Can an Industrial Designer share what their daily job is like?
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May 18th, 2013
I want to be an industrial designer but I’m worried I will be limited to making things ‘pretty’ or for marketing purposes to sell more units. I love science and creativity, and the connection between the user and a product. My original goal was to make technology more accesible to people and make people’s lives easier. I originally thought I’d be a designer instead of an engineer because I don’t want to abandon the creative part.
Right now in high school (grade 12) I’m getting high 80s and low 90s in maths and sciences. I like those subjects and am afraid my job will be to just make things ‘pretty’ without worrying much about the underlying technology and how things work. Can someone help me out to really understand what the norm is for an industrial designer? Thanks
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I can tell you what the Industrial engineer on my team does. We invented and are developing a device that will be operated by skilled technicians. The system engineer figured out how the system should work. The EE, analog engineer did the I/O board, the EE digital guy did the processor and software, the mechanical guy did the stress analysis and material selection. The industrial engineer figured out that we want the front face to slope at X degrees so the operators can see it from any angle. He picked the display, the controls and the unit shape. He did the styrene mock up and even came up with the product logo! Awesome.
All the fabulous work accomplished by the other engineers is in the background. It is the Industrial engineer’s work that made the product look and feel real.
When I read industrial designer, I actually read it as “artist of home furniture, packaging designer”
@pleiades. Some do design home furnishings. Usually it is someone here sending the drawings to china for them to make. Look at the furniture for sale at WalMart and Sams Club. Someone had to decide the color of those curtain rods.
The best and more exciting position is designing complicated machines, devices, and equipment for a company that plans to make it. Creativity can really flow.
NCI, NorthCape International needs a good Industrial Designers. Their products are poorly designed. A first year IE would know that screws should be countersunk into the rocker runner so it does not scratch or push divots into the floor.
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