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Derek Jenkins
Auto designer
Q: What was your big breakthrough?
A: In school, there was an opportunity to get a scholarship. Porsche came to the school, and I worked really hard to prepare a portfolio, and I got that scholarship. Porsche paid for my whole education. Then I interned there. Besides getting into college, that was kind of like the winning the lottery.
Q: What was your biggest failure?
A: Probably early on, just being a little too arrogant and being too design focused as a younger designer – not respecting the multidisciplinary aspect of this business.
Q: What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a designer?
A: I would say working with the creative people. I really worked with a range of very talented people, both inside design and out – engineers, marketing, PR.
Q: What is your biggest goal or dream for the future?
A: Just to be able to do this for a long time. As you get older, it’s challenging to stay really relevant as a designer. And that’s something that most talented designers strive for: to maintain relevance as they get older. That would be a big goal for me – to stay competitive.
Q: Who are what inspires your designs?
A: I concentrate a lot on what’s going on, how people customize their cars, kind of the subculture to the automotive mainstream. For me, it’s really inspiring to see what people do with their motorcycles. To see someone with a Ducati and they customize the whole motorcycle their own way. They’re not even designers or anything, they just do it. I would compare it to fashion. The roots of fashion are usually some urban root. It’s normally just normal people, progressive, normal people, expressing themselves and really influencing the broader masses. And I see it the same way with transportation design.
Q: What one piece of advice would you offer aspiring auto designers?
A: Understand the multidisciplinary aspect of this business. It’s more than making a great drawing or great design model. There are so many other considerations to be implemented to be successful as a designer and to be successful for the corporation. For so many designers, it’s just for a singular purpose: It’s about them creating a car, or creating one design. So much more has to be considered to have a broader impact.
Photo by Carla Rhea
Derek Jenkins | Barclay Butera | Mariana Stoopen
Matt Tubergen | Jane Elia Schwartz | Marc Entin
Kelli Ellis | Dan Parks | Oday Shakar | Lin Shen
Derek JenkinsAuto designer
Q: What was your big breakthrough?
A: In school, there was an opportunity to get a scholarship. Porsche came to the school, and I worked really hard to prepare a portfolio, and I got that scholarship. Porsche paid for my whole education. Then I interned there. Besides getting into college, that was kind of like the winning the lottery.
Q: What was your biggest failure?
A: Probably early on, just being a little too arrogant and being too design focused as a younger designer – not respecting the multidisciplinary aspect of this business.
Q: What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a designer?
A: I would say working with the creative people. I really worked with a range of very talented people, both inside design and out – engineers, marketing, PR.
Q: What is your biggest goal or dream for the future?
A: Just to be able to do this for a long time. As you get older, it’s challenging to stay really relevant as a designer. And that’s something that most talented designers strive for: to maintain relevance as they get older. That would be a big goal for me – to stay competitive.
Q: Who are what inspires your designs?
A: I concentrate a lot on what’s going on, how people customize their cars, kind of the subculture to the automotive mainstream. For me, it’s really inspiring to see what people do with their motorcycles. To see someone with a Ducati and they customize the whole motorcycle their own way. They’re not even designers or anything, they just do it. I would compare it to fashion. The roots of fashion are usually some urban root. It’s normally just normal people, progressive, normal people, expressing themselves and really influencing the broader masses. And I see it the same way with transportation design.
Q: What one piece of advice would you offer aspiring auto designers?
A: Understand the multidisciplinary aspect of this business. It’s more than making a great drawing or great design model. There are so many other considerations to be implemented to be successful as a designer and to be successful for the corporation. For so many designers, it’s just for a singular purpose: It’s about them creating a car, or creating one design. So much more has to be considered to have a broader impact.
Photo by Carla Rhea
Derek Jenkins | Barclay Butera | Mariana Stoopen
Matt Tubergen | Jane Elia Schwartz | Marc Entin
Kelli Ellis | Dan Parks | Oday Shakar | Lin Shen
Matt Tubergen | Jane Elia Schwartz | Marc Entin
Kelli Ellis | Dan Parks | Oday Shakar | Lin Shen
