Welcome back to Shop Talk, a podcast by Autodesk Fusion where we hang out with designers and makers live from their workshop. We’re excited to give our listeners candid conversations with talented folks who pour their hearts and soul into their craft. In this episode, Jonathon Odom heads to Portland to visit world-class Michael DiTullo in his studio!

Michael DiTullo, a renowned industrial designer, has a unique approach to design and prototyping. He shows us a range of past and current projects, from Nike sneakers to acoustic speakers with Carnegie. With his penchant for physical prototyping over digital tools and emphasis on sustainable design, DiTullo gives young designers loads of valuable insight into the design process. We were so excited to have him as our latest Shop Talk guest.

Here’s a short excerpt from the episode.

Before we get into Fusion, let’s talk about [your] drawings. It’s such a critical part of a design process, and I don’t think it’ll ever go away.

I agree. I think it’s unfortunate when you can see a design tool limit an idea. And I feel myself that happens to me. If I jump into a tool too quickly, I find myself being like, “I’ll just put this fillet on there, because it’d be easy.” And you don’t mean to do it, but you do. You can’t help it because our brains are built for efficiency.

I want to be able to draw anything because I want to design anything. I find that this is still a big part of my process. The few times that I took shortcuts has never gone well. When I was working on that grill for Icon, I was doing everything purely in Illustrator and 2D CAD. I didn’t go straight into the machine for this project. And when my client saw it he said he didn’t like it. We went through 30 iterations, and I remember one day, I got a pencil and paper, sketched out three things, took a photo, and sent it in. I thought, “if it isn’t one of these three [designs], I give up.” When he saw it, he said I crushed it! All I could think was, “Why did I second-guess my own process?”

I think something else that happens there is the perception of sketches versus renderings. Most people understand that hand-drawn sketches are a part of the decision making process. But when you show a client a draft concept made within a computer, they think you’re showing them the finished product. It’s easier to project your vision onto a sketch than a more polished-looking CAD rendering.

I always say a CAD file or rendering is a statement, yeah, sketches, a conversation. Because what you and I see are different. Then we talk through our thought processes which is really beautiful. You also think with your hands, whether it’s making a physical prototype or a drawing by hand. I’m drawing on my iPad a lot as well, but it’s funny. I have the idea and it’s done in my head, but I’m seeing different things as you put it on paper. And then I get 10 more ideas. I’ll grab a new piece of paper and put the thought down. It’s so iterative and quick versus CAD, which is a bit of a slower process and focuses more on implementation.

What made you choose Fusion?

As someone who is using solid modeling, surface modeling, and more form tools, [Fusion] has all that stuff in one spot. I don’t have to switch between tools and break my flow.

I also love that to the collaborative nature of Fusion. I’m making shared workspaces with both my clients and contractors. The CAD contractors I work with are in Seattle, so it’s nice to get notified when they save a file I’m working on. I can work on it while I’m traveling too.

I know I’m a bit of a unique case, but I love the rendering tool. It’s just like going back and forth between digital and physical. I’m always going back and forth between the the modeling space and then doing a couple of quick renders. I can see, “How does that work out? Let me try some different materials.” Like I said, I don’t like switching tools. So those are three reasons: having rendering as part of the program, being a fusion of different modeling techniques, and the cloud-based collaborative nature. That’s why I stick with Fusion.

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