctly and accurately within a business can, in my opinion pave a strong path for that business . Some day it would be fantastic to see an open platform for our industry where data can be uploaded and downloaded freely. The mind set of keeping everything in our businesses a secret has become hazardously strong and restricts the learning and development of our businesses. If we all are willing to share our data and information (to a certain degree) then we can all learn off each other and improve together as one, but if we keep everything to ourselves then the learning is restricted and the space for improvement is static. The phrase "sharing is caring" has never been so true, but in this instance your not just caring for other businesses, your caring for the industry as a whole and most importantly, your caring for the development of your own business." |