Eric Tormanen
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About
During my time at Auburn University, I was involved in a sponsored studio abroad in Ireland, a sponsored studio with Pratt Industries, a pediatric prosthetic studio with Amputee Blade Runners, a PlayCore studio, and a senior project in medical design.
Outside of school, I was involved in 2 remote internships with Shatter Box Concepts and LimeLight Design Studios.
I have since graduated and worked full-time as an Industrial Design Engineer at Bay Area Innovations for a year and a half. In this role I challenged myself daily through being a critical product designer, problem solving, CAD modeling, digital sketch ideation, client communication, and presentation development/delivery.
Since leaving this position I continued my career in the design adjacent field of Design Patent Examination. I am currently employed at the USPTO in a Medically focused art area. Working at the patent office has deepened my understanding of the full design process and I thoroughly enjoy seeing cutting edge designs daily and informing my own design thinking with the inspired products.
I believe great design ought always satisfy need/problem for people through thoughtful, considerate, and simple solutions. I cherish the collaborative, human-centered light bulb moments in design.
"Design should not dominate things, should not dominate people. It should help people. That's its role." -Dieter Rams -
Education
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Industrial Design Industrial DesignAuburn University2018 - 2022This is a professional program meaning that upon graduation in May, I will be fully equipped with the skills needed for an entry level industrial design position.
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Experience
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Design Patent ExaminerSep 2023 - Present (2 years 10 months)Design Patent Examination focused in the medical art area. In this role I get the opportunity to review and critique patent examinations from a wide variety of Design Patent applicants. I work with Patent Attorney's and applicants daily to hone design patents as well as reject/reform any design applications with issues.
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Industrial DesignerTampa, FLMay 2022 - Aug 2023 (1 year 3 months)At Bay Area Innovations, we are a design consultancy that strives to understand our clients while taking them through our proven design process.
In this role I was challenged daily in the product design process through managing client relations/communication, generating new ideas for products, critical problem solving, mechanically working through product function, applying use cases to projects, digitally sketching out conceptual renders, designing conceptual CAD rendering in Solidworks, and generally managing anywhere from 5-10 projects at a time.
This position required a lot of creative and analytical energy, as a designer at BAI, I was truly challenged and have grown in a deeper understanding of form vs. function. I was constantly challenged and learning to think through the mechanical intricacies of a product that started out conceptual. -
Senior Industrial Design InternGreenville, SCDec 2020 - May 2022 (1 year 5 months)As a Shatter-box Intern I handle a multitude of tasks including R&D, concept sketching, SOLIDWORKS modeling, general product design, logo design, and Visual Brand Language development. I am constantly learning to better manage many different projects at a time while communicating and collaborating through Slack, and meeting hard deadlines on time consistently.
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Industrial Design InternLimelight Design StudiosAuburn, ALDec 2021 - May 2022 (5 months)In this role I implement design methods to develop injection molded dog toys for mass production. Used CAD to create new toys, working with engineers and product experts to create unique lines containing multiple toys.
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New Member ManagementAuburn, ALSep 2020 - Dec 2021 (1 year 3 months)In this position I was responsible for managing 10-25 potential new members (PNM's) per semester. This involved organizing and running Professional Development Workshops, assigning and following up on assignments/deadlines, discernment of PNM's skills/knowledge/personality for permission into AKPsi, while also being the main point of contact for all PNM's. My main takeaway from this experience was importance of discernment through management as a means of deciding for/against candidates.
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Student Outdoor Equipment DesignerAuburn, ALAug 2021 - Dec 2021 (4 months)Designing inclusive play equipment for manufacturing, I was challenged greatly in my SOLIDWORKS modeling and KeyShot rendering skills. I lead team R&D followed by rigorous rounds of solo concept sketching/model building/design presentations. I had multiple presentations weekly and met with the CFO of PlayCore regularly. This kept my designs in check and PlayCore is currently continuing on with my designs in hopes of mass production.
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Student Prosthetic DesignerAuburn, ALJan 2021 - Apr 2021 (3 months)Worked directly with clients to design a cost effective, user-centric pediatric prosthetic. Involved research and working directly with the users to design for their needs. Went through rigorous hand sketching phases followed by SOLIDWORKS models and rapid prototyping to refine designs for the users needs.
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Student Packaging DesignerAuburn, ALSep 2020 - Dec 2020 (3 months)In this packaging design role, I was challenged to design To-Go Food packaging during pandemic times. I immediately took to finding/designing for a gap in the market. My ideas and concepts focused on "Higher End To-Go Food Packaging" and this idea became the focus for my whole studio after Pratt’s design leader found the idea of higher end designs to be favorable for the current market. The project shifted towards my design focus and this project saw 3 of my designs go through the entire prototyping, testing, and final model production process. Overall in this studio I improved skills in Fusion 360, designing Die Cuts, designing exact layouts for laser cut models, conducting effective research, production model building, and designing market relevant packaging.
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Student Furniture DesignerBallyvaughan, IrelandMar 2020 - Apr 2020 (1 month)A collaborative studio that was challenging in many ways from time management to communication to determining group strengths and assigning roles to team members. It involved a full design process for a periodical display which can be seen in my website portfolio. I helped lead the group through fulfilling the Clientele's needs by understanding the aesthetic requirements as well as fabricating as a team.
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Awards
Studio Merit Award (Pratt industries packaging design studio): "For demonstrated consistency and quality of effort put forward over the course of the entire semester". This award is given to one student per semester (per studio of 15-17 students) for displayed excellence and perseverance throughout the semester.
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Affiliations
Auburn University
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Elsewhere on the Web
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On Coroflot@Erictorm, member since 2021
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