: Engineer looking to enter design field First of all I appreciate your answers. I have finished my Msc in mechanical engineering, but now I realize that engineering is not for me. I was very

@Gail6891361

This question seems to imply engineers are not designers. Some are, see in mechanical engineering there are no Architects but instead mechanical engineers handle that themselves.

Thus the lead mechanical engineer who draws up the instructions for the general concept is a designer. And in fact it says on my diploma that I am a machine designer. It is just that what machine designers produce 3D objects that are milled, cast, bent, welded structures etc. And that is essentially no different form doing a graphic designers work*. Instead of illustrator i use a 3D CAD geared towards my specific needs.

Sure there are a lot of engineering niches that are not design per see, analyst, measurement and tuning. But even graphic designers are slowly being forced to this direction and industrial designers are almost exactly like mechanical engineers, with just a different focus.

SO in the end its more about what job you can land than what paper you have. There are a lot of jobs that fall in between the cracks. Like say a technical illustrator, which requires some illustration skill, but that can easily be offset by having a skill in the cad side of things.

* I work with graphic designers and sound, new media and animation artists so i know what it is they do. I do essentially the same things except i am not allowed to do so many failures and experiments due to the costs involved.

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@Cody3331749

Education is very opinionated and it really all comes down to your skill-level, future desires in a career and if you see it still being around in 5-10 years. These are the things you need to narrow down first before making this switch.



That being said here's a small HIGHLY OPINIONATED break-down to help you make some choices.


Do you like math but want design in it too?


3D Modeler
3D Animator
Industrial Designer



These are some paths which require the use of math, coding and the engineering side of your brain to succeed.


Do you still like parts of math or doing it at all?


Web Designer
App Developer



These are good options if you want to do some coding or math still but move more towards design aspects over math.


Do you hate math so much you never want to see it again?


Illustrator
Graphic Designer
Concept Artist
Production Artist



Pretty much anything that just has you doing art and art alone.



Final Considerations:

You should try out some basic tutorials for each of the ones mentioned above or any that you find. That way you can get a small snippet of how things will play out for each.

Other things to consider are the changing marketplace and automation. Things are becoming more automated and requiring things like analytics and consumer data. Having good math skills can be beneficial to finding a good position in a company that does marketing and other highly data driven tasks.

There will always be a need for designers but our roles are constantly shifting and evolving to encompass new tasks and new requirements for our fields.

Find something you enjoy doing but is also relevant to how the market is currently and where it's heading.

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