Freelance Designer
Joshua Hoffeld is an industrial designer located in the Denver, Colorado area. He graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in industrial design and graduated from Art Center College of Design with a bachelor’s degree in transportation design. He currently works as a freelance designer.
During his career, Josh has risen to the challenge of adversity and succeeded. In addition to his role as an industrial designer, he has worn multiple hats that have gained him invaluable experience, including project management, product development, product strategy and communications with overseas factories.
In his off time from design, Josh enjoys traveling, trying new food and anything vehicle-related. In his role with IDSA, he plans to facilitate the growth of the design community in the Rocky Mountain region and win sketching competitions!
Denver Chapter
As Chair of IDSA-Denver, Josh Hoffeld, IDSA has become very involved in his local community. “I was motivated to get myself out of my comfort zone by meeting new people to share ID skills,” Josh says. With the pandemic keeping so many people at home and isolated this year, Josh and his team at IDSA-DEN decided to create a series of weekly webinars to show different aspects of the design development process. Their goal was to draw in a mix of people, including ID students, professionals, and others in the community with an interest in learning about industrial design.
The last in-person event the chapter held in 2020 was on National Industrial Design Day, when they invited ID students at MSU (where Josh is an adjunct faculty member) to learn from and talk with professional designers in the area. Virtual programming that followed through the spring and summer of 2020 included events on Sketchbook Pro with Josh, Ethnographic Research with IDSA-DEN Vice Chair Trent Garner, UX Design with the chapter’s student liaison Furman O’Dell, and Emotional Intelligence with Jason Belaire, IDSA.
Two virtual events focused on diversity in design followed in October and November 2020: an “Embracing Diversity” panel discussion with designers Spencer Nugent, Chloe Riggs, Chenghui Xu, and Kim Harris, and a “Effective Change by Design” presentation by Dream Culture, an organization in the Denver metro area dedicated to producing youth programming that teaches creative problem-solving for cultural impact.
This year Josh also joined the Offsite pilot program from Advanced Design to level up his skill set through various courses. “I felt that there were gaps in my design knowledge,” he says. “With that, I plan to give back.” Recently Josh was asked to talk to a local high school for their product design classes so they are more prepared for college, and currently he is working to reactive the IDSA Student chapter at MSU. Meanwhile, he and his chapter are planning more educational ID webinars for 2021.
“We plan to continue to bring awareness of ID as a career path to the local community,” Josh says. “Reaching out to the ID students and informing them what IDSA can do for them will be the driver for our webinars.”
