Materials and manufacturing processes are critical subjects for an industrial designer. This is because the materials and the methods by which those materials are manipulated and assembled are the industrial designer’s medium. The same way artists, sculptors and craftsmen must understand the paint, marble, glass, metal or wood that they use to create their work, so too must industrial designers understand how their ideas, concepts, forms and specifications are expressed 3-dimensionally in the context of mass-produced products. Therefore, teaching students about materials and manufacturing processes should be central to educating a well-rounded industrial designer and a key goal of any undergraduate industrial design program (Bjornlund, 2011).
While industrial designers use many of the same tools and share many of the same concerns as engineers, this necessity for materials and manufacturing education does not suggest that industrial designers should be educated to be mechanical or manufacturing engineers or serve an engineering function in the product development process:
“Industrial designers still lack the training of physics, chemistry, mechanics and mathematics that lie behind solid engineering principles. Designers do, however, have an obligation to understand materials and processes so that engineers can effectively implement their vision. Likewise, engineers don’t always take into consideration the importance of form, human interaction, and ergonomics that industrial designers are naturally drawn to. This is where the two must come together to create solutions that are compelling, intuitive, reliable, ecologically smart, and designed for cost efficient manufacturing.” —Beyond Design (2011)
But, has the industrial design education community been successful in preparing young designers to met this obligation? With approximately 600 industrial design graduates entering the US workforce every year (Choi & Malassigné, 2013), this competitive employment environment demands that these young designers be as well- prepared as possible. Employers have specific expectations of industrial design graduates in terms of their understanding of materials and manufacturing methods, but unfortunately those expectations are not always met (Ginn, 2014).
When considering curriculum development for undergraduate education of industrial designers, natural extensions of this line of reason include a series of questions: Does a student graduating in the US or Canada with a BS or BA in Industrial Design posses adequate skills, knowledge and awareness of materials to be an effective and valuable member of a product development team? Is this knowledge of materials and manufacturing still relevant and valuable to the employer? To avoid this becoming strictly an academic exercise, our industry should have a method for collecting this feedback and, just as importantly, a method for addressing this deficiency if we find that there is still room for improvement.
This paper focuses on portion of the research conducted for a Master of Industrial Design Thesis Project focusing on the current state of materials and processes education in undergraduate industrial design programs in the US and Canada. It’s objective is to investigate how educators might be assisted to improve outcomes for industrial design graduates and create more value for clients (students) and consumers (employers). An additional goal is to develop a set of research-driven “best practices” for materials and processes education as well as a collection of teaching tools for educators. The research included a series of surveys to collect the perspectives, experiences and opinions from industrial design educators, recent graduates, current students and employers.