At Design Truth, we are built for opportunity.
Design Truth is collaborating with Mira Showers as they look for their next 12-month industrial design intern, starting September 2026.
Mira is part of the Kohler Co family. A global company working in 52 countries and with 40.000 employees.
The industrial design team has been around for over 55 years and has been awarded 40+ International design awards for their work in redefining showering.
Through an online competition, we are offering a 12-month paid internship with Mira Showers, multiple cash prizes and the platform to share your work with the wider design community.
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Alba Bayona
Associate Director of Design Studio UK @ Mira Showers
“Mira has been a pioneering brand for over 100 years. We want to see how our entries extract the brand essence of Mira & embed those values into a beautiful design.”
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Martino Passalacqua
Senior Industrial Designer @ Mira Showers
“Start by understanding the market. It is really important to understand the consumer’s needs & how you can address them with your design.”
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Elise Parker
(previous) Industrial Design Intern @ Mira Showers
“You should definitely apply and go for it! I have learned so much - take in as much information as you can & soak up as much experience as you can because it is incredibly valuable.”
THE BRIEF.
Mira is looking for entries from the next generation of designers to rethink one of the most timeless and familiar household tools: the watering can.
Your task is to redesign a watering can. Consider how design can improve functionality, ergonomics, sustainability, and emotional connection in a simple everyday object.
User needs: Who is the watering can for — a home gardener, a city dweller with plants on a balcony, or a professional horticulturist?
Functionality and usability: How can design make the act of watering more efficient, precise, or enjoyable? How can you include inclusivity within the design? How can the design facilitate transportation and storage?
Sustainability: Explore eco-friendly materials, manufacturing methods, or repairable designs.
Aesthetics and brand alignment: Reflect Kohler Mira’s commitment to craft, innovation, and thoughtful design. The final result shouldn’t be just a styling exercise, rather respond to tangible user needs and take manufacturability into account.
Mira would like you to design a physical product, that:
- Is not just a styling exercise but responds to tangible user needs.
- Considers manufacturability.
- Takes sustainability into account.
- Reflects the Mira’s brand visual design language.
The concepts will be judged by the Mira Showers Design Team. The criteria used will be: creativity, originality, output quality, differentiation, problem-solving, design sensibility, sustainability, manufacturability and brand awareness.
The ID team will award extra points to the concepts that reflect the most Mira’s Design DNA.
For further insight, answers to frequently asked questions can be found below.
Alternatively you can contact hello@designtruth.co.uk for any questions.
FAQs
Am I eligible for the Mira Showers design internship?
This year, the job is open to all second-year students enrolled with a UK-based university (BSc/BA Industrial Design, Product Design or equivalent) who are looking for their 12-month design placement.
The internship will commence September 2026 and will end in September 2027.
The salary for the internship is £23,500 gross. The internship will be a combination of in-office and hybrid working.
You will work on real live projects on a range of categories across our three brands Mira Showers, Rada and Kohler UK. This will provide the opportunity to understand the product design and development process, and how these build into the wider multi-functional product development process.
What is the timeline?
Launch date: Monday 17th November 2025
Submission deadline: Monday 12th January 2026
Shortlisting: January 2026
Winner announcement: March 2026
This process is to be managed by the design team at Kohler Mira directly and not Design Truth.
How do I apply to the competition? (Submission Deliverables)
If you are interested, please submit your CV, Portfolio and project design submission. Limit each file to 5MB max. There is a button at multiple parts of this landing page which provides a direct link for submission.
Students that do not submit an entry to the brief will not be considered for this position.
Start by thinking about the following: What is already out there in the market? How are watering cans manufactured? What works and what doesn’t in terms of usability? What are the materials used? Is there any extra/new functionality that could be integrated? How does the user interact with the product, and what are the key needs and opportunities? Is there any problem you could solve?
We would like you to design a physical product, that:
- Is not just a styling exercise but responds to tangible user needs.
- Considers manufacturability.
- Takes sustainability into account.
- Reflects the Mira’s brand visual design language.
What do I need to submit? (A3 landscape format)
1. Opportunity board: describe your idea, background and insights. Give us an idea of the problem you want to solve and how you want to tackle the brief. This can be done via storyboarding, sketching, and photos. What’s the problem you want to solve? How does this answer the brief? How is this different from existing products on the market?
2. Ideation board: show us your design process and how you got to the final design. On this board, we are very interested to see your design-thinking process and how you can come up with a concept proposal and create iterations. This can be communicated via sketches (digital or non), and sketch models. What we are interested in seeing here is how you got to the final design and why.
3. Hero board: This is the board that is selling your product idea. Show us the best views of your products, show how the user interacts with it, how the concept lives in the environment it is designed for and so on. This can be done via CAD renderings, photorealistic sketches or a mix of the two.
What prizes are on offer?
- 1st place: 12 months paid internship at Mira Showers. Your work will be featured on both Design Truth’s & Mira’s socials, as well as a free ticket to a Design Truth event.
- 2nd place: 1 Year Visune Lite Annual Subscription (worth £270) + £500 cash prize. Your work will be featured on both Design Truth’s & Mira’s socials, as well as a free ticket to a Design Truth event.
- 3rd place : £500 cash prize as a Design Truth honorable mention. Your work will be featured on both Design Truth’s & Mira’s socials, as well as a free ticket to a Design Truth event.
You can check out Visune’s keyshot resources here: https://visune.io
You will be able to bring a +1 to any Design Truth event of your choosing. Design Truth will not be covering any travel or accommodation costs.
Intellectual Property (IP)
Mira Showers Ltd will not own any of the IPs produced by the students. The students will keep the IP of their work and will be able to post it on social media and include it in their portfolio.
Diversity Statement
It is Kohler Mira’s policy to recruit, hire, and promote qualified people in all job classifications without prejudice. If, as an individual with a disability, you require adjustments during the recruitment process, please contact careers@mirashowers.com.
Kohler Mira is an equal opportunities employer.