Company Visit at Guilford Mills (Japan)

It has been a VERY busy week of classes and outside of class work.  While in Japan, I am still trying to keep up with some of my grad school responsibilities.  This includes working on a research paper and presentation for the Textile Futures International Conference when I return in August.  It was an honor to have my abstract selected (my topic is the seat design for The Splinter all wooden supercar concept...see the Link to the right), but now it has been time to really get through the writing process since the paper is due June 30.  So this is where much of my "free time" has been going this week.  Tonight I made significant progress and feel like I'll be able to make the deadline.  

On Monday, Yuri and Seigi took a group of us to Nagoya Station so I could figure out my Railpass.  It doesn't seem too difficult, but I certainly couldn't have figure it out without their help!  We then went to dinner where we had a private room on the top floor since our group was so large, and the to Tokyo Hands.  This is a store in Nagoya Station that takes up about 5 floors with every thing imaginable...lots of cheap, fun, and useless knick-knacks!  

On Tuesday, I finally got to meet up with Kerry at her work!  (Trying to meet her Friday was a disaster since our seminar ran over by 30 minutes!)  Her office is very cute, clean, and large for only 3 people.  Kerry told me the good, bad, and ugly (mostly good!) about her job as an automotive textile designer.  I got to see several of her trendboards which she presented to Honda (her main account) and also got to ask her many questions about process.  She also showed me NedGraphics which seems to be the primary CAD system used in most automotive design companies.  I met Kerry's co-workers, including Takada-san, the VP of Sales and Marketing for Guilford Mills.  He was very nice and showed me Nancy's business card from working with Guilford before her teaching days.

 

I'm surprise I got this post in tonight...its been a late night of more paper writing...but now its time to pack for a weekend in Tokyo!!