Listen Up - USU Students Design Product Prototypes for Skull Candy

Every graphic design student anticipates doing research and designing products upon entering college. But turning around and pitching those ideas to a panel of executives at a Fortune 500 company? Few students expect that when signing up for classes.

A group of Utah State University graphic design students who recently designed a product line for Skull Candy Inc., an internationally recognized company based in Park City, Utah, that specializes in headphones, did. The design opportunity presented itself when Jeremiah Murray, senior designer at Skull Candy and USU alum, approached a class of 20 USU students about developing prototypes for the company, said Robert Winward, the students’ graphic design professor at USU.

 

Each student designed a prototype of the new TI headphones, and then carried the design through onto a wallet, belt and hat. After creating the prototypes, all the students were able to present their design to the company’s president, creative director and senior designers in hopes they’d be chosen for the 2010 through 2011 product line.

 

“Work with a high-profile corporation is an amazing resumé entry,” Winward said. “It tells a future employer that a student has solved an ambitious and rigorous 'real' problem — not to mention the 'cool' factor of working with a design-focused company like Skull Candy.”

 

Kellyn Bailey, a student involved in the project, said that more often than not, her classes revolve around fictional clients and two dimensional products. However, the Skull Candy project allowed her the opportunity to design a product for a real client and then pitch the idea to the company’s big-wigs, an experience she said most graphic design students cannot say they’ve had.

 

“This project will be something different in my portfolio that other people don’t have,” Bailey said. “The hands-on experience makes me more versatile and gives me an edge when I graduate and begin applying for jobs.”

 

Each student created a design to match a target market that Skull Candy wants to reach. After choosing their target market, students were given roughly two weeks to research what the individuals in their market might want in a design. Then, for the next six weeks, they put their ideas to paper and created a final prototype to take to Skull Candy headquarters.

 

Jonathan Griffiths said the opportunity to work directly with Skull Candy was an incredible learning experience. He and his classmates were presented with a real problem — creating a design that would meet the needs of the younger generation — and had to find a way around that problem. These are experiences he had not expected to have as a student at USU.

 

“Designing a product that could potentially be in the hands of thousands of people across the world is an aspect most students do not get from their classes,” Griffiths said. “We had the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the best in the business and get our foot in the door of a very competitive industry.”

 

Griffiths said another interesting aspect of the project was the ability to create what they wanted in a product. Each student chose a design that met their target market’s needs, but also the needs of their own personal taste.

 

“This was different because I can’t do this with other products; I can’t get on Apple’s Web site and say, ‘I wish Apple had this,’ and design their products the way I want,” Griffiths said.

 

This is not the first time USU graphic design students left their mark on the real-world. In years past USU students have designed prototype watches for Swatch, new knife designs for Victorinox and prototype Olympic torch designs for the International Olympic Committee, Winward said.

 

And the experience won’t stop there. This summer 35 USU students will trek through medieval neighborhoods in Swiss cities to photographically document antique and medieval shop signs, Winward said. A senior honors graphic design student will then use the photos to lay out a coffee table style book that will be printed and sold on Amazon.

 

Donny Merrill, fellow graphic design student with the Skull Candy project, said it’s these experiences that put USU light years ahead of other universities. Most other schools focus the majority of their time on technical skills, but it’s these real-world experiences that are abundant at USU that make it so unique.

 

“I have a lot of friends who are doing graphic design at other universities, and they can never believe the projects we get to do here at Utah State,” Merrill said. “They say we are light years ahead of what they’re doing.”

 

But the graphic design program at Utah State is more than an abundance of opportunities. The program is excellent because of quality professors who desire to see their students succeed after graduation, said Jen Ewell, a graphic design student who participated in the Skull Candy project and will be involved the upcoming Switzerland trip.

 

“I think we have an excellent program, but it’s because of the teachers we have,” Ewell said. “Graphic design is a different line of work; you can’t just go get a master’s degree without working in the field first. All our professors have worked in the field and know what it’s like, so when they go back to school and get their master’s and become a teacher, they are coming from real-world experience.”

 

Skull Candy’s Murray, said he couldn’t believe the talent that emerged during this project. All 20 students brought original and exciting ideas to the table and opened the eyes of the Skull Candy executives, he said.

 

“We were extremely impressed by the creativeness of all the students and designs,” Murray said. “Based on this experience, I think we’re going to do additional projects with USU.”

 

While this project will be beneficial to the students, Murray said it also helped Skull Candy because it was able to see what a college-age group looks for in a product.

 

Contact: Robert Winward (435) 797-1394, bob.winward@usu.edu
Writer: Greg Boyles (801) 814-1591