Hardware Graphic Design

I was part of the graphic design team within the industrial design group at BlackBerry from 2008-2013. While there, I designed graphics for over 600 individual parts and components. Any physical item BlackBerry produced that was printed, screened, laser etched or otherwise adorned went across my desk. I started as a co-op and ended as the lead graphic designer on dozens of hardware devices, and regularly designed parts produced in the millions. Parts ranged from the complex design of keyboards, branding, and colours or patterns on devices; to labels on boxes, batteries, manuals, packaging; to the simple logo placement on a carrying case. Sometimes they were critical parts, like the keyboards that made BlackBerry famous, and every letter and punctuation got hours of attention. Sometimes they were unappreciated parts, like the hole pattern on a speakerphone accessory, the little icon that goes on a sim card slot, or the peel-off label telling you which way to insert a battery.

A non-exhaustive list of products that I was the lead graphic designer on, or contributed to, include:  BlackBerry Bold 9000, BlackBerry Pearl 8100, BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220, BlackBerry Curve 8500, BlackBerry Curve 8900, BlackBerry Curve 9200, BlackBerry Curve 9300, BlackBerry Torch, BlackBerry Bold 9700, BlackBerry Bold 9900, BlackBerry Porsche Design 9900, BlackBerry Pearl 9100, BlackBerry Z10, and my favourite, the BlackBerry Passport. Typical design elements on each device I was responsible for included the keypad graphic design (including multilingual support), branding, carrier logos, internal labelling, battery labelling, navigation menu, and any device patterns or colour choices related to the graphics.