ALLAN MACDONALD

ALLAN MACDONALD

University life was a lot of hard work, but fun. It was however frustrating seeing how talented some of the other students were, and knowing that my skills were not up to their level. This however I also learned is one of the great assets of studying. These frustrations really pushed me to practice, and very quickly my skills started to grow. Meeting new people was also a fantastic opportunity offered by going to study. Today I have friends working in design studios all around the world, many of whom I met in my four years at Coventry.

One of the best opportunities offered by studying at Coventry was the longstanding agreements with many design studios to take students on placements. I was lucky enough to be accepted to spend six months working in the VW Design studio in Wolfsburg. I believe that in this six months I learned more than I had in the previous two years at Coventry. That's not to say that I learned nothing at school, its just that you cannot compare it to how much you will learn on the job.

After finishing my studies at Coventry I was offered a job immediately by ARUP Design Research. I started working at their design centre the day after the degree show finished. With hindsight this was probably a bad idea and I would advise anybody finding themselves in the same situation to make sure you take a bit of a vacation before starting your new job. The job at the consultancy however proved both interesting and challenging. Consultancy work involves many different disciplines and the work is extremely fast paced. I learned a lot in this time, and it was at Design Research that I first learned Photoshop. I stayed with the consultancy for about nine months before moving to Rover.

I started at Rover in their post BMW days, and the team was therefore a small one. Whilst here I was able to participate in the designing of the 2002 Geneva show car, the TCV. Unfortunately my design was not selected for the final vehicle, I was however asked to design the wheels which eventually went to Geneva on the car. I enjoyed about a year at Rover before deciding that I needed a fresh challenge, and perhaps take the opportunity to live and work abroad. One of my passions besides cars has always been trucks (my father is a truck driver), and for this reason I decided to look into becoming a truck designer.