Creative Instore Solutions (CIS) continued the now annual event of showcasing the business of design to the next up and coming industrial designers by
today hosting over 30 Year 11 students from Knox Grammar School. Providing a tour of the Sydney Head Office facilities and showing the students the
business side of industrial design, including everything from concept creation to financial management. This years’ tour, which continued annual
tradition can serve to guide students interested in laying the foundation for a future in the design industry.
On entering the facility the participants from Knox are always met by Managing Director and company founder, Steve Howell, whose energy and enthusiasm
for the next “cool idea” and mastery of CIS history gets the students quickly engaged. Once the introduction is over students are split into
rotating groups of educational briefings on all business facets including Finance, Operations, Creative and Production Design.
The boys also embark on a tour of the head office facility which showcases the latest CIS designed and manufactured units to hit the market to ensure an
end to end understanding of the CIS motto “ideation to creation”.
The annual event has formed a key part of the CIS calendar for eight years and helps the students understand the true impact of good design, allowing those
interested in pursuing a career in the industry a rounded understanding to supplement their in school learning.
The students, who at the conclusion of the visit are always tasked with a live client brief as part of their overall assessment get to see the design team
in action, brainstorming, sketching and rendering concepts for live client briefs. This process enables the students to truly grasp the creative
driven ethos that is CIS and take this into the assessment approach.
The CIS employees from all departments look forward to the students visit from the onsite interaction to the submission of the final assessments and photography
of the prototypes weeks later.
“Showcasing commercial design and its impact in the real world, is as always, a fantastic initiative by CIS to help students gain a more comprehensive
design experience. The boys look forward to this each year on the Knox calendar, helping them onto their next design challenge and eventually
into a HSC major work. Business success is more than just a cool idea, and it is the well-rounded overview provided by CIS that helps our students
design their future “said Andrew Grattan, Head of Design and Technology, Knox Grammar School, Sydney.