Nicole Kujawa, Furniture Design Portfolio

Nicole Kujawa nicolekujawa.design@gmail.com 517.599.3329 1941 W. Evergreen Ave 3F Chicago, IL 60622

A compassionate designer committed to problem solving, designing and developing sustainable products. Employment Upholstery, Furniture Designer Interior Define October 2021 – November 2022 ● Research current trends in the home and lifestyle market. ● Immersive competitive and aspirational research to develop design briefs. ● Create new concepts for upholstered products in the occasional, dining, and bedroom categories. ● Taking concepts through sketching, modeling and rendering to create compelling visuals to present cross functionally . ● Value engineering. ● Product development through rounds of edits and direct communication with factories. ● Worked remotely. Furniture Designer Sauder Woodworking July 2017 – October 2021 ● Ideating and developing product within restraints of cost and material capabilities. (RTA & KD) ● Developed residential and commercial grade products. ● Leading projects from conceptualization to commercialization. ● Researching the market and industry trends, translating learnings into concepts. ● Travel to global design shows to create trend reports to help generate product briefs. ● Travel to Asia to review products, and make design edits on location. ● Proactively designing with focus on innovation and the future consumer. ● Help create and maintain internal processes to have concepts and proactive work built full scale. ● Help build and maintain sample libraries for department use and reference. Intern, Furniture Designer Redhead Furniture November 2015 – November 2016 ● Designed for collections of occasional tables and accent pieces. ● Produced renderings of product or detailed components for presentations. ● Worked remotely. Intern, Furniture Design Kindel Furniture, Grand Rapids June 2015 - August 2015 ● Altered existing product in CAD and sketches for custom orders ● Organized material library ● Detailed existing archival pieces focused on digital recreation of carved ornamentation. Work Study Kendall College of Art & Design, Grand Rapids September 2012 - December 2015 ● Helped maintain, organize, and document KCAD’s historical furniture collection. ● Maintained digital portfolios of all student work. ● Assisted teachers with classroom prep and furniture related events. Education Kendall College of Art & Design, Grand Rapids, MI Furniture Design, BFA- Diploma - May 2017 ● Received Celia Moh Full-ride Scholarship for Furniture Design students 2016 - 2017 Skills ● Digital sketching. Autodesk Sketchbook as my preferred application. ● CAD, Rhino, Keyshot, Photoshop, Sketchup, MIRO. ● Google Drive/Docs, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Asana, Clarizen, Trello. ● Strong communication among domestic and import product development teams. ● Building work relationships through trust, vulnerability, and humor. ● Presenting and sharing new ideas in a physical and remote setting. ● Create an environment that encourages collaboration. ● Product/collection development and management. ● Time management in a fast-paced environment. ● Drawing perspective, elevation, and detailed views, and rapid ideation.